Author's Note: Welcome back, everyone! Here we are at the last chapter, which is completely unbelievable! The epilogue will be posted on Wednesday, so definitely keep an eye out for that, and in the meantime, let me know what y'all think! The title for this chapter comes from lyrics to the song "Let It Be" by The Beatles. Enjoy!

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Chapter 36 - A Chance That They Will See

Erik

God help me, I'd almost opened that bottle of vodka.

There was no point in trying to deny that to myself - even well aware of the guaranteed risk, the fact was that I had desperately wanted to consume what I could of it as quickly as humanly possible, the promise of drowning my pain now within my reach. Without regard for anything else, without recognizing any semblance of responsibility that might have remained in my scattered thoughts, I had almost made a terrible and irreversible mistake in my grief and isolation - that truth alone echoed through me as I simultaneously comprehended a second insistent knock at the front door, reminding me that I had completely neglected to acknowledge whoever was outside the first time around. Doing so felt impossible; my mind was torn in too many directions, and the pull toward my addiction was as strong after so many years as it had been at the beginning, a thrumming that compelled my every move, incessant and impossible to shut out - it was a driving force that I was resentfully familiar with, and although I had believed that I'd long since moved past the worst of it, apparently it had only been lying dormant for the perfect opportunity to reawaken and strike out. Such is alcoholism. And so, distressed and confused beyond reason, I just closed my eyes and held my head in my hands, losing the fight to focus on a room that was suddenly spinning.

But another knock brought me back into the present entirely. So, taking a deep breath, I convinced myself to ignore the vodka for the time being, and squared my shoulders to make my way to the front of the house. With Tulula following close behind me - her demeanor remaining serious in the face of my anxiety that hadn't subsided whatsoever, despite my attention being taken away from the very real possibility of relapsing - I nearly ran to get there, both grateful for the abrupt distraction and immensely unsettled by everything that preceded it.

That anyone was there that night in the first place wasn't necessarily unusual. Friends and neighbors - largely those that had been especially close to Christine - still checked in unannounced on occasion, and it wasn't so late in the evening that a visit wouldn't have been appropriate, each of which were details that I could have stopped to remember sooner if I'd been thinking clearly. But even so, Raoul Chaney was the absolute last person I had expected to find when I opened the door, much more forcefully than I'd intended, and yet that was exactly whose eyes I met once I'd done so. And it distantly occurred to me that I must have looked unhinged with my bare face and anxiety all the while - my mind was racing, my thoughts all over the place because of what just happened, and the unforeseen interruption that kept me from potentially taking that next step toward a downward spiral that I simply couldn't afford, nor could I justify. The significance of the disruption wasn't lost on me, but I made a concentrated effort to set all of that aside; Chaney appeared to be as startled to see me as I was to see him, confirming my assumption that I looked about as bad as I felt, if not worse. It took a moment, but both of us seemed to compose ourselves during that time, and it was only then that I felt ready to address him aloud, to try to figure out just what the hell he thought he was doing here, my tone decidedly clipped as I gave voice to the question - but he held up a placating hand before I could finish.

"I'm sorry to bother you, I'm not going to make any trouble," he said in a haste, hand still raised and correctly inferring that I would be less than enthusiastic about having him at my doorstep. Though, to be fair, his attitude wasn't standoffish in the least, nowhere near as it had been whenever we'd interacted in the past, and I didn't miss the note in his voice begging for a truce that I didn't know how to accept. Christine had steadily made her peace with him over time, particularly after he'd gotten married following years of her setting clear and resolute boundaries between them, but for my part, I'd been a bystander in that situation, supporting my wife through the more difficult aspects of it but otherwise maintaining my distance from the man that had repeatedly caused problems since we'd met - and as such, I didn't know how much generosity I could extend to him tonight when considering our shared history. But the immediate silence that I returned to his rushed greeting must have registered to him as approval - though I couldn't yet say whether or not that was truly the case - and he pressed on as if reading my thoughts on the matter, "I know that's been pretty much all of our encounters up until now. But...I had - I mean, I needed to - " he stammered, pausing as he tried to find the right words, and eventually settling for a relatively basic request, "Can we talk?"

"Sure..." I returned in a murmur, still greatly disoriented by my own problems. But then, noticing the cold for the first time - realizing that we were standing prone to an Illinois December night, and I wasn't completely heartless - I quickly added, "Ah, sorry, come in."

"Thank you," he said with visible relief as he passed me to step inside.

"My service dog," I said softly as I closed the door, indicating Tulula standing next to me - it was second-nature to give the warning of her presence to anyone that came into the house that wasn't already familiar with her, bearing in mind that not everyone would be comfortable with such a large dog. But to his credit, Chaney didn't appear bothered by her at all.

Rather, there was a brief flash of amusement in his eyes at seeing her, "What a sweet girl. You said she's a service dog?"

"PTSD."

