Tapestry Ch. 01

Nichole kissed me one more time and then went out to face her day.

When she returned, I was waiting for her.

Naked.

******************

I lay there watching Nichole sleep until she stirred. Her sandy blonde hair had fallen over her face and I brushed it away. She looked so peaceful. We were both naked and the air-conditioned room seemed a little brisk. That didn't bother me, mind you; it gave me an excuse to cuddle up close to her under the nice down comforter.

Somehow, we had both managed to find a way to sneak away for a long Labor Day weekend at a little bread and breakfast in upstate New York. Maureen was back at school and my days were made up of working, volunteering for my favourite charities and trying to figure out where my new relationship was going.

After our first trip away, Nichole and I had found two other occasions to get together. She was traveling a lot for business, trying to find tenants to rent retail space in the building she owned on Central Park West. Being basically retired, I could go pretty much anywhere at any time. We got together in Boston for a couple of days one week when she didn't have her nine year-old son, and she had made arrangements for him to stay with her folks over Labor Day.

We were both tentative at first. Me because I had never really thought of pursuing a relationship after my wife McKayla died almost six years ago. Nichole because she had never been in with another woman before me.

What neither of us could deny was that there was the mutual attraction between us. I don't think I was in love with her, at least not then. I didn't feel the kind of insatiable burning desire that I felt from the first moment I met McKayla, nor did I know, right then, that I would give Nichole my heart and soul without reservation. Still, she made my heart skip a beat when we kissed, and I missed feeling her close to me when we were apart.

Complicating matters was the long-distance nature of our relationship. She lived in New York. I lived at the beach. We were both well-established where we were. Mobility was less of an issue for me, but I had spent the last two decades of my life in my house and I really didn't feel like giving that up. She had lived her entire life in Manhattan and had a school-age child to consider. Of course, that was assuming that we were going to pursue a long-term relationship.

That was the furthest thing from my mind right then. After McKayla died, I never had a rebound. I just went on with my life, which centered around our daughter. Now that she was out of the house, it was nice to think about me for a change. If I would have allowed myself to think on my relationship with Nichole as something more than a weekend together here or there . . . well, that was a discussion for a later time.

As things were, I was just happy to fall asleep and wake up with another person in my arms.

The first couple of times we were together, I think being with a woman was awkward for Nichole, but what she lacked in technique, she made up for with enthusiasm and a fair amount of natural talent. I loved that she didn't seem to be in a rush of any kind when it came to our relationship, either in a physical or emotional sense.

We spent a lot of time just kissing and making out. She never seemed to be racing to get into bed, but nor was she timid. A part of me reveled in the excitement of a new lover. The chase, the seduction, the exploration. Those were things I missed very much.

At the same time, she wasn't smothering or overbearing. Nichole seemed to enjoy my company, but I never got the feeling that she spent her time in New York pining away for me. We communicated a lot by text and email, and called one another a couple of times a week.

For my part, I was just happy to find a kindred soul of sorts. After all, we were both widows. We were both financially secure and neither of us needed to have someone else in our lives. It was a nice place to be.

My hand brushed her cheek and she smiled contentedly. She rolled on to her side and into my arms. Her head fell on to my shoulder.

Her warm breath brushed my skin. I kissed her forehead and drifted off, our bodies intertwined.

******************

"I think Emily is going to come home with me."

I smiled. If Emily was coming, her parents probably were, too.

Maureen was going to be home from school for a long weekend. A long weekend that included what would have been McKayla's and my nineteenth "wedding" anniversary. We were never legally married; two decades ago, that wasn't an option. We presented ourselves as a couple and raised our daughter in a household that was more loving than the kind many kids with heterosexual parents have.

For years, it always pissed me off when straight couples would get a divorce, apparently not realising how lucky they were to have all of the legal entitlements and responsibilities that comes will being married to the person you love more than anything. As I got older, my feelings mellowed. Legal or not, my marriage to McKayla was before God and our friends, and my love for her knew neither bounds nor limits.

She died shortly after our thirteenth anniversary, but every year after that, I did something to celebrate the day, even if it was just with our daughter.

A part of me wanted to spend the day alone, moping and brooding. It was pretty much the one day per year of self-pity I allowed myself. Having Maureen and our dear friends Kevin and Melanie Westcott plus their kids at home would be a pleasant diversion, if only for a few days.

