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“People always become saints after they're gone. No one remembers the bad things they did. And to his friends, Bill was a good guy, even if he wasn't great to you. No one's going to remember that now, or say it to you. Least of all your kids.” She had heard them talking all afternoon about what a wonderful father he'd been, and Michael had given a eulogy in glowing praise of his father.

“He never did anything for the kids,” Stephanie said softly, as though she were afraid someone would hear her. “I had to push him into everything he did.”

“I know. You always made him look like a hero. That's all they want to remember now.” Stephanie fell silent as she thought about it, wondering if she was confused too. Maybe he had been a better husband than she thought. What was true—what people were saying about him now, or the distance and disconnect they had lived with for years after he cheated on her? “Don't try to figure it out. It doesn't matter right now. Just get through this. How long are the kids staying?”

“Louise has to be back at work by the end of the week, and Michael has a big meeting in Atlanta on Friday. Charlotte has exams this week, she's leaving tomorrow night.” Jean realized from what she said that Stephanie would be alone by the weekend, in the deafening silence of her empty house. She hated to think of her alone.

“It would be nice if they could stay at least till Sunday,” Jean said, looking pensive. But sooner or later, Stephanie would have to face the fact that she was alone now. Bill had died just at the point in life where kids are gone, and you want to count on your husband being there while you got old. Instead, Stephanie was a widow at forty-eight, with kids who were grown and gone and lived in other cities. And Jean knew that however lacking Bill had been, or inadequate their relationship in recent years, it was going to be very, very tough on her.

She left a little while later, and Stephanie spent the evening with her children. They all agreed that the funeral had been beautiful, although to Stephanie it seemed like a blur. She couldn't even remember who was there.

After spending the day together, Charlotte left for Rome the following afternoon, Louise the next day, and Michael on the red-eye to Atlanta that night. It was over. Bill was dead, they had buried him, and their children had gone back to their own lives and worlds, and after she drove Michael to the airport on Thursday night, Stephanie came back to her empty house, sat down on a chair in the entrance hall, and sobbed. She had never felt so alone in her life.

For the next several weeks, Stephanie wandered around her house like a ghost. She lay on her bed for hours, thinking about Bill, wondering what had gone wrong between them, and why. She called her children every day, and it was strange talking to them. They were mourning a father they had never really had. The perfect father, who had always been there for them. Louise even attributed things to him that Stephanie had always done, and Bill never had. It was confusing and upsetting listening to them, and she said as much to Jean when they had lunch three weeks after he died. She looked as though she had lost about ten pounds, and Jean wondered if she had been eating.

“I don't know who we're talking about when I talk to them, or what to say. All those times I covered for him, all the things I did to make him look like a good guy to them, when he was too busy to care what any of us were doing, or even show up. And now suddenly, according to them, he was there at every game, went to every recital and play. Charlotte even told me he used to pick them up at school all the time, and I never did. What am I supposed to say? Do I tell the truth, or leave them their fantasies? I know this sounds crazy, but it even sounds like they're mad at me for being alive, and sorry I'm not the one who died.”

“They're just angry, Steph. And it's safe to take it out on you.”

“Well, I'm not enjoying it a lot. The truth is that he loved them even if he didn't show up. But the reality is he didn't. He didn't show up for me either.” But he had done other things that mattered. He had left her and their children well provided for, with sound investments, a house that had increased in value, a trust for each of the children, and large insurance policies that not only covered the estate taxes but left all three children and her a sizable amount. He had been a responsible person, although he had failed her abysmally as a husband, and had been an absentee father, which no one chose to remember. Jean wasn't surprised.

“That's just the way it works. At least you're all secure. At his age, he might not have done that.” But now Stephanie had to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. She didn't have a clue. And unless she visited her children in their respective cities, she wouldn't see them until Thanksgiving, which was more than eight months away. At least when he was alive, she knew Bill would eventually come home every night and fall into bed beside her, even if they didn't talk to each other. Now she didn't even have that. She had nothing and no one. No one to take care of, or do errands for, or have dinner with on the weekends. And what if she got sick? If something happened to her? Who would be there for her now, or go to the emergency room with her if she got hurt? She felt totally alone. And just trying to say it to Jean made her cry. She hadn't stopped crying in three weeks. She wasn't even sure if she was crying for him, or herself. And she was scared. She suddenly felt so vulnerable.

“The truth is you're the one who always held up the world around here. He didn't. He was always working,” Jean reminded her, to give her back some perspective. Stephanie thought about it for a long moment and then nodded as she blew her nose.