"Oh, right. I'm glad you have her," he said, then, seemingly taking in his surroundings, he went on with forced casualness, likely feeling awkward and unsure of what else to say, of where to start when speaking to a near-stranger, "You have a nice place. I've never been inside."

"You weren't at the wake?"

Shifting uncomfortably and reinforcing my judgment that he was feeling as awkward as would be anticipated under the circumstances, he responded, "Just the funeral. I couldn't handle much more that day."

I understood, but otherwise said nothing specific on that front. To be honest, a part of me envied him then for the choice to have stayed away altogether from further emotional demands following Christine's funeral; I sure as hell hadn't wanted to attend the wake after feeling flayed alive at the graveside service - no one that had known and cared for Christine in life had wanted there to have been a reason for the occasion to begin with. It would be an understatement to say that it was an incredibly difficult day for all involved. But I was sure that Chaney suspected as much, and so any more discussion on the issue didn't seem warranted; instead, my curiosity admittedly piqued in spite of my general dislike of the man and the overlying concerns I was avoiding that had nothing to do with him, I just indicated that we move past the entryway and settle in for whatever conversation he felt he'd needed to hold with me. My sense of hospitality had its limits, though, so to prevent giving him the idea that I wanted him staying around for any extended amount of time, I led him into the kitchen rather than the living room - a neutral setting, but implicitly temporary on the whole.

Once we were both seated on the barstools, each chair resting at a reasonable distance from one another, I asked wearily, "What's this about?"

"I really am sorry to bother you," he began, but while I didn't doubt the sincerity of the statement, in the next instant my patience waned when he nodded toward the vodka still waiting where I'd left it on the countertop, his tone entirely too conversational in his ignorance of the gravity of the bottle's existence, "Having a drink before bed?"

"Trying to relax," I responded evasively. Because I certainly needed to relax, but what I had absolutely no intention of revealing to him then was that my method for achieving that end left much to be desired.

Another understatement.

"Anyway, I won't stay long," he continued after a noncommittal hum to my answer, "I know it's getting late, and like I said, I don't want to bother you, or your daughter."

"She's at a sleepover. I'm the only one here you'd be bothering," I said dryly, and something akin to uncertainty painted his features in turn, just long enough for me to see that it might have been only then that he was reconsidering whether or not coming here was a good decision. Sighing, I made an effort not to sound put-upon as I said, "Calm down, Chaney. You got in the front door, believe me when I say that's an accomplishment. You're not bothering me, and I'm not going to kick you out unless you give me a damn good reason to. So again, why are you here?"

"Well, Eva's having a baby - "

" - Congratulations," I interjected reflexively, if not a bit flatly - I didn't like to adhere to social scripts as a rule, but not saying something along that vein felt impolite, namely because I knew from his past with Christine how much starting a family had meant to him.

He smiled, "Thank you. Well, anyway, we're moving to Boston soon, closer to her family, so I've been going through storage, downsizing and all of that, and I found these," he concluded after rambling over his words once again, then pulled out a small stack of pictures from his jacket. Passing them to me, he explained, "They're of Christine and me when we were kids."

Looking through them, that much was obvious - Christine had shown me her sizable collection of old photographs before, album after album illustrating the moments of her life as she told stories to accompany each one; I had gotten to know her all the better during those talks, and I'd have recognized her face throughout the years without a doubt, especially with how closely Josie resembled her. Seeing these images held that same familiarity. Glancing at scenes from the San Diego of my wife's childhood, somehow I managed a half-smile of my own as I mused, "She had to have been around Josie's age."

"She's ten now, right? Yeah, these were elementary school, probably fourth or fifth grade. I thought maybe she'd like to have them, if she's anything like Christine."

"A picture hoarder," I supplied, waving toward the frames in the stairwell and what little of the living room could be seen from our place in the kitchen - each a piece of physical evidence that spoke of Christine's sentimentality, of the ways that she'd made the house more welcoming ever since she had moved in. When I'd lived alone, before we were in a relationship and our roles in each other's lives had been defined and committed to, the walls were essentially bare, with very few exceptions, but she had undone all of that. This space wasn't a home until I shared it with her. And even though her personal items had been put away by then - everyday things like her clothes, her hair brushes and makeup bags, so many possessions that were too painful to face, yet too impractical to leave lying out in the open, either - altogether her influence was impossible to hide, and that would likely never change. That was something that Josie shared with her mother - a trait which demanded that every room they inhabited had to be comfortable, had to be a reflection of the lives we lived together, displayed with a pride that naturally translated to warmth. As such, Josie was on her way to having as many collages and photo albums in her bedroom as Christine had dispersed throughout the house; Chaney's instinct had served him well, and I nearly laughed, "Yes, she is."

"I figured as much. Christine always talked about her, so I just thought...Well, besides, it doesn't make sense for me to keep them, they belong to your family."

I set the pictures aside, "I'll make sure she gets them."

