living in Washington. I was here for a few days for work, but I’m headed back first thing tomorrow. It’s good to see you, Gracie.” She had always disliked the nickname her family had given her, that Tom had picked up for his own. It felt diminutive, designed to keep her in her place. But now there was a kind of warmth to hearing it that she realized she had missed during her months alone in the city. “How are you?”
There it was, the question she dreaded most since Tom’s death. People always sounded as though they were trying to get the level of sympathy in their voices just right, to ask in a personal-but-not-too-personal way. Mark looked concerned, though, like he really meant it. “That’s such a stupid thing to ask,” he added when she did not answer. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “I’m managing.” In truth, it had gotten easier. Being in New York and not seeing the places that would remind her of Tom every day allowed her to put it behind her, at least for a time. That numbness, that kind of forgetting, was part of what had driven her to New York. Yet she felt guilty for having found it.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be at the funeral. I was still overseas.” He dipped his chin. His features were not perfect, she noticed then. Hazel eyes a bit too close together, chin sharp. But the way they fit together was handsome.
“It was all a blur,” she confessed. “But those flowers...” They had towered over the others. “It was so kind of you.”
“It was the least I could do. Losing Tom like that, it was just so goddamned wrong.” Grace could see from his face that the loss of his friend had affected him deeply. Mark had been different than the other boys at Yale, she recalled then, and not just because he was Tom’s best friend. A bit quieter, but in a confident rather than shy sort of way. “We’re going to put together a scholarship fund in his name.”
Grace felt a sudden urge to flee as the past seemed to well up all around her. “Well, it was lovely seeing you.”
“Wait,” he said, touching her arm. “Sit a minute. It would be nice to talk to someone who knew Tom.”
Grace didn’t think it would be nice at all. But she sat, allowing the bartender to pour a healthy snifter of brandy. At some point Mark moved his bar stool closer without seeming presumptuous or wrong. From there the rest of the night grew fuzzy around the edges and hours faded. Later she would realize how the restaurant was actually much more of a bar. What had she been thinking, going there? She was a widow of just under a year and had no business talking to strange men.
But Mark was not a stranger. He had known Tom, really known him, and she found herself lost in his stories. “So then I discovered Tom on the roof of the dormitory and he had no recollection of how he’d gotten there. But he was only worried about being late for class,” Mark finished the story, which was meant to be funny.
But instead, Grace’s eyes began to burn. “Oh!” She brought her hand to her mouth as the tears spilled over.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly.
“It’s not your fault. It’s just that you and I are here to laugh about it...”
“And Tom isn’t.” Mark understood, in a way no one else had. He reached over to smooth a smear of lipstick from her cheek. His hand lingered.
Mark switched the subject to something else then, she recalled. Music or politics, or maybe both. Only later would she realize that he had said nothing about himself.
Forcing her gaze from the direction of the hotel, Grace pushed the images from her mind. It was all done now. She had slipped from the elegant hotel room while he slept and hailed a taxi. She would never see him again.
Instead, she let herself think of her husband, the memories she usually kept so steadfastly at bay now a welcome distraction. She’d met Tom one high school summer during a family vacation on Cape Cod. He was just the right boy: fair-haired and charming, the son of a Massachusetts state senator and headed for an Ivy League college, larger than life in that captain-of-the-football-team kind of way. It was hard to believe he wanted her. She was the daughter of an accountant, and the