“I’m glad there isn’t a coffin,” Vivienne whispered, a guilty look on her face. “I remember my dad’s funeral and I hated how on display he looked.”
Pepper eyes widened as she looked at her friend. “You never told me that.”
“Well, it’s not something you say out loud. I know my mom didn’t do it because she wanted people to stare or anything. It’s just the protocol. Funerals are for the people left behind, not the deceased. It’s just my opinion. I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“So you think I did okay with the pictures, then?”
“Yes.” Vivienne nodded and pointed to some of the photographs. “I know picture boards are kind of a new thing. I can’t remember ever seeing one at any of the funerals I went to as a kid. I think it’s a much better idea to think about the person you’ve lost at their very best, not their worst.”
Pepper was glad she had her best friend’s support. There wasn’t really anyone else left to give her that kind of boost, now that Gabe was gone. Not knowing if she was doing the right thing at all made Pepper want to climb into a hole and not come out. Viv’s words of encouragement kept her from doing that.
“Are you okay?” Viv asked.
Pepper rubbed her stomach with her hands and grimaced. “My stomach. The muffin must not have agreed with me.” It was really more than that. She actually felt like she was going to barf any second, but was too afraid to say anything more. Instead, Pepper strode out of the room and down the hall toward the ladies room so she could rid her upset stomach of the coffee and muffin she’d just had.
* * * * *
Pepper barely heard a word that was said when the minister arrived at the podium. Some opening remarks, a couple of prayers, a little bit about Gabe’s life. In all honesty, she was trying to block out as much as she could. She was only doing this for Gavin and because Gabe had insisted.
When it was finally over and the minister closed out the funeral with a simple prayer, Pepper sighed, knowing the day was far from finished. She figured there would be some sort of morbid receiving line to get through, as the couple dozen people in attendance, besides Will and Viv, would want to shake hands and offer their condolences to her directly. And then there would be the brutal, never ending luncheon at whatever restaurant Aiden had booked. Pepper couldn’t even remember which one, so deep was her grief. Why had she even agreed to that?
Pepper lifted a hand to rub her tired eyes, glad that she wasn’t wearing any makeup to destroy. Her head drooped down and her body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. She wondered where she would find the strength to get up. As she placed a hand on either side of her body to push off the couch, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder pressing her back down. Fighting the weariness, she lifted her head to see Gavin standing next to her.
“It’s okay, Pepper. You can sit. The people come to you.”
Her eyes filled with new tears. Of course Gavin would know the protocol. Hadn’t he just been through this for his mother? She grabbed him into her arms and hugged him, a wave of protectiveness washing over her she didn’t recognize. The closest thing she’d ever felt was the love she had for Vivienne. But this was stronger, more ferocious. “Oh Gavin, I’m so sorry.” His little body shuddered and as the wetness spread against her neck, she could feel the first tears he openly cried since finding out that his father was dying.
“Please don’t leave me,” he snuffled as he squeezed her back.
“Never,” she vowed.
Pepper knew damn well that nothing in life was for certain, but she swore she would do every single thing in her power to keep that promise.
* * * * *
Pepper slumped on the side of the bed, staring at the urn sitting on the top of the dresser across the room. She had a crazy urge to talk to it, but stifled it. Gavin was in his room and she didn’t want him to think she was crazy. Besides, it wasn’t really Gabe in there. Only the remnants of his body.
Pulling herself up, she shuffled over to the door. “Gavin?”
“Yeah?” His voice was low.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
“Okay.”
Pepper closed her bedroom door and went slowly toward the bathroom. Once inside, she closed that door too just in case Gavin decided to come in search of her. She stripped off her funeral garb and left it in a sad heap on the floor.
She turned on the water in the shower and let it run for a few minutes until it was as hot as she could stand it, then stepped inside. The drops splattering against her skin felt like the little sparks that struck your hands when holding a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Then she increased the temperature even more, trying to make her physical pain more uncomfortable than her emotional anguish.
Salty tears streamed down Pepper’s cheeks and she muffled her sobs by pressing her hands against her mouth. In less than three months, she had become a wife and a widow and surrogate mother to her dead husband’s son. She cried until the water turned cold, leaving her a shivering and emotionally barren mess.
Chapter 50
Life without Gabe got off to a rocky start. Pepper did her best to remember that Gavin needed her to be there for him and take care of his needs, but it was a half-assed effort at best. In spite of all her initial promises to herself that she would put him first and soldier on in Gabe’s place, the grief took root so fast she wasn’t prepared for the mind-numbing, body-incapacitating lethargy it caused. The little boy spent most of his time in his room, playing with toys or watching television. When he wanted to eat, he usually sought her out, but had even moused around in the kitchen by himself when she didn’t come out of her room for longer periods of time.
Pepper’s brain was a fog of sadness and memories and regrets, all of it whirling around, keeping her from being able to function properly. Aiden called her several times a day and Vivienne stopped by around dinner time each night to make sure that there were proper meals prepared or ordered in. But Pepper had never before experienced the kind of depression she found herself in. She didn’t know what to do with it. The hurt inside went past her heart and brain. It was choking her soul.