He nodded, and for a moment I assumed that this strange encounter had reached its conclusion, or nearly so at least - but then he added abruptly, and almost inaudibly, "I've been putting this off. Coming here, seeing you. I've had these in my car for a couple of weeks, but I finally had the nerve for it tonight."

"To drop off some pictures?"

"To apologize. I'd always meant to give you the pictures, when I found them, but it's more than that. I need to apologize."

"I don't know if - "

" - Please, just...I'm sorry for everything I've done to you, Dr. Riley...Erik. For everything I've done to both of you...I don't think I've ever said so properly, but I should've said this a while ago. I know that," he cleared his throat, looking away from me, "I wish I could tell her that now."

Initially taken aback by the sudden admission - perhaps even more so than by the apology itself - my next impulse was to rage at him, to say that, in all honesty, I didn't give a single solitary fuck about his feelings, or his wishes or his regrets, or anything else that he was trying to disclose to me then. Christine was gone, and Chaney and I had never been friends to begin with, so why should I care if he had needed to take the weight of years of guilt and mistakes off his shoulders in the wake of her loss? Why should I let him? From my perspective, none of what he was telling me mattered, not in the bigger picture - if he'd failed to have this conversation with my wife when he'd more than likely had countless opportunities to do so before her death, then the blame was entirely his own; in my stress-addled mind, it just felt like an empty gesture, a way of alleviating his own pain by using me as a sounding board because Christine wasn't there to hear him out herself, and that hurt. Another reminder of everything that was wrong, another reminder of my grief when it was already so far beyond overwhelming at every turn. I was tired of it. And perhaps because I was still so upset about staring down the bottle of vodka before Chaney's arrival had interrupted me, my sense of despair, of being hopelessly lost, was now magnified tenfold once more.

And I knew that the bitterness of my tone reflected as much, yet even so, I did nothing to soften my words as I snapped, "Are you saying this to make me feel better, or yourself?"

"Both," he said, shaking his head and laughing humorlessly, "I'm nothing if not honest. But I mean it, I swear."

Damn it...

Sighing, my sense of righteous indignation withered as swiftly as it had risen. I believed him. For all of his faults, Raoul Chaney had cared very deeply for Christine - as I sat beside him, though I hated to even dimly acknowledge it, I knew that he'd once loved her as much as he'd formerly claimed; he had grown up with her and shared countless significant memories between San Diego and Chicago with her as a central figure in his life, and I knew that a part of him always would carry that bond with him. Losing her had been a brand of heartache that I never thought would be possible to withstand - God only knew that I was barely hanging on as it stood - and I imagined that, for Chaney, having that loss also tainted by their conflicts and barely mended friendship must have been its own kind of struggle, an insult to injury. I didn't share in it, but I could still grasp the conflict that had compelled him to attempt to make amends. In his imperfect and stumbling way, he was genuinely trying, and he wasn't making excuses at that. And so, it actually seemed cruel to be dismissive of those truths now, of the sincerity of his gesture, however late it had proven to be - everyone else that knew Christine was still grieving, and he had the right to process that grief as well. And if this was how he had chosen to do so, I realized that I simply couldn't find it in myself to be angry any longer.

Rather, with the exhaustion of the trajectory of the evening finally catching up to me, I just accepted the apology outright, then said in a far more measured tone than what I'd used only a moment ago, "For what it's worth, I do appreciate this. And I know Christine would, too."

"She was an incredible woman."

"Yes, she was…" I agreed, my voice breaking at the thought.

To that, he only nodded again, and then, seemingly exhausted himself, he exhaled and stood up, "I should go, but thank you for listening," and he stalled my progress when I moved to stand as well, "I can see myself out. Goodnight..."

Then all at once, he was gone.

The front door echoed unnaturally in the near-empty house at his departure - and when it closed, I was almost painfully aware of every fragment of noise around me, of everything that existed between sound and silence, and it was unnerving. For an immeasurable time, I couldn't move from where I'd remained seated at the eating bar, once again having my attention drawn to the vodka that had gone forgotten while I spoke to Chaney. It was fortunate that it had been forgotten at all, but now, without the presence of another person there to keep me distracted - unwelcome though that presence had been, at least at intervals - I couldn't bring myself to look away, even while I desperately needed to. Indecision warred with despair then, with fear and anxiety and misery, very much as it had earlier, and despite knowing what was at stake, knowing that I had to resist, I had no idea if I had the strength left anymore to move forward without giving in to my addiction. Breathing hard and bracing myself against the countertop, I gripped the edge of it nearly until my knuckles turned white, the vodka solidly within my line of sight all the while; my next steps could bring about devastating results, and I had a long way to fall. If I didn't act wisely, then the consequences would lead to a disaster of my own making that went far beyond myself. Nevermind what I would lose, I had my child to consider, and I had to remember that. I couldn't allow Josephine to come home to another nightmare.