"That's great," I said. "I'll fix up the guest rooms."

"Thanks, Mommy," she said. "I'll see you on Friday. I love you."

"I love you, too, Pumpkin."

They ended up arriving late on Thursday night. Duke is about a five hour drive and they left right after getting out of class. I was in bed, but I heard the garage door open and close (it's a mom thing), voices in the kitchen, and then the house got quiet again at about half past midnight.

When I went out the next morning, I found that all of the cushions had disappeared from the couches. They had somehow found their way into Maureen's room where they had been made into a giant blanket fort. I peeked my head and saw my guests were still sleeping, so I closed the door and went back down the hallway before I allowed myself to have a good laugh.

In many ways, Maureen can be as silly and whimsical as her mother (and I don't mean me), and I knew that she would always have my wife's impish grin and mischievous giggle.

The kids emerged from the bedroom at about ten o'clock, which was earlier than I had expected. I had watched Emily Westcott grow up from when she was about seven years old, which was when her mom and stepfather got married. Kevin was McKayla's best friend and roommate from college. Melanie had a son who was two years younger than Emily, and was a senior in high school. Kevin and Melanie had another son together shortly after getting married and the five of them have been among the dearest friends anyone could ask for.

I gave Emily a big, motherly hug. In some ways, she was a second daughter to McKayla and me. Like Maureen, she was smart, mischievous and beautiful. And like my daughter, she had gotten in to Duke, which was where her mother had gone to school and was right up the road from where they had grown up in Raleigh. The two of them lived together in an off-campus apartment they shared with a pair of twins, David and Isabel Thompson. All four were good kids. Aside from the usual college life, each was on the dean's list and they all seemed to have the world at their feet.

A part of me expected Maureen to bring a boy home one weekend, but so far, that hadn't happened. When she was in high school, Maureen never dated much. Part of it was that she spent a lot of time studying. I think she knew from the time her mom was first diagnosed with cancer, she wanted to be a doctor, and like her mom, when she decides she's going to do something, she never half-asses it. Not only was she going to medical school, but she was going to get into the best one on God's Green Earth. Duke was always her first choice, I think mostly because it was close, but if Harvard, Columbia or Johns Hopkins had come calling, she'd have gone there in a heartbeat. And she knew that she needed to get high test scores and grades to get in to any of those.

That's not to say that she didn't have a life in high school, but school was always her first priority. She graduated at the top of her class, and I believe—although she never admitted it to me—she was truly pissed off that she "only" got a 35 on the ACT.

Just like her mom, our daughter always had a lot of friends, although she only had a handful with whom she was really close. She dated a couple of boys, but none seriously. We talked frankly and openly about a lot of things, including drinking, drugs and sex. I let her and a few of her friends drink at my house on occasion provided that they turned their keys over to me at the beginning of the night, never left and showed me exactly what it was they were in too. To the best of my knowledge, she smoked pot a couple of times, but never did any harder drugs or popped pills.

When she was fifteen, one of her best friends got pregnant. We talked about being sexually active and I offered to put her on the pill. She declined at the time, although one day when she was seventeen, she asked to go on birth control. I took her to the doctor that afternoon and got her started, no questions asked. I also made sure there were always condoms at the house for both her and her friends.

I didn't want to be the permissive parent who let their kid do whatever the hell she wanted, but I was realistic enough to understand that my daughter was going to find a way to do thing things I may not approve of whether I liked it or not. So I made up my mind that I was going to put her in the position to make the best choices possible, and that she fully comprehended the consequences of fucking things up.

All in all, Maureen was a pretty good kid. She was too smart for her own good, but she didn't talk back much, generally did what I asked her to, stayed out of trouble and at 19 years old, was well on her way to becoming the world's leading oncologist.

I cooked up a good, old-fashioned southern breakfast of eggs, bacon, hotcakes, biscuits and sausage gravy. The pair spent the rest of the day hanging out on the deck and in the hot tub.

Kevin and Melanie showed up right before dinner. Their sons Toby and Anthony had stayed at home. Apparently, they had football games they didn't want to miss and Toby was old enough to babysit his brother for a weekend.

