My best friend, Megan, used to tease me about it.
“Eighteen years and you still miss him? That’s disgusting. Dave goes to the grocery store and I throw a party.”
Megan and I had been friends for twenty-two years. Since our sophomore year of college at Ohio State. We were randomly assigned as roommates in a dorm with no air conditioning, and on the first night, we both got so hot that we dragged our mattresses out into the hallway and slept there, and talked until four in the morning.
We’d been inseparable ever since.
She was my maid of honor. I was hers. She was the first person I called when I found out I was pregnant with Emma, and the person who drove me to the hospital when my water broke with Jake because Ryan was in Denver. She held my hand through all twenty-two hours of labor.
She was Lily’s godmother.
She and her husband, Dave, lived ten minutes away. We had dinner together every other Friday. Our kids grew up together. We went on vacation together to the same beach in North Carolina every summer for eleven years.
On our second night in college, she’d taken a piece of pink embroidery thread and braided us two matching friendship bracelets. Mine was still on my wrist. Faded almost white after twenty-two years. I’d had to tie it back together twice.
Hers was still on her wrist too.
At least, I thought it was.
That Tuesday morning was ordinary.
Ryan’s alarm went off at 5:15. I heard him in the shower. I heard him packing in the closet, quietly, so he wouldn’t wake me. I was awake anyway.
“Chicago?” I mumbled from the bed.
“Chicago,” he said. “Back Friday.”
“Big meeting?”
“Northwestern Hospital. They’re looking at the whole new imaging line. If I close it, that’s my bonus for the year.”
He leaned over and kissed my forehead. He smelled like his aftershave. The one I’d bought him for Christmas.
“Love you,” he said.
“Love you too. Text me when you land.”
He went downstairs. I heard him say goodbye to Pickles. I heard the garage door go up. I heard his car back out of the driveway.
I went back to sleep for forty minutes, like I always did.
The rest of the morning was the usual chaos.
Emma couldn’t find her calculus homework. Jake ate four bowls of cereal and claimed he was still hungry. Lily had a meltdown because her socks felt “too sock-y.” Pickles ate one of the sock-y socks.
I dropped them off at school. I came home. I drank my coffee standing up in the kitchen. I started a load of laundry.
At 11:20, my phone rang.
It was a number from Illinois. A landline.
“Laura? It’s Ted Dombrowski. Your mother’s neighbor.”
My stomach went cold.
Ted lives across the street from my mom in Naperville, about forty minutes west of Chicago. He’s a retired firefighter. He mows her lawn every Saturday whether she asks him to or not.
“Ted? What’s wrong?” 