In that instant, it was solely her image flashing across my mind's eye that ultimately fortified my resolve. Standing and taking several steps backward, and therefore distancing myself from the alcohol and what it offered, I rushed around the eating bar to open the freezer, taking two ice cubes from the dispenser tray before bringing them over to the sink - holding one of them tightly in each hand over the drain, I then closed my eyes and forced myself to focus on the burning of the ice in my palms, and only that, essentially blocking out everything else and clutching at feeling instead of thought. Doing so was a distress tolerance method that I'd learned years ago during dialectic behavioral therapy, and a skill that, although rarely necessary in the past, I was unspeakably grateful to have remembered tonight. Christine would have been furious if I had opened the door to another relapse - she would've been heartbroken by my behavior, and if she was with me then, I knew she would have told me that I needed to settle down and pull myself together immediately, that I was capable of it as long as I allowed myself to see reason and fight. Steering my attention with the ice was the first step in that process, a means of resetting my emotions and starting over with a better frame of mind; the next step, once the ice melted and my breathing leveled out, was to surrender entirely and call for help.

~~oOo~~

Nadir answered his phone quickly, in spite of how late it was getting by that point, and listened intently as I recounted the events of the evening, speaking at a rate that bordered on frantic. Regardless of the measures I'd just taken to ground myself, the gravity of my situation was impossible to shut out altogether, and it was more evident in my voice then than I had initially realized; before I'd even needed to ask, he told me that he was coming over, and it was a considerable relief to hear him say that. But that relief was short-lived in the end - we would talk further about everything that had happened soon enough, but in the meantime, I was already beginning to feel overwhelmed again, and thus it was clearly in my best interest to simply attempt to stay as calm as possible, to continue concentrating on one moment at a time and nothing else, because anything beyond that much could very well still break me. So, leaving the front door unlocked for Nadir, I opted to wait outside for his arrival, wanting to escape so badly that I didn't even bother to put on a jacket as I went out onto the back deck; but while I was shivering almost violently from the cold in a matter of minutes, I remained there just the same, chain-smoking and pacing through the newest layer of snow as Tulula followed and refusing to allow any substantial thoughts to steal their way into full consciousness.

Before I knew it, the dog was barking toward the front of the house, and then Nadir was standing right in front of me, his appearance, while obviously expected, so sudden that I nearly jumped when I saw him. Yet, rather than commenting directly on my startled reaction or offering any formal greeting, he just hugged me as soon as we made eye-contact instead, murmuring, It's alright, Erik, you're safe. Everything will be fine. And as he reassured me, I felt for a moment as if I was seventeen years old again, felt every bit as alone and vulnerable and terrified as when we'd met. But, thankfully, the difference now was more than half a lifetime's worth of experience in the course of our friendship reinforcing the knowledge that I could accept his help, where too often in the past I had resisted that help at each turn, especially in the beginning when my disillusionment outweighed his sincerity. I'd be damned if I repeated that mistake this time.

Returning the embrace and distantly aware of tears stinging my eyes, I only nodded in response to his softly spoken words before pulling away, knowing that there was nothing else that could be said, at least not by way of comfort - not then. Rather, from there, seemingly noting for the first time how much I was shaking from the cold that I'd subjected myself to, in quick succession he instructed me to put out what remained of my cigarette, led me and Tulula back inside, and told me to explain exactly what had happened once more.

"So he just...showed up?" Nadir asked from his place beside me on the couch after I'd settled down enough to communicate effectively, and finish relating the incident back to him, using far greater detail for this telling than what I had been able to give over the phone, starting from finding the vodka to making the call that brought him here after Chaney's departure, "Like, he actually showed up out of nowhere?"

"Out of fucking nowhere," I confirmed, "It was insane."

"No, it was damn lucky," he said, then added with a dry humor in his statement, "This is probably the first time Raoul Chaney has ever done something useful for you."

"No kidding."

He sighed, then stood stiffly and walked over to the kitchen, pausing just short of the countertop; I knew that the alcohol there and my deep compulsion to drink it needed to be discussed directly, that addressing it more or less as an abstract concept - even as it was the physical root of my present concerns - as I had largely done up until now, couldn't go on indefinitely if anything was to be resolved properly. So I followed him and mentally prepared myself for what was guaranteed to come next, and watched him as he picked up the vodka. Looking at it thoughtfully, he asked, "Where did you say you found this?"

"One of the shelves in the living room. Someone must've left it there during the wake."

"You didn't see it any of the times you've cleaned here since then?"

"This place is like a tomb. Besides putting Christine's things away, there hasn't been that much to clean. And anyway, no one was all that focused on the bookshelves for that."

"Who the hell spends good money on booze just to leave them behind?"

"Who the hell brings booze to a wake to begin with?"

"Fair enough," he offered, then sighed again, an air of genuine remorse painting his tone, "I'm sorry, Erik, I knew there were toasts going on, but I didn't think anything of it then."