Deep down, Pepper knew she had to get her shit together, but she wasn’t able to make her body cooperate with the logic trying to get her to function on a normal level. Her eyes leaked tears almost constantly and she was losing weight rapidly. A voice in her heart and mind was constantly shaming her for not doing better by Gavin, but the grief had a stronger grip. It tightened with every minute of every day, blotting out any ability she might have had to overcome it.
On the one week anniversary of the funeral, Pepper crawled out of bed around eight in the morning, her body stiff and sore from not having moved all that much. She listened for Gavin, but heard nothing. She peeked out of her bedroom door, across the hall, and saw his bedroom door was closed. He only did that when he slept. She shuffled back to the bathroom and, after using the toilet, got her first good look in the mirror. She was appalled at how bad the reflection actually was. Dark circles creeped down her cheeks. Frown lines were clearly visible near the corners of her mouth. Her skin looked saggy and pale. “Good grief,” she whispered.
Pepper didn’t like the sound of her own voice. It was low and raspy, making her sound a hell of a lot older than forty-two. This just isn’t working for me. She turned on the shower and hopped in before the water had warmed, hoping the chilly spray would help to wake her up. The fog in her brain slowly began to dissipate along with the steam rising in the shower. As she shampooed her hair, she had a long, stern talk with herself.
“You need to get your shit together, Pepper.”
She raked her fingernails across her scalp, scratching and massaging away any remaining haze in her brain.
“You have a little kid to take care of now.”
She stood under the water to rinse out the soap, letting the suds swim down the drain, along with a good amount of self
-pity. Stepping back out from under the spray, she grabbed her conditioner bottle and poured a liberal dollop onto her palm.
“Gabe is counting on you. Worse shit than this has happened and you’ve never given in. He would be pissed as hell if he saw you now.”
Letting the conditioner soak into her hair, Pepper grabbed her razor and began to shave her legs. “You got lucky, girlfriend. You found a guy who was better than anyone you’ll probably ever meet again. He loved you more than anyone else ever has, except maybe Viv. And you loved him, for real. You gave to him just as much as you got back.”
She swiped the razor across both of her armpits and then put it back on the shelf.
“This sucks. It’s totally fucking unfair what happened. But it happened and you can’t change any of it. Suck it up and drive on.”
She drowned out her voice beneath the water, pulling her fingers through the blonde strands to rinse out the conditioner.
“Cry if you want or need to. Be sad when you feel like it. But get it together. For Gavin’s sake.”
Before Pepper reached for the fluffy yellow loofa sponge hanging from the shower handle, she was beginning to believe all of her own words. She felt lighter and stronger than she had in days. But when she saw Gabe’s matching green sponge intertwined with hers, her heart splattered into a million pieces, again, like so many droplets of water raining down from the showerhead.
She slumped onto the stone bench and lowered her face into her hands, unleashing the tears of a grief-stricken widow.
Chapter 51
“I don’t think I can do it.”
Pepper was huddled up on a lounge chair on her back patio while Will and Gavin swam and played in the pool. Vivienne rocked Jane in her arms in the chair next to hers.
“Of course you can.”
“I’m serious, Viv. I really don’t think I can do this. Maybe that makes me the worst woman in the world, but I can barely drag my ass out of bed every day. I feel sick to my stomach all the time with the responsibility.”
“That’s grief, Pep.” Vivienne gave her a sad smile, then looked back into Jane’s sleeping face. “I ought to know.”
“I don’t know,” Pepper argued. “Every damn morning, I feel like I’m going to throw up. Shouldn’t I be more inspired to take care of this kid? I mean, he’s so sweet and he’s smart. He deserves a lot better than I can give him.” Sighing, she took a sip from her glass of iced tea that Vivienne had so graciously poured upon her arrival.
“I call bullshit.” Vivienne gave her the stink eye. “You are more than capable, but you have to be honest with yourself. You’re grieving; Gavin understands that.”
“He shouldn’t have to understand that,” Pepper muttered. “None of this is his fault. He’s suffering and it’s because of me.”
Vivienne gently placed Jane down into her bucket car seat and then turned to face Pepper head on. “He is not hurting because of you, Pepper. This is not your fault. Now, I don’t want to be mean here, but you need some opposite tough love. You have to stop being so hard on yourself. And you need to stop worrying that you’ll end up like me. Or do what I did. You will snap out of it. It won’t take you seventeen years to figure it all out.”
Pepper wanted to argue some more. She wanted to blow her friend off in her typical smartass fashion. She wanted to spar with her like they always did when they disagreed about something. But her heart just wasn’t in it. It was as if it had been cremated right along with Gabe. “Well then tell me how to do that.”
Viv shrugged. “I don’t know. You just have to make the decision to do it. Look, I’m an old hand at the grief thing, but not so much at the moving on thing. You’re the one who helped me through that.”
“Well tell me what I said!” Pepper gave her half a grin.
“Shit, I still have placenta brain. You think I remember any of it?”
