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“Then why can’t you talk to him?”

I didn’t know if she meant asking him for photos or talking to him about what had happened between. “Because,” I said, the words suddenly choking me.

“Because he’s not Joe.”

Reese didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Mich, no one is.”

But she didn’t understand what I meant. My throat was thick from the pain of the words pressing at the top of my mouth. It wasn’t that he couldn’t live up to Joe. It was something else, something even harder.

But I couldn’t say all that. I couldn’t even say it to myself.

“I’ll figure it out,” I said. “I gotta go.”

“Mich—”

I hung up before she could say anything else.

I was just going to have to step up the posts even more. That was all there was to it. Things had been getting better; I was generating more income, if only a trickle. I could do this. Never mind that last week I’d told Reese it was like pulling teeth. That I’d been breaking my back posting more often, taking more photos, trying new recipes, and I’d only inched up in revenue. It wasn’t enough.

But I couldn’t call Will.

You’re doing it again.

I sucked in air. I hadn’t heard his voice in a few days. A week actually.

I know. I know I am.

You know I’m dead, right?

I could have laughed.

You don’t say, Joe?

Calling him won’t hurt me.

My chest seized.

It’ll hurt me, Joe. Won’t it?

But Joe wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t.

Impulsively, I threw my phone down on the table suddenly furious. When it thunked against the wood I sucked in a breath. What was I doing? I couldn’t afford a new phone if it broke, and I needed it for the blog.

As I tapped the screen, saying a silent prayer I hadn’t cracked it, a photo memory came up. Reese, making pizza with the girls last summer.

Pizza. That was it. The girls and I would make pizza and the blog readers would love it. It would be a hit and everything would be solved.

It had to be.

* * *

Homemade pizzawith the girls was always a hit, both at home and on the blog. Tonight, I’d spent all evening perfecting shots of the dough-making process, the slow-cooked tomato sauce, and the various toppings. I’d caramelized onions and roasted red peppers. Meanwhile, Macy kept trying to stick pepperoni on her nose and Emma ate more cheese than she was sprinkling on the pie. It was cute, but was it cute enough? There had to be more I could do to make the post pop. Once it was finally in the oven, I left the girls with some coloring at the kitchen table, delaying clean-up for now in favor of setting up the studio equipment I rarely used.

Joe would say I was getting frenzied; digging my hole deeper while clinging to my stubborn refusal to do the thing I really should do. But Joe didn’t understand. He never did. My doggedness—my relentless refusal to give up was what had kept us going when he went to that dark place after his diagnosis. It’s what got him back on his feet, wanting to help and do good before he left rather than wallowing in self-pity. Because that’s what he was doing, when he died. Good.

My stubbornness would see us through now.