"I hardly even noticed," I shrugged, doing so more than a little helplessly in the face of everything that I was experiencing, "Don't be sorry, I spent most of that day staying away from everyone," I said flatly, and that was true - the wake was intentionally hosted at my house instead of elsewhere primarily to grant Josie the option of escaping into the familiarity of her own bedroom whenever she felt overwhelmed by the constant presence of mourning guests, which turned out to be a significant portion of the occasion; for my part, I had followed suit in preferring absence over interactions about as often as my daughter had, either quietly alongside her upstairs or holed up in the garage to have a cigarette separate from the other smokers that had gathered on the deck, and therefore, whatever anyone was doing just hadn't fully registered in my mind. I was aware of some elements of the wake in passing, but only barely at that, and otherwise hadn't bothered to look any closer than overhearing handfuls of conversations at the most, leaving the brunt of the hosting duties to Nadir and Sahra as they'd offered and grateful for their consideration. My overall avoidance, however, had obviously proven to be unwise; the alcohol left behind was a simple oversight, but at the time, not keeping track of what was going on hadn't seemed like it would be anything of major consequence, and I indicated that to Nadir by noting, "Anyone drinking down here wasn't an issue."

"Until now."

"Right."

"Well, this isn't exactly unexpected. Sahra and I have been keeping an eye out for any signs of you relapsing," he began, setting the vodka back onto the counter before continuing, "And I don't mean that as an insult, but you're an addict that's under an unbelievable amount of stress, it was inevitable that something like this would happen sooner or later."

"I'm not insulted, I'm afraid," I said emphatically, then leaned against the eating bar, my back intentionally to the vodka as I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, "I've been sober for, what, five years? And I almost undid all of that work tonight, and it happened so fast."

"You didn't undo anything, though. You didn't drink, you need to remember that."

"I wanted to."

"But you didn't - "

" - Only because of Chaney," I snapped, even though Nadir's innate rationality was one of the factors that had made me confident in reaching out to him for this crisis at all; still, that confidence had nothing on my own anxiety, and so I had to bite back the worst of my rising unease before I said something I'd regret, leveling my tone before admitting, "I have no idea what would've happened if he hadn't shown up when he did, and that's scaring me to death. What if Josie had been home? Or if - "

" - I understand," he returned softly, "And that's important to consider, but you can't let yourself dwell on the what-ifs. You called me when you knew you were in trouble, that's what matters. The vodka was right there, but you intervened on yourself when I know you wanted it."

"I wanted to be numb. I still do."

"You can't skip over your grief, Erik. No more than you can rush through it. Drinking would make both happen, but if you don't let it run its course, you're going to get hurt."

"It just...none of it makes sense."

"I know - "

" - You don't know," I shouted almost desperately - in that instant, the events of the night combined with the overall trajectory of my life in the wake of the resounding devastation of losing Christine came crashing down around me all over again, as suffocating and engulfing as the second that her heart had stopped beating; every intention that I'd held before of maintaining my composure was abruptly rendered nonexistent, and while absently I knew that Nadir was only trying to lend me the support that I had asked him for, even so, I couldn't bring myself to dim the outrage that his attempt to console me had inadvertently provoked. Near tears once more, I turned instead to face him directly as I went on in a broken and reedy voice, "How is it that I could survive getting shot, that I could survive having a bomb blow up in my face and going through a fucking suicide attempt, but she dies because some asshole couldn't control his goddamn car? How is it that I'm alive and she's not? None of it makes any sense."

"I agree," he insisted, matching my stance and yet still managing to preserve his compassionate demeanor all the while, "It doesn't make sense, and that isn't fair."

And with that statement, my misplaced anger dissolved as quickly as it had appeared, as erratic and unpredictable as my discussion with Chaney had been; I was reeling, had clearly kept what I'd said pent up and unexamined for too long, but honestly, I was equally as exhausted, so I just sat heavily on one of the abandoned barstools and took a deep breath, saying simply, "It isn't realistic."

"Life isn't realistic," Nadir said as he sat down as well, "And no, I can't know exactly what any of this is like for you, but I do know that you're struggling. I know why you wanted that drink," he paused, then, "You're going to have to live with your alcoholism for the rest of your life, but this time you got help. You didn't hide."

"No, I didn't," I allowed, "Because I couldn't..."

To that, he only gave a gesture of concession, evidently seeing this particular, albeit heated vein of our conversation reach its natural conclusion at my eventual receptiveness, then asked, "When's the soonest you can see your therapist?"

"Probably Monday, he keeps the mornings open for emergency walk-ins," I said, then scoffed, "I'd say this counts."

"Then we just need to help you make it through the rest of tonight and tomorrow," he responded decisively, and while I had my share of doubts over my ability to outlast even that relatively short timespan in my present state of mind, all things considered, his perspective was admittedly encouraging. Ignorant of my thoughts, though, he continued, tilting his head toward the bottle of vodka, "Until then, we need to get rid of this. Do you want me to handle it?"

