10 am approached, and she’d made her dent, but it would still take the better part of a day to make her house look like the home it had been before her world had been turned upside-down. And despite the progress she’d made on her own, she found that she had difficulty looking at Harry and Molly when they stepped through her door. They wouldn’t judge her, she knew. But what she knew of her friends and the deep shame she was harboring were in direct conflict.
But she found it easier to look at them as the morning progressed.
After the morning and the better part of the afternoon passed, she began to feel lighter, like a tremendous weight had been lifted from her shoulders. It was like she’d been holding her breath for the past two years and was suddenly able to release it. She could breathe again. She could smile again.
And she could cry again.
When they finished cleaning, when the house resembled the home she used to know and would know again, she allowed herself a few tears of relief, and she allowed Molly to pull her in and hold her.
And it felt so damn good.
To celebrate and to thank her friends, she prepared a meal, her first home-cooked meal in two years. She barely remembered how to use the oven.
They ate, they smiled, they laughed, and they talked about the future, her future. She was moving on, she knew. But she wasn’t forgetting. The pain of losing Brittany would always be there, but so would the love. Both would do a mad dance in her heart for the rest of her days, but she was okay with that. She was more than okay with that, in fact. She was encouraged by that. She’d been afraid that the pain she felt would go away and with it, the love. But she knew now that the pain doesn’t really go away; it just changes, becomes more manageable. And as the pain becomes more manageable, the love is right there, waiting to be remembered, waiting to be felt again.
As conversation about love and all the good things that the future had to hold wore on, the topic naturally turned to dating, something she hadn’t done in forever, it seemed. The topic of dating was nearly as mortifying as inviting Harry and Molly into her home. But she’d leaped over that hurdle unscathed. Maybe it was time to get out there again.
“Match.com,” Molly suggested. “I can help you set up a profile.”
“Thanks,” Darlene said, “but I think I can figure it out for myself.”
“I know you can, but will you?”
Darlene thought about it for a moment. “Yeah...maybe.”
“Exactly,” Molly said. “Maybe. I know you. Maybe means no. You say you might do it, and you’ll never get around to it. You have a laptop?”
Darlene nodded. “It’s in my bedroom.”
“Go get it.”
“What...now?”
“No time like the present.”
Darlene hesitated.
“Go,” Molly insisted.
Darlene threw her hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, okay.”
She went to her bedroom, grabbed her laptop, and stopped to take a look around. She barely recognized it. It was like she was transported back to a time when she had a husband and a child. She could have cried, but instead, she smiled. Today was a new day, the first in a lifetime to come. And she intended to make every one of those days count.
Darlene and Molly spent nearly an hour at the kitchen table setting up a profile on Match.com. Darlene was going to get out there again. It was a tiny step, but it felt like a leap. The possibility of meeting a man, falling in love. Yes, it was just a possibility, but until this day, until this very moment, a possibility was more than she’d dared envision. It was a possibility that sent her heart racing.
She glanced around the kitchen. “Where’s Harry?”
Molly shrugged. “I think he got bored and ran away. Why don’t you go find him? I’ll load the dishwasher.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t have to; I want to.” Molly smiled. “Go find Harry for me, will ya?”
“Okay.” Darlene returned the smile. “Thanks, Molly.”
She walked to the living room to find Harry standing in front of the mantle, holding Brittany’s hiking photo, the one Darlene snapped on the day she’d never been comfortable telling anybody about. He caught sight of her and quickly replaced it.
“Sorry,” he said.
She shrugged and walked up next to him. “For what?”
Harry returned the shrug. He was nervous, she knew. He had something on his mind, something he wanted to ask her. So she helped him out, pulling the photo from the mantle and looping an arm through his, looking at the photo with him, the first time she’d ever looked at the photo with anyone.
And she was smiling.
“What was she like?” Harry asked.
She nearly wept when she said, “Funny you should ask.”
She took his hand and led him to the couch.
She couldn’t wait to tell him everything.
Also by Kenneth Preston
The Trouble With Charlie
The Clone Problem
The Passing of Each Perfect Moment (The Perfect Moment Trilogy, Book 1)
The Perfect Moment in Peril (The Perfect Moment Trilogy, Book 2)
The Perfect Moment Beyond (The Perfect Moment Trilogy, Book 3)
About the Author
Kenneth Preston is the author of “The Perfect Moment Trilogy,” “The Clone Problem,” “The Trouble With Charlie,” and “The Final Girl.” He was born and raised on Long Island and studied English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. From literature to television to film, the myriad tales that painted his cultural landscape inspired him to begin writing his own stories. His first novel, “The Passing of Each Perfect Moment (The Perfect Moment Trilogy, Book 1),” was published in 2015.
Website: kennethprestonbooks.com
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