As a dramatic rendition of a Henryk Górecki symphony rose from his Amazon device, the idea came to him. An ensemble of violins and cellos sawed on their strings, and Whitaker said, “Alexa, turn it all the way up.” A solo soprano sang in Polish of the Second World War, a melody that pulled at Whitaker’s heart. He plugged in and let his fingers and imagination fly.
Growing up in Sarasota, Kevin was going through a rough patch when he met a teacher who taught him to sail and asked him to join his crew in a weekly amateur race. Through sailing, the world had opened up to him, and he had found the father he never had. When fate brought Orlando to Kevin’s door, it was time to pay it forward.
Whitaker finished typing the flashback, amid a crescendo in the Górecki symphony—the soprano belting out several impossibly high notes—and he lifted his arms in the air. “There it is!” David’s presence filled his body as tears filled his eyes. He didn’t even know where some of these sentences had come from.
What a feeling it was, a story rising from the source. He’d searched for the truth about Kevin, but it turned out all Whitaker had to do was stop searching and let his muse give him the words. He smiled brightly, wiping his eyes. What a wild adventure, this writing life. Nothing could be more frustrating and discouraging, but times like these made him feel like he was on top of the world. Someone had once told him that when you experienced such moments in the creative process, you were cocreating with God. No matter what religion or what one believed, how right that was. This was where he belonged, connecting to the muse, putting her words on the page, a vessel for the story.
Only as he came down from his high did he remember about dinner tonight. He had to tell his parents he’d quit his bank job and that he was not accepting a position with Grant Construction. That would go really well. His right wrist began to throb in pain. The writer wondered how much Sadie and Jack knew already. St. Pete could be the smallest town in the world sometimes, and the matriarch and patriarch of the Grants often knew things before they happened.
Instead of dwelling too much in the thought, Whitaker left the kitchen and went to find his running shoes, the only way to exorcise these demons.
Chapter 23
THE SUPPORT GROUP
Claire was back in the circle of widows in the support group, eager to speak this time. She’d just caught them up with her progress in getting David’s book finished.
“I’m . . . finally feeling hope,” she said, reaching for her lemonade and taking a sip. “I’ve been taking life far too seriously, taking myself too seriously. And I guess what Didi has been teaching me is that it’s not about me. It’s about living for those who don’t have the option to anymore. It’s about dancing for those who don’t have legs. It’s our duty to whomever we call the creator and to our husbands whom we’ve lost.” Claire shrugged. “I guess that’s what I’m finally seeing. All of you have talked about it before, but it took me a little while to grasp.”
Feeling much more comfortable under the microscope, Claire looked up through the ceiling to the sky. “I want David to be happy for me, and I want him to be proud. I want him to see that I can get through my struggles. If there’s one thing he would have left me with, I know he would’ve told me to find happiness again. Whatever that looked like. I will get this book out there, and hopefully that can be a way of honoring his life. I won’t stop there, though. I can’t sit around wasting time anymore. I love him so much, and, dammit, I’m going to live my life to the fullest. For both of us.”
Claire looked at the other widows, whose bottom lips were turned out—women who’d also had their lives flipped upside down. She smacked a determined fist against her thigh. “For all of us.”
Claire swallowed a rising tide of emotions and paused to collect herself. She felt her shoulders drop and let out a sigh that could have blown up an oversize pool float in one breath.
One woman clapped, and then the rest followed. Claire met each of their eyes and saw their nodding heads and