I shook my head, remembering with an almost startling clarity the last time I'd relapsed, and moreover, the impact that my excessive drinking and its steady escalation had taken on my marriage and my mental health and my livelihood as a whole - remembering Christine's words as she bade me to pour my stash down the drain and finally set out to recover. Replaying that long-ago exchange with an ache for everything that had been taken away from my family, I explained as much to Nadir as I stood up and took the bottle with me to the sink, unscrewing the cap as I walked, every gesture now serving as a mirror of the night my wife had given me her ultimatum that, in the end, had truly been beyond invaluable, "I need to be the one that handles it. I have to be accountable for this."

~~oOo~~

The remainder of the weekend was understandably tense, but otherwise uneventful, and I counted that fact as a much-needed victory after a seemingly infinite line of far too much heartache and far too many setbacks; to that end, my urgently requested meeting with my therapist had turned out to be equally successful, and while it had been difficult to admit to him exactly how badly I had stumbled when I'd gotten overwhelmed, I was resolved to be honest even so, and I'd left the appointment with a solid plan in place to manage the near-miss that I had undergone after finding that vodka in my living room, as well as any other hurdles that waited as-yet unseen in the future. The circumstances altogether certainly weren't ideal, but the outcome could very well have been exceedingly worse when considering my history; I was coping, and I wasn't alone, and that was more than I had expected to attain during what could only be described as a severe and pivotal breakdown. Still, the matter itself had left me unsettled even as I'd made the concentrated effort to put it behind me, and upon leaving the building that housed my therapist's office that Monday, I made the last-minute decision to bring myself another degree of closure - at least, if nothing else, in one aspect of my situation.

I hadn't returned to the cemetery once since the funeral - had never been brave enough to make the journey - and seeing the newly-raised headstone with Christine's name etched into its surface for the first time felt like a knife being driven into my chest. As I carefully laid the red rose that I'd gotten on my way there on top of the glinting stone monument, my breath was appearing in plumes against the frozen late-morning air, ice-cold in spite of the sun beaming overhead, and it took a moment for me to realize that their rapid intervals were happening because I was crying, nearly gasping against the sobs that were beginning to choke me; losing track of time, I stayed that way until I didn't have any tears left to shed. By that point, I just felt hollow. My grief was constant, but the anger that I'd felt the night of Thanksgiving had subsided almost as abruptly as it had occurred, leaving in its wake instead a deep and aching sense of longing for everything that I'd lost - I truly wasn't ever angry at Christine, but I missed her so fiercely that it was physically painful, and that pain was presenting itself now in sharp relief. I wanted nothing more than to reach out beside me in that open space and take her hand as I'd always done before, barely conscious of doing so in the past; I had taken those simple displays of affection for granted, I recognized too late, never imagining that the day might arrive that doing so would be impossible. All of that was gone now, and standing there in the cemetery illustrated that agonizing truth with a force that stung to acknowledge.

This visit was probably a mistake after all - too much added stress leveled at a mind prone to trouble, a mind that was already decidedly unstable - but I also knew that I had greatly needed this experience just the same. Whether or not I was ready, the world was continuing to turn, time was moving determinedly forward, and in order to grapple with everything that such progress would entail in leading my day-to-day from then on without self-destructing, I had to steel myself against the demons that would challenge me along the way. I had to be better than myself - for Christine's memory and for our daughter's sake, I was left with no other choice than to be better now. However, facing off with that reality was more daunting in practice than in theory, and I had to take several more minutes to compose myself before I felt ready to go through with what I'd wanted to say, my reason for coming out there to begin with. My life had been a strange amalgamation of triumph and tragedy, Christine's presence and absence alike forming into a painful, yet somehow enduringly beautiful pinnacle of each quality, and in turn, a fundamental part of me had died when she died. Yet, whatever part still remained, for the foreseeable future only did so because of our child; it was that understanding that further reinforced the notion that if I couldn't function, if I failed, then Josie would be the one to suffer - I couldn't allow that, couldn't invite anything else to burden what she'd already been through.

"I'm going to fix this, Christine," I whispered above my wife's grave, because even though I knew that what lay beneath the snow was no longer her, the gesture felt imperative to make in a way that I couldn't wholly describe, but that I couldn't deny, either. Closing my eyes, I continued adamantly, "I'm going to keep fixing everything, I'm not giving up again. I promise…"

The words, of course, were met with silence - but while I couldn't necessarily say that I felt the closure that I'd sought once I had spoken them aloud, there was still a modicum of calmness present, though nearly imperceptible, that I hadn't been apparent until then. And once again, I counted that sensation as a victory in its own right.