Pepper was able to fill the other half of her grin in with a slight laugh. “Seriously, Viv. Let’s face it. Gavin’s probably gonna be pretty screwed up from all of this. What if I just make it worse?”
Vivienne shook her head vehemently. “I refuse to believe that. Your heart is in the right place and your intentions are good–”
“The road to hell–”
“Shush,” Vivienne scolded. “You are the best possible thing for Gavin, even if the situation isn’t good at the moment. If he got dumped with some stranger, that would damage him a hell of a lot more. You have to stick by him. Gabe promised him you would. You promised you would. Take as long as you need to grieve. Will and I will be here to help as much as you let us. But don’t give up, Pepper. Please don’t give up.”
Pepper was surprised by the tears shining in Vivienne’s eyes. Dammit, she’s scared. She hopped out of the chair and threw her arms around her best friend’s neck.
“Oh, Viv. It’s me. I won’t give up, I swear. I’m just having a moment. Okay, a really long moment.”
“We all need you, lady,” Vivienne said into her neck. “We’ll be here for as long as you need us, but we need you, too.”
Chapter 52
A couple of weeks later, Pepper was surprised at how right Vivienne had been. People grieved in different ways and there was no shame in picking yourself up by the bootstraps, especially when you had a kid to worry about.
Pepper just went back to her usual ways. She imagined herself in a boxing ring with the grief and sorrow and she pummeled at it so she could get out of bed. Then she landed a few jabs and a couple of uppercuts so that she could put on a happy face for Gavin. Finally, she went in with her strongest right hook for the K-O so she could pretend she was the regular old Pepper, full of piss and vinegar and a smartass remark for every situation.
No one needed to know that at night she still cried herself to sleep, and it wasn’t anyone’s business that she still wept in every shower she took. The point was, she was putting it all back together. Pepper called bullshit on anyone who thought a person dying of cancer finally pulling up stakes and hitting the highway to heaven was a relief. It wasn’t. It didn’t matter how much they suffered. Of course she didn’t want Gabe back if he was going to be in pain or unhappy. She wanted him back, whole and healthy. Short of that, she would just have to make the best life she could for Gavin. If there was a heaven and Gabe was there now, he would be watching her and Pepper couldn’t live with that kind of pressure knowing she was disappointing the love of her life.
Poor Gavin needed her more than she could have realized, too. When her mind had finally cleared, Pepper realized the kid was wandering around the house, and life, without any real purpose or belief that life would be good or get better. He had just lost his mother, then got dragged to California by a grandmother who hated him, discovered his birth father who then promptly died of cancer. How this kid wasn’t going to end up screwed in the head, Pepper didn’t have any idea. She was going to do her damnedest to make sure it didn’t happen, but it was going to be a long haul.
She had started that day by canceling the tutor and taking him to the zoo. Between hot dogs and popcorn and Cokes, they had walked the entire place and looked at every single exhibit. The exercise had done them both a world of good. Once, Pepper caught Gavin laughing at something and when he looked at her, the laughter disappeared instantly.
“I’m sorry,” he had said.
“Why?” Pepper had cocked her head to the side.
“Well, you’re sad. I shouldn’t be laughing when you’re sad.”
Pepper hadn’t known whether to cry or scream with the self-hatred that bubbled up inside her. I did that. I made him that way. Fuck! “Gavin, honey, that is not true. If I’m sad, you can still be happy or laughing or whatever you feel. You don’t have to be whatever anyone else is. Do you understand?”
He had nodded, but Pepper knew it was going to take time to undo all the damage she had done. Really pouring on the charm, she had made it a point to laugh and enjoy every single thing at the zoo she could, so that he would join her and delight in bei
ng a kid again.
They had come home exhausted and she had ordered pizza for them to scarf in front of the TV while they watched cartoons. “Don’t think this is going to be an everyday thing, kid.” Gavin had only giggled and grabbed another slice.
Once he was in bed for the night, and Crank was snorping (Gavin’s word for the sound of snoring and purring at the same time), Pepper had gone downstairs in search of a glass of wine to ease her tired muscles, but when she uncorked the bottle of red, the smell had not tempted her. In fact, it had kind of given her a moment of queasiness. Thinking it might have gone over, she poured the rest out and dumped the bottle in the trash.
Moving back through the dark and quiet house, Pepper stopped to observe things with an objective eye. She didn’t know why she halted just then to do it, but she did. She ran a hand along the table near the front door where keys and mail usually got dumped. It was white, plastic or Formica, she thought. It definitely wasn’t her style, but she’d never really given it much thought before. Moving into the dining room, she pondered the chairs and table which were steel and some kind of wood. Again, she didn’t think the pieces would have caught her eye had she been doing the decorating, but it hadn’t mattered when she moved in. Her focus had been all Gabe all the time. Who the hell cared what furniture was in the house or what color paint was on the walls?
But now, without her husband there to distract her, Pepper was able to look around and evaluate the place impartially. The overall look and feel was sleek and modern. There were a few touches of warmth with some throw pillows and paintings on the wall, but nothing that really screamed home to her.
The Widow and the Orphan Page 25