“I guess you're right. That was always my job. But at least I knew he was around. Now he's not.”

“You'll be okay,” Jean reassured her gently. “It's just a big change to get used to. Why don't we all have dinner next week?” she suggested, and Stephanie hesitated, wondering if it would make her feel worse. She didn't feel ready to go out yet. “It would do you good. You can't sit here forever in ratty jeans, waiting for him to come home. He's not going to, Steph. You have to get on with your life.” But it felt too soon to do that. And she was lying awake at night now, thinking about the affair he had had, and how angry she had been at him. And suddenly for no reason, she was angry at him all over again, which made no sense. The affair had been seven years before, and now he was dead. And getting angry at him served no purpose. But she was angry anyway. It was eating at her night and day.

In desperation, after not sleeping for weeks, she finally went back to Dr. Zeller, the therapist she'd seen seven years before, when they first split up after she discovered the affair. The therapist was glad to see her. She had heard about Bill, and read the obituary, and she told Stephanie how sorry she was.

“Thank you,” Stephanie said, looking subdued, as she sat in the familiar chair across from the older woman's desk. She was tired of hearing people tell her how sorry they were about her “loss.” It was such an easy buyout of any real emotion or compassion, and such an infuriatingly trite word. She had said that to Jean too.

“How are you feeling now?” Dr. Zeller asked. It had only been a month since Bill had died at Squaw Valley. It was still hard to believe. Some days she felt as though he'd only been gone for minutes, and at other times as though he'd been gone for years. The kids were still a mess, and singing his praises every chance they got, whenever she called them. And Louise and Charlotte had an edge in their voices whenever they spoke to her. She tried to explain how bad it made her feel.

“Suddenly, he has become perfect, and I'm some sort of bad guy because I'm still alive.”

“It's easier to be angry at you for surviving than at him for dying,” Dr. Zeller said simply. “They'll get their perspective back eventually, but it will take a while. And it's less painful to believe he was perfect than to admit the truth, particularly since that truth can't be changed now. They can't make him a better father, or more interested in them. Now that will never change. They lost the hope of a better relationship with him when he died. They don't want to remember the truth right now.”

“So they need to beat me up,” Stephanie said ruefully, smiling at her.

“Yes, they do.” The therapist smiled back. “What about you? How do
you
feel about him now? How have things been since the affair?”

“It was never the same again. I guess I never forgave him. I thought I had, but now I realize that maybe I didn't. And all of a sudden I'm obsessed with it again. I think about it all the time, and I'm furious with him. It's like it happened yesterday.”

“Your chance to fix that is gone now too,” she reminded her. “Why did you stay with him, Stephanie, if you felt that way?”

“For the kids,” she answered quickly. “Neither of us wanted to break up our family. The girlfriend decided to stay with her husband, so he came back to me, and we both thought it was better for the kids.” She looked mournful as she said it, and felt angry again. It showed in her eyes.

“So you don't think he came back because he wanted to stay married to you and loved you?”

“Not really. If she had left her husband, he would have married her. He wanted to. She was the one who backed out.”

“Did Bill say that to you?” she asked with interest.

“More or less. He didn't have to. He said he wanted to marry her, and the facts spoke for themselves. She stayed with her husband, so he came back to me, and the kids. But he was never really there. We were both kind of dead after that. We went through the motions of being married, but it was never fun again. We never really talked. It never felt real. And once the kids were gone, we talked even less. There was nothing left to say except that the roof was leaking, or someone needed to clean out the garage. We spent almost no time together. He worked all the time, and I kept busy on my own.”

“That doesn't sound like much of a marriage. Why stay after the kids were gone?” Stephanie thought about it for a long moment, and then shook her head.

“I don't know. I guess neither of us wanted the pain of a divorce.”

“But the life you're describing sounds painful to me.”

“I loved him,” Stephanie said, with tears in her eyes. “I just didn't trust him anymore. I never trusted him again. For a long time I thought it would get better, but it never did.”

“Did you ever think about leaving him then?”

“No.”

“What are you going to do now?” It was a good question, one that Stephanie had asked herself a thousand times in the last month. She had found no answers yet.

“I don't know. I'd like to get a job, but I have no idea what to do. Bill left everything organized and all of us very well set. I don't have to work, but I'd like to find something to do. I can't sit alone in the house for the rest of my life.”

“I hope not.” Dr. Zeller glanced at her watch as she said it. Their session had come to an end, and they made an appointment for the following week, although Stephanie didn't think it had really helped. All they had done was discuss the problems she was facing, they had found no solutions, to her anger or her children's, or to how she was going to fill her days and nights now that Bill was gone. She felt even more depressed when she left the therapist's office, and wondered if it was worth bothering to go at all. What difference would it make now? He was dead, no matter how she felt about it.

