Page 79 of The Butcher's Wife

“We have a punching bag upstairs.”

I don’t know if it’s the exhaustion or the pain throbbing over my body, but right now, I just want to agree with her. “I can do that. What if I have to leave, anyway?”

She thinks for a moment in the center of our silent kitchen. “Then you should kiss me before you go.”

“Even if we’re fighting?”

“Especially when we’re fighting.”

My chest squeezes, and I kiss the top of her head. “Anything else,reginetta?”

“I’m going to fix things with Neil, because I want to and because I can. Can you let me do that on my own?”

All I have to do is squeeze her and listen to her talk? Sure as hell beats getting punched in the face.

I huff a laugh. “Yeah.”

“Then let’s get you cleaned up.”

She’s more patient than I deserve as she follows my slow, geriatric ass up the stairs to the master bathroom. I fall back against the bathroom counter and build up the will to undress for a shower while she starts the water. If I hadn’t been watching her so closely, I would’ve missed it—her shoulders bunching and a tight smile as she turns back to me.

“You wanna talk about that?” I ask, nodding toward the water raining down behind the glass door.

Her smile turns into a grimace. “What do you mean?”

I suppress a groan as I reach for the hem of my shirt and tug it off. I drop my hand against the bathroom counter so my body language is as open and relaxed as I can make it. “I mean, you crying in the shower every morning. I can hear you through the walls.”

She sucks in her cheeks, her eyes shining with sudden tears. I can hear the old Annetta, the one who was trained never to be a problem for others, when she whispers, “Oh, sorry.”

“Why don’t we try out that new support thing now?” I extend my arm out to her, and it’s a minor victory when she comes willingly, tucking herself against my naked chest. “Do you want to tell me how you’re feeling?”

“Mostly good,” she murmurs. Her arm circles around my waist, tightening against a massive new bruise that I don’t say shit about. If this is what she says she needs from me,then I’m going to do a good fucking job of it. “I like when you’re around.”

The implication—butwhen you leave—stings. I swallow down any protests.

“And then, sometimes, I feel bad. Really, truly awful, like I’ve gotten hit by a truck, and the only thing I can do is breathe through the pain and lie there. The worst part is that sometimes I can feel it coming on, and I let myself get like that on purpose. For some reason, when I feel like total garbage, that’s when I feel closest to her.”

I know what I’m supposed to say.

I’m so sorry for your loss. You should never say that. Serafina would want you to be happy.

But I’m not a stranger to grief. When I lost Turi’s brother Matteo years ago, it felt like losing one of my own brothers. Sometimes the worst of that time was when the people who didn’t get it acted like they did. You get tired of hearing the same thing over and over again from someone who doesn’t really care and wants you to stop bumming them out.

Sometimes, though, you meet another person who understands all too well what you’re going through, and talking to them helps you feel less alone. They’re a part of the special grief club, too, the one none of us asked to be a part of and none of us gets to leave.

I kiss the top of her head and squeeze her against me, ignoring the pain in my side. “Do you want comfort or truth?”

She laughs bitterly, her breath puffing over my chest. “Can’t I get both?”

“Of course you can. You already know the truth—this kind of pain isn’t going away. People say shit like ‘time heals all wounds’, but this isn’t the kind of wound that can heal. This will be more like learning to live after your arm gothacked off. Eventually, the people around you will get used to it, but for you, it will never be normal. It’ll just be something you learn to manage, five years from now and forty years from now.”

“So it won’t get easier?” she asks in a miserable voice, barely audible over the shower.

“It will, but that’s because you start to forget. The shitty part is that forgetting will bring a whole new cycle of pain and guilt.”

She sniffles. “And the comfort?”

“There’s no wrong way to go about this. You can try to be strong or let yourself be weak. We can do distractions, or we can talk about it every day. You do whatever you feel like until you can stand on your own two feet.”