Chapter 4 - The Husband I Buried

Now

I clenched the cold metal of the keys in my fist, glad to have a reason to get out of there. It was way too early in the morning for creepy neighbors and home invasions.

I stifled a yawn. It wasn’t just the break-in that had interrupted my sleep the night before. I hadn’t slept well in months. First, there was adjusting to a new town, a new home, and the life Luis and I had wanted to build together.

Then, in an instant, it was all gone. I was a widow, living in this big house alone. I went from having the perfect life – a job I loved, marrying the man of my dreams and buying our dream home – to whatever this new normal was.

I wasn’t really a part of my old life anymore. My old friends in Boston were happy making plans without me. Last-minute get-togethers where no one had to wait for me to arrive thirty minutes behind everyone else, and spontaneous drinks after work.

And it wasn’t just my social life. Things that used to matter – my cases, my book collection – now felt flat, like noise without texture. My career at Jackson & Morgan, once the prize I’d bled for, that I’d built with my senior partner Elizabeth Jackson, now rang hollow. Even a courtroom victory, something I’d once lived for, left me cold. Maybe I’d lost my edge.

The truth is, I’d been feeling that way before Luis died. Ever since we moved to Charlesville. The only person who had stuck around was Jess. No one else had time to make the trip out of the city.

It was only after everything had already fallen apart that I’d found a small community to lean on, but a grief support group wasn’t exactly the social circle I’d imagined when I agreed to this move.

Jessica would say I was depressed. That I needed time to adjust to life without Luis. But I suspected something else. Maybe I’d needed that holiday we had been planning together before the crash more than I realized. Maybe I still did.

A trip down the coast. To sunshine and lazy strolls along the shore. Before he died, Luis had been trying to plan it, waiting for a lull in my workload so we could spend some time together that didn’t involve sitting in the same room clicking away on laptop keys, barely talking.

We had even been planning on getting a dog. After finally settling on a beagle, we discovered there was a long wait list. Luis was disappointed.

Maybe he knew death was coming, that he didn’t have time to wait.

Apparently, some people can sense when the end is near. They take care of unfinished business, say their goodbyes.

But that doesn’t happen with sudden, violent deaths like Luis’s.

I hadn’t counted on our days being numbered. He left for work that morning the same way he always did. But he didn’t come home. He was erased in seconds on a stretch of asphalt. I had taken what we had for granted, and now it was gone.

In my dreams, I heard it: the crunch of metal, glass shattering, the desperate twist of the wheel. A last attempt to change a trajectory that was already set in motion. I pictured his final moments, imagining how he felt. I wasn’t there, but in the middle of the night, it felt so real.

I obsessed over what could have changed the outcome of the crash.

Did he think of me in those final moments? Did he see my face before everything went black?

They said it would have been quick, but I played it over and over again, wondering how things could have been different. If there was a fraction of a second when he could’ve eased off the brakes, whether it could’ve ended any other way.

The ache was worse than any physical pain. I’d give anything now to tell him I loved him one more time – not in the casual, rushed way I once did, but in a way that clawed at my chest now to think of it. There would never be another Luis in my life. I couldn’t imagine opening my heart to someone again.

I took a deep breath and continued past my car. The train wasn’t far. I could walk it in a few minutes.

My phone beeped. Carl, probably checking to see when I’d be in.

Hey, is everything OK? Should I send through the new file?

Shit. I picked up my pace and didn’t reply. Slowing down now would only make me later than I already was.

I flicked on Final Justice – my favorite legal podcast – while I walked, and listened to lawyers debating criminal law. Today they were discussing whether a fair trial was possible when the media had painted a defendant guilty before the first court date. Usually, I’d talk out loud, answering a host that couldn’t hear me. ‘Any publicity is good publicity. Once people know your name and get to know you a little, there’s more opportunity to see that you could be innocent.’ But not in public.

I’d always preferred to see the guilty go free than let the innocent suffer. Prison destroys people. Ostracizes them. It makes the lines between right and wrong nearly impossible to see. In prison, you learned to survive by doing what you needed to do.

A new meeting invite hit my calendar. Carl had set up a consult with the new client later this afternoon.

I tried not to notice the date on my calendar screen. Four months. Today marked exactly four months since Luis died. Would there ever be a day when that gap wouldn’t feel like a chasm? It didn’t seem like it. The grief still felt like salt in an open wound, and I kept piling it on, thinking about him even when it hurt, just so I wouldn’t forget.

I was getting dangerously close to the expected end of my grieving period, where people would expect me to get it together and move on, like I hadn’t lost the love of my life.

I readjusted the satchel on my shoulder, containing everything I needed for a long day: documents, snacks, and a stack of work I needed to get through.

It was the middle of the week, and I’d been living off snack lunches since Monday. I needed some real food.

I stopped and looked for cars before crossing the road. Charlesville was nice. Bougie. The streets were clean. It had charm, and there were plenty of places to get fresh groceries. Boutique clothing shops had beautiful outfits. But it seemed to exist in its own little bubble.

It wasn’t home, and I didn’t love it the way everyone else who lived here seemed to.

At least the train ride gave me a chance to breathe and reset. But today it would take something more than that. Today, I couldn’t stop thinking about Greg and his strange warning. Maybe thinking about something else was a way to forget about Luis.

Suddenly, I realized what I needed to get through the morning.

Coffee.

A few steps past the station, I turned into Bodhi’s, an organic coffee shop off the main strip. The smell of roasting beans hit me as I reached the door. It had opened just after we moved to Charlesville. It was Luis’s favorite.