Blue Dahlia

anymore, no matter how much we want it.”
    Luke’s lips trembled. “Is he mad at us?”
    “No. No, no, no, baby. No.” She pressed her face to his hair as her stomach pitched and what was left of her heart throbbed like a wound. “He’s not mad at us. He loves us. He’ll always love us.”
    “He’s dead.” There was fury in Gavin’s voice, rage on his face. Then it crumpled, and he was just a little boy, weeping in his mother’s arms.
    She held them until they slept, then carried them to her bed so none of them would wake alone. As she had countless times before, she slipped off their shoes, tucked blankets around them.
    She left a light burning while she walked—it felt like floating—through the house, locking doors, checking windows. When she knew everything was safe, she closed herself into the bathroom. She ran a bath so hot the steam rose off the water and misted the room.
    Only when she slipped into the tub, submerged herself in the steaming water, did she allow that knot to snap. With her boys sleeping, and her body shivering in the hot water, she wept and wept and wept.
     
    SHE GOT THROUGH IT. A FEW FRIENDS SUGGESTED SHE might take a tranquilizer, but she didn’t want to block the feelings. Nor did she want to have a muzzy head when she had her children to think of.
    She kept it simple. Kevin would have wanted simple. She chose every detail—the music, the flowers, the photographs—of his memorial service. She selected a silver box for his ashes and planned to scatter them on the lake. He’d proposed to her on the lake, in a rented boat on a summer afternoon.
    She wore black for the service, a widow of thirty-one, with two young boys and a mortgage, and a heart so broken she wondered if she would feel pieces of it piercing her soul for the rest of her life.
    She kept her children close, and made appointments with a grief counselor for all of them.
    Details. She could handle the details. As long as there was something to do, something definite, she could hold on. She could be strong.
    Friends came, with their sympathy and covered dishes and teary eyes. She was grateful to them more for the distraction than the condolences. There was no condolence for her.
    Her father and his wife flew up from Memphis, and them she leaned on. She let Jolene, her father’s wife, fuss over her, and soothe and cuddle the children, while her own mother complained about having to be in the same room as that woman.
    When the service was over, after the friends drifted away, after she clung to her father and Jolene before their flight home, she made herself take off the black dress.
    She shoved it into a bag to send to a shelter. She never wanted to see it again.
    Her mother stayed. Stella had asked her to stay a few days. Surely under such circumstances she was entitled to her mother. Whatever friction was, and always had been, between them was nothing compared with death.
    When she went into the kitchen, her mother was brewing coffee. Stella was so grateful not to have to think of such a minor task, she crossed over and kissed Carla’s cheek.
    “Thanks. I’m so sick of tea.”
    “Every time I turned around that woman was making more damn tea.”
    “She was trying to help, and I’m not sure I could’ve handled coffee until now.”
    Carla turned. She was a slim woman with short blond hair. Over the years, she’d battled time with regular trips to the surgeon. Nips, tucks, lifts, injections had wiped away some of the years. And left her looking whittled and hard, Stella thought.
    She might pass for forty, but she’d never look happy about it.
    “You always take up for her.”
    “I’m not taking up for Jolene, Mom.” Wearily, Stella sat. No more details, she realized. No more something that has to be done.
    How would she get through the night?
    “I don’t see why I had to tolerate her.”
    “I’m sorry you were uncomfortable. But she was very kind. She and Dad have been married for, what, twenty-five years or so now. You ought to be used to it.”
    “I don’t like having her in my face, her and that twangy voice. Trailer trash.”
    Stella opened her mouth, closed it again. Jolene hadn’t come from a trailer park and was certainly not trash. But what good would it do to say so? Or to remind her mother that she’d been the one who’d wanted a divorce, the one to leave the marriage. Just as it wouldn’t do any good to point out that Carla had been married twice since.
    “Well, she’s gone