Four Letter Word

“Me, too,” Shay echoed with a warm smile on her crimson-painted lips.

I smiled at both of them, hoping to convey how much I enjoyed working with them as well, because I definitely enjoyed it, then I looked at Tori, who was remaining silent and had her head turned.

“Is that Nate?” she asked.

The three of us followed Tori’s gaze across the bar.

Dancers had wandered and were no longer obstructing our view of everything on the far side of the room, which was where Nate sat on a stool with a glass in front of him, his head lowered and his eyes either focused hard on something behind the bar or unfocused on anything.

He looked deep in thought, either way.

“Why does he always look so sad?”

I threw out my question to the girls not only because Nate currently did look sad in the middle of a kick-ass bar with great tunes, Beastie Boys currently playing overhead, which I was tapping my foot along to against the leg of my stool, but because he always looked sad every time I saw him, and even though that wasn’t a lot since he stayed shut up in his office more than he wandered the floor, his sadness wasn’t lost on me.

I knew he was looking sad behind that door, too. I knew it in my bones.

Tori looked down at her drink. Kali took a sip of hers, but her eyes were lowered to the table.

They were avoiding.

I looked across the table at Shay with expectant eyes and she read them, sighed, then gave me a look I knew meant I wasn’t going to love what I was about to hear.

But I still wanted to hear it. I was curious.

“I really don’t want to ruin this fantastic evening with a sad story, but I have a feeling you’re just going to keep asking me,” she said, dipping her head.

She was right.

I nodded.

“It’s really sad, hon,” Tori threw out. “Are you sure? I almost cried after I heard it the first time.”

Hearing that warning, again, I nodded.

“I want to know.”

Shay prepared herself to deliver this sad story, and she did that by finishing off the last bit of her lemon drop, then grabbing the attention of the nearest waitress and pointing at her empty glass.

Tori did the same and lifted hers, silently requesting another.

Shay then gave me her full attention again and did it most likely feeling the rush of the alcohol she’d just consumed.

I guessed it was going to help.

“Nate didn’t always used to be like he is now. Up until about a year ago he was really present around the restaurant and rarely ever spent time in his office. His wife was really present, too. Sadie. She was always stopping in and chatting up the staff even though she worked a lot herself. It didn’t matter; she made time. Then she got pregnant and was still coming around a lot, but we knew it was because she was so excited about being pregnant and wanted to show off her baby bump every second she got. Nate ate that up. He was crazy about her and even more crazy about her carrying his kid. It was really cute to see.”

I smiled but I did it cautiously because I didn’t want to get too comfortable with the idea of Nate being happy. This was a sad story, and when a pregnant wife is involved, I could only imagine how sad it was about to get.

Shay took a deep breath and continued.

“Marley was born, or Mo as we call her. She’s the prettiest baby ever. Seriously. Full head of blond curls and the biggest blue eyes you’ll ever see, holding so much expression it steals your breath. She looks just like Sadie.”

Kali shifted beside me, and I saw that her attention was now on Nate instead of where it was at the beginning of this story, the table.

Tori was studying Shay as I was, looking sad.

“Nate didn’t know. He was working all the time and doing anything he could to make the money they were losing with Sadie being out on maternity leave. I’m not even sure he noticed Sadie’s absence when she stopped popping in as much, then not at all because he was so busy. We all noticed it but honestly I figured Sadie just wanted her mommy-daughter time and I couldn’t blame her for that. Those baby years are important. But apparently Sadie was in a rough way and no one knew it. She was suffering and she was doing it alone, not confiding in Nate when she should’ve been and then it was too late. He couldn’t help her.”

“What happened?” I asked, my voice sounding tight like I needed to clear my throat.

“He went home after work one day and found Mo asleep in her crib and Sadie in the bathtub with an empty bottle of sleeping pills.”

I clamped a hand over my mouth, my breath bursting warm against my palm.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, cutting my eyes to Nate.

She had killed herself. Nate came home and found his wife dead and their baby girl asleep, completely oblivious to the state of her momma.

Pain circled my heart and folded in on it.

“I hate hearing that story,” Kali declared quietly, picking off chunks of the napkin in her hand. “I miss seeing Sadie around. It feels like yesterday she was showing us all her first ultrasound photo.”

“It’s been almost a year, hasn’t it?” Tori asked.

Shay nodded.

“Next month. I think that’s why he’s been locked in that office more than usual. He’s hurting.”

I looked from Shay back to Nate.

His head was still down, eyes still unfocused while his mind was on something heavy, I’d decided.

“What about Mo? Do you guys get to see her at all?”

“Nate’s mom brings her in sometimes. She watches her while he’s working,” Kali answered. “She still looks just like Sadie.”