~~oOo~~

That evening - hours after I had picked Josie up from Nadir and Sahra's care, where she had grudgingly spent her morning while I'd needed to be out of the house - she and I eventually found ourselves making a half-hearted attempt at having dinner, yet initially gaining very little ground in that attempt all the while. Because once we'd gotten home, we had both gone our separate ways in the house and had subsequently been lost in thought for the majority of the rest of the afternoon, but more so for Josie's part - and although I'd learned through innumerable interactions with my daughter and more than a few missteps that she would generally come around and clue me in on whatever was bothering her in her own time, that night the reserved quality of behavior that she'd adopted since her mother died had appeared heightened past what was her new normal; something in particular, beyond the expected sorrow and anxiety that she was still working through, was going on, so as we settled in for our meal, I set my problems aside - admittedly grateful for having a valid reason to do so after visiting the cemetery - and chose then to check in. If something else was upsetting her, which I strongly suspected was the case, then I needed to know about it, needed to help, and preferably sooner rather than later.

As I stood leaning against the sink in the kitchen and considering how to properly broach the potential issue, Josie was already seated at her place at the table, half-slouching with an uneaten bowl of cereal in front of her, while my own was still left unprepared and more or less forgotten on the countertop across from me. The choice in easy breakfast food at dinnertime was fairly common for us now - meals over the past months, at least the ones that weren't sent over by friends and neighbors in advance, had been minimalistic at best. When Christine was alive, she and I had shared the responsibility of cooking pretty evenly, dividing the task as our schedules permitted but otherwise holding to a reasonably consistent routine of making food from substantial ingredients. Even before we'd met, I'd largely done the same; meal-prep had never really been an obstacle for me. I'd lived alone long enough to be able to take care of myself without resorting to quick-fixes every day. But the process of mourning, especially when an entire household is suddenly disrupted, makes even the most basic methods of survival like eating seem unimportant, going against every human instinct that exists within us, and Josie and I weren't immune to those effects. That night was a clear example of the lapse, but even so, she would typically finish her meals promptly whenever they were presented, and therefore her obvious lack of hunger now was concerning, further proof to me that something was wrong.

So, mindful not to make my observation sound accusing, I spoke up, "You're more quiet than usual tonight. What's going on?" I asked, but she only shrugged and continued to stir her cereal without ever actually taking a bite. At that, I moved around the eating bar and knocked softly on the table to regain her attention, "Bean, you need to eat."

"You're not eating," she reminded me, glancing pointedly in my direction before swiftly looking away again, and while I didn't approve of her tone or her nonverbals, I chose not to press, or even to reprimand her for either of them then. Raising this child for the past ten years had taught me that it wasn't a conflict worth engaging in when there were other important matters that needed to be addressed. She was capable of worse demonstrations of willfulness and sarcasm - too much like me in that sense - so this relatively harmful display honestly wasn't a hill that I wanted to die on. Rather, knowing that she was being intentionally evasive, I made a show of walking the short distance back into the kitchen and finally pouring my own bowl of cereal, before returning to the table with it quickly and sitting next to her with a flourish to communicate that, yes, I had heard your derision, Josephine, thank you very much, but I wasn't going to rise to the bait by getting angry and losing my focus, because that bait was more than likely set to distract me from a lost appetite that concealed a larger issue.

"Will you eat if I do?" I offered when I was settled - and after an extended pause, she nodded her acceptance to my version of a negotiation. It was with no small amount of sadness that I recalled that, before Christine's passing, my exaggerated movements and wordless sparring would have broken through Josie's stubborn disposition the second that I'd stood up, that she would have been lost in laughter by now rather than her discontented silence, her poor behavior abandoned in favor of simply enjoying her family and her surroundings. Once again, the dichotomy of before and after had made itself starkly evident when we were only trying to get by, and that hurt to think about, to be shadowed by firsthand. But at any rate, Josie had agreed to eat her dinner with me, very much to my relief, so continuing on that vein of cooperation, I raised my spoon as an invitation for her to meet it with her own, murmuring Cheers when she'd done so with a metallic click, and then tried again, "Something's on your mind. Can you tell me what's going on?"

Another pause, then, "It's Christmas in a couple weeks."

At that, I was more than a little surprised at the turn this conversation had taken - I couldn't say exactly what I had been expecting from it up until that point, only that instinct told me that her acting so subdued that day was probably somehow related to her mother more than anything else, as so many topics of our discussions had been recently. But regardless of the time of year, talking about Christmas wasn't high on the list of potential subjects - or, at least, I'd assumed it wasn't. So, needing context from Josie's perspective, I prompted, "You're right, it is."

"It feels different this year."

Sighing, I gave up on the cereal that I'd barely touched in spite of the deal that I'd just made with Josie, and slid the bowl off to the side as I said, "I know it does. Everything is going to feel different for a while."

"It's just that…" she began, but then shook her head, seemingly frustrated that she was unable to articulate her thoughts as effectively as she wanted to, but still making a clear effort to measure her words all the same, "It's just that, we haven't done anything for Christmas. Not like we used to with Mommy."

