"Oh."
"I ain't got any old lady wisdom that'll suddenly make it all better, Ember. Wish I did. All I got is cold, hard facts. Which is this: you lost him; he's gone and you're not, but you're not allowed to just give up."
"I don't want to keep going. Literally. He and I were on a van life tour of the country. We were gonna see all fifty states together and vlog the whole thing. We have thirty-one. Michigan was thirty-two. I'm stuck here. He—he died in a hospital in Grayling. I…I tried to keep going, for him. We were gonna go up into the U-P and into Wisconsin, but I…I stopped here and…" I shake my head, swallowing hard. "And I can't go any further. Not without him."
The tears blur my eyes again and I fight them off, shaking my head and breathing through it.
I feel a soft, wiry, papery arm circle my shoulders. "No, no, no, no," she murmurs. "You can't do that, missy. You gotta get it out. Holding it in is killing you."
"Can't. I'll break."
"Seems like you already are broken."
“I know," I breathe. "But I…I justcan't."
"Let me have it."
I shake my head.
She pulls me closer, smoothing my hair away, tutting and hushing.
“It hurts so fucking bad, GramGram." I realized what I said as soon as I said it and sat up to look at her. "Faye, I'm sorry. I—"
She touches my lips, her dark eyes warm with compassion and understanding. "A grandma's a grandma, missy. I'd be honored to fill in." She pulls me back into her arms and holds me. "Course it hurts. But you gotta let yourself feel it. It's a powerful thing, that kind of grief. Feels like it'll suck you under if you let it—and it will. But only if you fight it. You can't fight it. You gotta give it its due and then keep on living."
"I don't know how."
“You'll figure it out. Got no choice. But it takes courage."
"I'm afraid, Faye."
"Course you are." She pats my shoulder. "A good place to start is a date with a tall stack of sexy like Felix Crowe."
This gets me spluttering tearful laughter. "Ohmygod, Faye. You're incorrigible."
"If I was even thirty years younger, I'd take a swing at him myself." She giggles. "I wouldn't mind being a cougar, but fortunately for all the younger men out there, Faye's Love Canal is closed for business."
"Unfortunately, you mean," I say. "You're a catch."
She rasps a laugh. "You're a nut. Sweet, but nutty."
"I feel like there's a dirty joke in there somewhere," I say, "But I'm too high to find it." I point at Faye. "And you leave Felix out of it."
We both laugh at that, and then lapse into a long, comfortable silence.
"Faye?" I ask. She harrumphs an interrogatory sound. "Were you ever with anyone else after Thomas passed?"
"No. He was it for me." She grabs my hand and squeezes hard. "But there's a difference, Ember. I had a lifetime with him. I was seventy…four? Seventy-six?—when he died. I was old already. I met Thomas when I was a young girl in grade school. We were together for over fifty years. When he died, I just…there was no possibility of anyone else. Who could ever know me the way Thomas did? I miss sex sometimes, sure, but I was only ever with Thomas in that way, and it is purely unfathomable to me to be intimate with another man." She wraps both of her hands around mine and shakes. "You're young, missy. I know you miss him—I know it hurts. But you got too much life to live to give up and be a spinster like me."
I nod. "I hear you. I'm just not sure I know how to get over him. How to let anyone else in."
I expect a dirty joke or something, but she just sighs and pats my cheek. "I'm not saying it'll be easy, Ember, only that it's necessary."
“Necessary?” I ask. "How is it necessary? What if I just want to be alone the rest of my life?"
"That'd be a big damn shame," she says. "I ain't known you long, but I can tell you’ve got a whole lot of love to give, and for once I'm not being dirty. You shine bright, Ember, and the world needs more lights like yours. You can't keep yours hidden."
"It's not hidden, Faye. It's…dimmed. Broken."
