it won’t be this pulse always beating quite so strongly in time with your heart. But it changes you, becomes part of who you are, the way you function.”
Had losing Wes really changed Angela? Sure, it had acutely changed her circumstances. But the change inside of her? That had been happening long before she got the worst call of her life. “I’m glad that trip was beneficial to you, Sherry. But I’m not quite sure what it has to do with me.”
“I suppose I just wanted to communicate that, for me, it took something drastic to help me shake off the funk I was feeling. To embrace the new order of things, a world in which I didn’t necessarily have control. Receiving that truth changed my perspective. About life. Death. Even about my husband.”
Surely Sherry didn’t know of the conflict Angela felt deep inside. The ache. The wondering. The anger. All the emotions swirling together. The ones she never let through to the surface—because if she did, she feared the volcano that might erupt and the damage those emotions could do.
She’d already seen the results of the tiny fissure she’d allowed to develop earlier this week when she’d yelled at Kylee.
“Did you . . .” Angela couldn’t form the words. The heat from the stove seemed to reach across the room and suffocate her. “Did you find that you understood Roy more? After—” The last word broke.
Sherry’s eyes crinkled with compassion. “For me, there was freedom in giving myself permission to explore all of my emotions, no matter how guilty they made me feel—and no matter how scary they were to face.”
“I—”
“I’m not saying that doing this marathon will ultimately help you do any of that. But what I am saying is that you will never be able to help your children heal until you show them how.” Grabbing hold of Angela’s hand, Sherry squeezed. “You will never experience the full joy of life until you face the sadness, the anger, and the grief head-on. This I know.”
Angela’s throat grew thick. She placed her hand on Sherry’s, patted it. “Thanks, Sherry. I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think too long, dear. Eva told me the deadline to finalize the registration and pay is tomorrow.”
Oy, the money. That was another reason to say no to the marathon. Eva had offered to pay for the entire trip, but that wasn’t right, even if she had plenty of money.
“I’m going to deliver those cookies to the kids now.” Angela plopped a few cookies on a platter and walked down the hallway toward the living room—and stopped at the sight in front of her. All three of her kids cuddled together on the sofa, watching images flit across the screen. A young Brent was hanging upside down from a tree, trying to coax his older brother to climb up. Wes looked like he wanted to, but just shook his head and kicked at a rock.
Why couldn’t he have remained that cautious boy forever?
“Hey, guys. I brought cookies.”
Their stares remained riveted on the screen.
Upon closer inspection, Angela saw tears streaming down Kylee’s face. Her daughter finally turned and looked at Angela. Something in her eyes caused a shiver to course through Angela.
In that gaze flowed a mixture of emotions—blame, longing, deep sadness, hopelessness.
And in it, Kylee seemed to be asking for help.
But Angela didn’t know what she could do to relieve the pain.
Sherry’s words flitted back to her. “You will never be able to help your children heal until you show them how.”
What did healing look like, for Angela?
The screen caught her eyes again. In this movie, young Wes cradled an injured baby bird in his small hands. He talked to it sweetly, gently, coaxing it back to life.
Now this boy . . . She remembered him. Remembered how he’d been with her. How they’d been together.
Where had everything gone wrong?
Maybe if she could finally understand the changes in Wes during those last years of his life, she could let him go. Move on. Heal. Become more than this shell of a person with all the plans in the world but no real connection to it.
She owed the children huddled on the couch that much.
Planning hadn’t gotten her any closer to what she really wanted. What she—what they—really needed. Maybe it was time to take a page from Eva’s playbook and try impulsiveness on for a change.
“Guys.” Angela strode forward, set the cookies on the coffee table, picked up the TV remote, and paused the video.