Ah, so this weight on her shoulders did have to do with Christine, if not in an indirect manner that I had foolishly not anticipated. That was a complete and inexcusable oversight on my part, and I felt an intense pang of guilt at my daughter's attempted explanation.

But I understood now - the holidays were always Christine's arena, and something that she and Josie had shared from the time that Josie could enjoy the traditions and activities that had been so important to her mother. They looked forward to the season every year long before the fact, set it into motion as soon as doing so was socially acceptable - but this year, Josie and I had dreaded the holidays; she was barely even able to talk about them early on, all to the point that we had essentially bypassed Thanksgiving already, nor had I bothered to take the countless Christmas decorations out of storage, nevermind actually putting anything up. Through our weeks of avoiding reminders of the season or comforting my daughter through her tears when avoidance was impossible, I hadn't realized until then that lacking in everything would turn out to be so upsetting for her; she contradicted herself in many ways, and yet it made perfect sense that her associations with the winter holidays and her mother would be so complicated, that she would be conflicted about how to approach something that was, frankly, beyond her level of maturity. But so much had changed with absolutely no warning, and a sense of familiarity, of warmth, was something that she was obviously missing. Not to prepare for that had been solely my mistake, and one that I needed to correct - one that I hoped I could correct at all.

And so, knowing that I had to begin somewhere - grateful that this was something that I could feasibly manage and make right again - I said softly, "Jo, I'm so dense. I'm sorry, I didn't realize you wanted to do something for Christmas this year."

Here, her posture straightened a bit, her manner less closed off and thus easing some of my own tension, as she rested her chin on her hand and responded thoughtfully, "Well, I still don't, not really. I don't think I want to decorate, or...I don't really know…" she trailed off, that flash of frustration returning to her eyes at not saying just what she meant.

So, finally confident in having a better grasp of everything that was happening, once again I prompted, "You don't want to celebrate without your mom, but you don't want to ignore everything altogether, right?"

She nodded eagerly, apparently satisfied that I had been able to parse through what was truly difficult for her to convey, "That's right."

"Maybe we can do something small," I suggested, "We should do things in small doses right now. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, it does," she said, then went on to murmur a question that I nearly didn't catch, "Do you think Mommy would mind if that's all we do? Something small?"

My answer to that was immediate, not wanting to risk instilling any doubt in her on the matter, "No, she wouldn't mind."

"I think so, too," she replied sagely - though perhaps without a full comprehension of what she was saying yet - and then asked, both hope and hesitation mingling in her voice, "Can we bake?"

"Sure," I agreed easily, then added, "You'll have to teach me most of what to do, though."

She tilted her head curiously, genuine confusion attached to her reply, "You don't know how to bake? But you used to cook all the time."

"Right, cooking. But I never learned how to bake anything."

"Your mom never taught you?"

"She died when I was your age, did you know that?" I began gently, because this was a topic that we didn't delve into often, nor in any great detail whenever it did arise. While we now both had the unfortunate trait in common of losing our mothers at a young age, the respective relationships - the overall situations - that we'd shared with our mothers had been vastly different, and there were several aspects of my mother's life and the circumstances surrounding her death that Josie simply didn't know; I believed that she wasn't yet ready to learn everything, that our family history of drug use and depression and affairs were subjects that were beyond what she could process, especially presently when she'd had so many other heavy emotions to contend with. So, whenever discussions about my mother came up, rarely though those occasions tended to be, I usually opted to tread lightly, to disclose only what was necessary for context and to make mental notes of what more would need to be revealed when Josie was older, but otherwise leaning toward caution with the information that I was willing to give her. Now wasn't the appropriate moment for anything beyond the basics, I was sure, and so I determined to remain vague going forward, "She was sick for a long time before that, I didn't get to learn much from her."

"What about Marie?"

I scoffed, though the sound was relatively airy with the memory of my godmother that Josie had just evoked, "She banned me from the kitchen whenever she baked."

"Why?"

"Because I was a little nightmare hell-child and wouldn't stay out of anything"

Josie rolled her eyes, but the gesture was good-natured, "You can't be a little nightmare heck-child to me when I teach you to bake."

I shrugged, "I can't guarantee anything about that."

And out of nowhere, she laughed at my teasing, actually laughed, something that I hadn't heard from her in months, and in the wake of the expression, she truly brightened in turn - with that, my heart seized to witness the renewal of her sincerely looking forward to something once again, of her simply enjoying an instant of camaraderie between us. Surviving the fallout of everything that we'd been through, and thinking about Christine all the while, some part of me knew that this might very well be a sign that hope - even if it was only the smallest semblance of it for now - was slowly yet resolutely mending when it had formerly been shattered; I clutched at the notion then. It would take time, but it was a start where one hadn't existed before, and as if to emphasize that point, by the end of our unexpected conversation, Josie and I were able to share another laugh as we made our plans, another exchange of smiles that had formerly seemed so unreachable in our grief. We were able to share another victory.