Chapter 1
I’m in my usual morning spot in the dining room, curled up with a cup of coffee between my hands in the sole club chair that Donnie bought me. I’m looking out the bay window of the house that Donnie bought me and over the large yard that Donnie bought me.
Donovan Garrett didn’t select the chair or the house or pick out the landscaping in the yard. He couldn’t. He was gone, but the money he left behind, or rather the insurance policy and settlement from the wrongful death lawsuit, paid for all of it.
Donovan was my husband. He was also a police detective. An undercover one. In vice. He lived through countless embeds and two bullet wounds—once, very gravely, in the upper left shoulder near his heart while undercover in a stalker-near-kidnapping case, a few years ago.
He was never supposed to buy me a house on Juniper Court in the warm, idyllic town of Sunview. No, we were supposed to raise our kids and grow old together in St. Louis. Live through each blazing humid summer and frigid ice-storm-ridden winter together.
I wasn’t supposed to be here alone.
I’d always known the day could come, but on that day, “the knock” on the door took me by surprise.
Donnie was supposed to be home soon. I knew he had just completed his last ever undercover assignment. He was moving on to an administrative desk job and I was thrilled. I wouldn’t have to worry anymore about where he was for weeks at a time. I wouldn’t have to hear information through a secure line to the police department. I would have him at my dinner table and in my bed every night. We had survived ten years of danger and probably more peril than Donnie was allowed to divulge to me, and now it would be our time. Our time to enjoy our now ten- and eight-year-old sons, Donovan “Van” Jr. and Shane.
I never got my nightly family dinners or my nightly kiss good-night.
I never got my husband back from his undercover life. Not because of a bullet or a knife—but because of an accident.
Knock, knock!
Why in the world would Donovan knock? Did he forget his key? I don’t even think I locked the door because I told him I’d wait up for him after his text half an hour ago.
POSEY, BABE, I’m done. It’s over. I’m out forever. The arrests are happening right now. Tomorrow starts a whole new life.
He would never know how prophetic his words were.
I padded to the door, sleepy-headed and confused, after dozing off while I waited for Donnie.
I opened the door, expecting the love of my life, but it wasn’t Donnie. It was one of his fellow detectives, Aaron, in street clothes, flanked by a couple of uniformed officers. My heart fell.
“Hello, Posey.” Aaron’s voice was stiff and formal.
“Aaron?” I moved side to side, peering behind him to find Donnie. Where was Donnie? This had happened before—officers at my door—when Donnie had been shot.
“Posey.” Aaron’s head dropped, and he sniffed and swallowed. I grabbed the doorframe. This was not good. Not good at all. Aaron lifted his head and pinned me in his gaze. His eyes were rimmed red and filled with tears.
“NO!” I tried to scream, but it came out as a choked, dysphonic plea.
Aaron stepped toward me and wrapped an arm around me to keep me from falling.
“Let’s go inside. Off the porch. We need privacy.”
Somehow, I found myself sitting on the couch. An officer on either side of me, with an arm around me. Aaron sat on the coffee table in front of me, holding both my hands.
“Posey, Donovan is dead.”
The words ricocheted around the room, and in my head, and finally slammed into my chest and I gasped for air.
The only word I seemed to be able to form was NO. Over and over in my consciousness and on my lips.
Aaron gave me a bit of time but then gently brought me back. “Posey, listen to me, look at me.”
I found his eyes, which held all the pain I was feeling.
A wet film formed over my own eyes and blurred my vision.
“Donovan finished the assignment. He was on his way to the station to change and debrief. A drunk driver came into his lane and forced him into the guardrail. Posey, Donnie’s car flipped over the guardrail and impacted in the ravine below. It became engulfed in flames before anyone could reach him.”
Every cell in my body felt like it was screaming and shaking, but I was stock-still. Unable to move, breathe, focus. My lips and nose started to tingle. I turned my face away from Aaron and the room spun. Then I stood and ran.
To the kitchen.
To the sink.
Where I vomited, while gripping the thick edge of the farm sink. That was right before my legs crumpled beneath me. I felt an excruciating pain on my cheek as I went down. I felt like I was dying. I wished I had died.
When I came to, Aaron and the other guys’ faces were above me. I reached up and felt something hot and sticky on my face and could taste metal in my mouth. I moved to stand up.
“No, Posey, stay down. You slammed your face on the sink when you fainted.”
“I fainted?”
“Yes, you ran in here and vomited in the sink.”
I remembered that part.
“And then you collapsed and connected pretty hard on the way down.”
That I did not remember.
“Mom!” A cracking preteen voice stops my journey through that painful memory.
“Momma?”
I shake myself out of the past and look up from my coffee cup. My boys—my loves—Van and Shane stand in front of me with puzzled looks on their faces.
“Hi! Hi, guys!” I stand up, set my coffee cup on the end table, place an arm around each of their shoulders and bring them in for a group hug. I hold on a little too long.
Shane squirms out of my embrace. “Mooom!”
“OK, OK.” I let them both loose.
They move toward the front door. “Did you eat breakfast?” I ask, my parenting mode finally kicking in.
Backs to me, they both hold up Nutri-Grain bars as they leave the house. The door slams loudly behind them. It no sooner crashes against the doorjamb than it opens again and Van’s head peers around. “Mom, don’t forget, that guy is coming tonight.”
What guy? “What guy?” my lips mimic my thought.
“That guitar guy. The one you called for me? He’s coming over for my first lesson after school.”
“Oh, that’s right. Yeah. Thanks for reminding me.”
I barely recognize myself. Who is this laissez-faire parent? This barely attentive, lost in her own grief person? Mornings are bad. Nights are worse. Even though I spent many, many days without Donnie when he was undercover, it’s just knowing I won’t ever see him or hear him again that makes it so excruciating. Some days I go a few hours without thinking of him. When I do, I admonish myself for letting his memory slip away.
Grief reminds me of a crazy, sad amusement park ride. You never know when a turn or spin will come that makes you sick to your stomach and wrenches tears from your eyes. Oh, and there’s no way to get off the ride.
If I have a faraway look at times, it’s because I’m imagining how soft his hair felt when I bent down to kiss it, the last time I saw him.
Someday, I’ll stop counting the days since he left, but not yet.