She let Jean and Alyson talk her into going to dinner with both couples that weekend. She really didn't feel like it, but her friends insisted that she needed to get out. They had discussed it with each other, and they were worried about her. She looked like a zombie and was obviously depressed. She hardly ever left the house. It bothered Jean that Stephanie's kids were so tough on her whenever they spoke, almost as if they blamed her for their father's death.

In the end, Stephanie agreed to have dinner with her friends at a restaurant they all liked. Neither Brad nor Fred had seen her since the funeral and were concerned about her too, from everything their wives had said, although they weren't surprised.

Jean and Fred offered to pick her up in a Bentley Fred had just bought and wanted to show off, but Stephanie said she would meet them at the restaurant, she didn't want to feel like a burden on them. She told Jean she was perfectly capable of driving herself, although she had hardly been out of the house in the past month.

She was surprised at how nervous she was when she dressed for dinner, and told herself she was ridiculous. These were her best friends, and it would be just like old times, which she found made her anxious too. It would feel weird to have dinner with them without Bill. She wore a simple black dress, which hung on her now, and high heels. It was the first time she had worn decent clothes since the funeral, and it felt strange. She washed her hair and blew it dry, and put on makeup, and she was shaking when she got in the car, and scolded herself again.

She was startled, when she got to the restaurant, to realize how noisy it was. She had never noticed it before, and instead of festive, as it usually seemed, it felt oppressive and overwhelming, and she looked pale and strained when she got to the table where the others were waiting for her. The two men were on their feet instantly, and gave her a warm hug. For a fraction of an instant, she thought Brad held her for too long, and Fred looked at her with such obvious pity that it almost made her cry. She kissed Jean and Alyson while fighting back tears, and then sat down. She was about to order a drink, when she realized she had to drive, so she decided not to. The conversation felt strained at first, and finally she relaxed. But for the entire evening, she felt as though she were sitting on the other side of a pane of glass. They were just as they had always been, but they were still couples, and she no longer was. She was a woman alone, even with them. She felt different and separate and inadequate, as though she hadn't brought enough to the table to deserve being there with them. She was only a half, they were whole. She felt like a ghost, and as dead as Bill.

The conversation touched on all the usual subjects, vacations they were planning, worries about their kids, a huge construction project Brad and Alyson were contemplating to add on to their house. Brad said they were exploding at the seams, and it would only get worse as the kids got bigger. And Alyson was distraught because her au pair had quit. Suddenly Stephanie felt like she had nothing in common with the problems they were dealing with, which all seemed superfluous to her. She was just trying to survive from one day to the next, and hanging on by a thread. It was exhausting listening to them, and she felt like she had nothing to add. She had nothing to contribute to the conversation, and Jean could see how uncomfortable she was, and was worried about her.

“Are you okay?” she asked her on the way out, and Stephanie nodded and smiled. “It will be better next time,” she reassured her. “It's bound to feel a little weird at first. We all miss him too.” The Big Six had suddenly become the Big Five, and it felt more like four and a half to Stephanie. She didn't feel like a whole person in their midst. She was just a single woman with nothing to say.

They all agreed to have dinner again soon, and they kissed each other goodbye. Stephanie was relieved when she finally got home, took off her dress, threw it onto a chair, kicked off her heels, and lay down on her bed in her underwear and pantyhose. She had hated every moment of the evening, and felt ill at ease with her old friends. She had felt anxious all night, and wondered if she would feel that way forever now.

Jean called her as soon as they got home. “Look, okay, it's not the same. But this is still new for all of us. Pretty soon you'll feel like you always did with us.” Fred had commented on the way back to Hillsborough that Stephanie hadn't said a word all night, which was almost true.

“No, I won't,” Stephanie said miserably, feeling sorry for herself. “I'm not a couple anymore.” She had lost not only a man but the status and protection that went with it, and a way of relating to people as part of a larger whole. She was different than they were now, and no longer one of them.

“That doesn't change anything. We don't care. You don't have to be a couple to be part of the group. We love you. And you're not going to be alone forever. Sooner or later, there will be someone in your life. At your age, you're not going to be on your own for long. Not the way you look.” Stephanie smiled at the compliment, but she didn't want someone else in her life. Her options now were to be alone forever, or eventually start dating, which sounded horrifying to her. She hadn't dated in twenty-seven years, and she had no desire to start now. “Just take it one day at a time.”