But not taking care of the ache wasn’t easy as he fought against envisioning what he’d be doing if Zoe was in this multihead shower he’d built solely with her in mind. She’d seen one on an HGTV makeover show, and sexted him with ideas of how much fun it would be to work on their baby making in one. Graphic, hot ideas that had had him immediately driving to the plumbing supply store.
There were days, and this was one of them, when he thought he ought to just sell the damn house. But then he’d wander through the rooms and see things like the rooster wall clock in the kitchen and the trio of small, seemingly useless little porcelain boxes she’d bought for the bedroom side table, or photos of her planting the living Christmas tree they’d bought from the Mannion farm so their future children could grow with it, and he knew that there was no way he was ever going to be able to abandon this house that he’d remodeled, but she’d turned into a home.
After he’d toweled off, dressed in boxer briefs and jeans, layered a flannel shirt over a black Harper Construction T-shirt and pulled on his socks and work boots, Seth took off his wedding band and put it into the box in the bedside table drawer.
One of the few things he and his father agreed on was that wearing rings when doing construction could be dangerous. Seth himself had seen guys seriously bruised, had one guy on his sheet metal crew whose finger had been amputated when the ring caught in a piece of machinery, and his electrical contractor’s finger was burned to the bone from an electrical arc during his apprentice days.
So, every work morning since returning home from his weekend honeymoon, he’d put the ring away in its black box in the drawer of the table that still held a framed photo of Zoe and him on their wedding day. And every evening, as soon as he walked in the door, he’d put it back on. Although his main reason was that wearing that simple gold band was a way of keeping his wife close, of not forgetting her and all they’d shared together, the simple truth was that after all these years it had become a habit.
Not a habit, he decided as he walked, with Bandit following right on his heels, out to the garage. Habits, both good and bad, became mere routines, something done without thinking. Taking off and putting on his wedding ring was more like a ritual. Which was a good thing, right?
Rituals were important. They were what bound societies together. Without them, the world would spiral into disorder. The type of chaos that could blow up a beautiful young woman, who’d never done anything to hurt anyone, in the bloom of her life.
Two years after its detail job, Zoe’s Civic still sat in the second car stall. It was concealed by the cover he’d bought after seeing her off on her deployment, but he could still envision it in all its Rallye Red glory. Many people in town, including Quinn, who’d actually shared a personal opinion for once, had suggested he sell it. Easy for them to say. Seth would rather cut off a limb with a rusty chain saw.
He wondered what all those well-meaning folks would say if they knew that once a week he’d drive it to Olympic National Park, up to Hurricane Ridge and back (except in the winter when snow closed the road), to keep the battery charged and gunk from building up inside the various internal parts, none of which he knew all that much about, but it’s what the guys on the car radio shows when he was growing up were always saying. The ranger at the Heart O’ the Hills entrance station, whose kitchen he’d remodeled, had quit asking for his park pass and merely waved him through. She’d also never, not once, asked him the reason for such regular visits.
It wasn’t easy keeping a secret in Honeymoon Harbor, but the fact that his mother hadn’t known about his weekly trips to the ridge suggested he owed that ranger a debt of gratitude.
Over the past years, Seth had learned a funny thing about death. The funeral, held in St. Peter’s because Honeymoon Harbor wasn’t a big enough town to have a Greek Orthodox congregation, had been packed, with every pew filled and standing room only in the side aisles and at the back. The townspeople, along with soldiers from Fort Lewis-McChord who’d come to honor one of their own, had even spilled out into the church parking lot.
Even more people from the peninsula lined the sidewalks on the way to the cemetery, holding their hands over their hearts, their kids waving miniature flags. Although much of that time was a blur, Seth remembered the members of the fire department, dressed in full uniform, standing at attention in front of their gleaming red trucks, having to stop for a freight train carrying a load of logs, and how the engineer had respectfully left his finger off the whistle at the crossing. He also recalled how, as the cortege wound its way along the waterfront, one old man, wearing fisherman’s rubber overalls and black boots, stood on the dock beside his trawler, shoulders squared, back straight as a ramrod, briskly saluting as the hearse drove past.
They were forced to hold the lunch after the internment in the parish community hall because neither his and Zoe’s home nor her parents’ house had enough room for everyone who’d wanted to attend. Tables groaned with casseroles, salads and cakes, and although he’d protested, the women who’d planned the occasion with the precision that Eisenhower had probably used for the D-Day invasion had sent him home with Tupperware and foil-wrapped packages labeled with the contents and name and mailing addresses of who’d made them so he could send thank-you notes. Yeah. Like that was going to happen.
Unwilling to allow people to believe their efforts weren’t appreciated, his mother had handwritten notes on cards she’d made herself. Later, he’d learned from Ethel Young, who ran Harper Construction’s office, that she’d taken time to write a different, personal message on each card.
The first few weeks after the funeral, everywhere he went, people would stop to tell him how sorry they were for his loss, and ask—with great concern in their eyes and sadly sympathetic expressions—how he was doing.
To which he always lied and said something along the lines of, “Well, you know, it’s not easy, but I’m doing okay.” To which all those who’d told him that if he ever needed something, anything, to give them a call, looked openly relieved that they wouldn’t be roped into dealing with Honeymoon Harbor’s youngest widower.
Widower. Seth hated that word, which sounded like something from one of Zoe’s downloaded Jane Austen movies that he couldn’t bring himself to delete from their DVR menu.
But time moved on and apparently everyone had expected him to, as well. Because, except on Memorial Day, when Boy and Girl Scouts put flags on all the veterans’ graves and the VFW held a remembrance ceremony at the Harborview Cemetery, it was as almost as if his wife had never existed. As if she’d never twirled across the stage in a tutu playing the Sugar Plum Fairy in the eighth grade production of The Nutcracker, never waved her blue-and-white pom-poms while he was racing down the high school football field to catch Burke Mannion’s passes, never marched in perfect military formation in her JROTC cadet uniform. As if she’d never exchanged wedding vows with stars in her eyes, dreamed about babies who would never be born, never gone to war to save lives, only to lose her own.
“Fuck.” Although it never got easy, some days were tougher than others. Realizing that this was going to be one of the tough ones, he yanked open the door for the dog, who jumped into the passenger seat. Then he climbed into the truck, punched the button for the garage door opener and headed to work.
As imagined images of the aftermath of the hospital bombing that had seemed to run 24/7 for days on cable TV and were probably burned forever on the inside of his eyes, Seth pulled up in front of Cops and Coffee, conveniently located next to the police station and across the ferry dock from the pub. The coffee shop was operated by three retired Seattle detectives, thus the name and the flashing red, white and blue police light. They’d wanted to put the sign above the door, which the town’s strict historical design committee had quickly nixed, but Seth, who’d done the remodel, had managed to get them to give him a permit to place it in the front window, where visitors coming in or leaving on the gleaming white ferry couldn’t miss it.
Bandit’s ears perked up as soon as he cut the engine. His tail began to thump enthusiastically. And just in case Seth might forget the doggie bag, he reminded him with a loud woof.