Saturday Night Widows Read Online Free PDF Page B

had to have been my fault. Somehow
I
did it.
I
was bad. It’s hard when your husband dies and it totally affects your whole life to think that it didn’t have anything to do with you.”
    Widow’s remorse and widow’s guilt. The pangs seemed to be just under the surface, and everyone was mining them now. “It’s hard not to go over all the scenarios,” I said, in an effort at soothing. “To think, I could have done this differently or that differently.”
    “You must have felt that, too,” said Lesley, turning to me.
    “Me? Yes.” I was caught off guard. I had expected to keep my distance in this conversation—I was the organizer, after all. But I could hardly avoid answering. “My husband’s illness”—did I want to do this?—“was very long. We made hundreds of choices along the way. Do we do radiation? Do we do surgery? Do we do another chemo? It’s hard not to beat yourself up. You don’t know what would have happened if you’d done something differently. And he suffered so much, maybe we shouldn’t have gone to such lengths.”
    I hadn’t planned to volunteer this information, wasn’t prepared to revisit it. Five years later, it still unnerved me.
    “You
can
beat yourself up about things where you have some control,” Dawn said gently. “But I don’t think that life and death fit into that category.”
    “There’s nothing you can do,” Lesley agreed. “My husband was the best thing I ever had. When I lost him, my life changed in an instant. But this has made me totally fearless. Because the worst thing that could happen has already happened.”
    It was my turn to feel a jolt of recognition. That was my line! “Yes,” I said. “Anything less and you have to let it go.” I tried to steer the conversation toward the future. “That’s why we’re here. Now. Tonight. To let this go and head wherever we need to be next.”
    The eyes of the others brightened with possibility. “It’s funny,” Lesley said. “We’ve all just met, but we’re already talking about things I don’t dare say to anyone else.”
    We had polished off that bottle of champagne in less time than it took to pop the cork. I stepped into the kitchen to grab a new one from the fridge and held its cool weight for a moment against my overheated brain. A real rumpus was fulminating out there, the group jabbering away, talking all at once and laughing now, too. I was struck by the collective wallop of all that mortal experience assembled in one place, not sure whether what had happened so far was at all what I’d had in mind. I’d felt driven to convene this group to see if there was a better way, but I hadn’t intended to immerse myself so deeply. Already, I was beginning to comprehend that detachment wouldn’t be possible, that I’d be back in the soup. I’d be pressed to revive harrowing memories, to see them again in the light cast by the group.
    Dawn’s remark—what was it? “The only cure for sadness is happiness”—was more the model I’d had in mind. I wanted us tohave fun. But, clearly, it wasn’t possible to ignore the memories, dark or light. I weighed the option of bolting out the back door. The others were probably as leery as I was of letting dark genies out of the bottle. Maybe they’d go their separate ways in an hour or so and spare everyone, me included, from further revelations. On the other hand, who was I kidding? I wouldn’t have set this in motion if I hadn’t felt the tug to explore more myself. And it was too late to lose heart now. I felt no choice but to push forward, through the end of dinner at least.
    I put my shoulder to the swinging door, back to the group. They were all standing now, forming a tight circle, a near-tribal connection around the appetizers, neglected up to now. Tara looked up and called to me across the room, that room that had seemed so wrong before they all came in. She looked like a different person from the one who had shown up an hour ago. The tension in