We put salmon and steaks on the grill and had a nice big meal with the five of us. We stayed up late talking as old friends do. My friends made me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. Kevin and I chased the girls around the house with the Nerf dart guns that were seemingly hidden in every nook, cranny and cabinet as Melanie soaked in the jacuzzi. The girls got into the digital picture frames and spent hours scrolling back through a lifetime's worth of photos, giggling at their fashions from middle school and recalling funny vacation stories from all of our years together.

About halfway through the night, Nichole called via Facetime and for a little while, there were six of us talking and chatting away. I excused myself for a few minutes to have some alone time with my lover.

"I wish I was there with you," she lamented.

"Me, too," I said, and truly I meant it.

"Maybe you can come up to New York in a couple of weeks," Nichole suggested. "I want you to meet my family."

I drew in a sharp breath. "Are you sure?"

She only smiled. "Yes. . . I think so."

"You can't 'think' about it, Nichole." I didn't mean to lecture her, but this was something very serious. "Once you're 'out', you're 'out' for good."

"I know." She smiled. "And yes, I want you to meet my family. Now go back to your friends. We'll talk later."

"Good night, honey." I blew her a kiss through the iPad camera.

She winked and closed the window.

The others gave me a good ribbing. Melanie even dug into her purse and made a big show out of giving a hundred dollar bill to Maureen. "You were so right about your mother and Nichole, Reenie. Now we're even."

I just rolled my eyes.

There were kisses all around and I hit the sack right before one o'clock.

When I went to bed, I didn't feel quite so lonely. As much as I missed my wife's touch, when her friends were around, it was like she was there with us. I fell asleep cuddled up against a wall of pillows and under the heavy comforter.

******************

The next day started out as a quiet one for me. I was the first one up. Melanie joined me out on the deck with a cup of coffee as Kevin cooked up some breakfast. We didn't see the girls until about noon.

I suggested going somewhere for dinner, but Kevin told me that plans were already made and all I had to do was show up. I just shrugged, and a part of me was happy to not have to think about entertaining my guests. I was also eternally thankful for having such supportive friends who I knew were thinking not only about the mother and friend they had lost, but me as well.

My brother Ander and sister Brin both called. Both had made generous donations to the local Hospice House in McKayla's name. Even Maureen's father Travis made a point to send me a nice message via Facebook.

After the girls emerged from Maureen's bedroom, Melanie packed the four of us went out to the local spa for a girls's afternoon of pampering. It was just before dinner when we got home and Melanie rushed to get me dressed. Kevin had disappeared and would be meeting us where ever it was we were going.

I was not surprised that we ended up at the little Italian restaurant which had been "our spot". It was where we went on our first date, and where we celebrated birthdays and anniversaries and graduations and everything else. The couple who own the place are some of the nicest people on the planet and always went out of their way to accommodate anything we ever asked for.

What did surprise me was that they had closed the open air section of the restaurant for our little group. It was a garden area in the center of the building, giving it the feel of a little Italian villa. Usually they had eight or ten tables set up along with a bar, but tonight there was just one big elliptical table, and as we were escorted to our table, I could tell other guests were ticked off that the prime seating was all taken.

Kevin was already there; I later found out this was something he and Maureen had cooked up. McKayla's parents Don and Suzie were also seated and waiting for us. I gave them each a warm embrace. Over the last two decades they have been nothing but completely supportive of McKayla and me. My own parents had both died before I graduated from high school and Don and Suzie filled that role in my adult life. I even called them "Mom" and "Dad".

Like my other friends, they had spent the last six years trying to fix me up on dates with friends and acquaintances, going so far as to scold me in a familial way for not moving on after a couple of years to find happiness with another person.

In the center of one of the long sides of the table was a single red rose in a small vase centered on a single plate. I knew this was to be McKayla's seat. I sat to the left of the empty chair and Maureen sat on the right. The others filled in four of the other five seats.

"Who else is coming?" I asked Maureen.

She only winked.

"That would be me." The voice behind me made my heart skip a beat.

I turned and saw Nichole. She walked over and gave me a familiar, if formal hug. She kissed me on the cheek but then quickly pulled away. I was at a loss for words.

Fortunately, Melanie quickly took over. "Everyone, this is Nichole Galloway. She's a good friend of mine . . . and Amberle's."

My friend introduced her to everyone, who received her enthusiastically. Privately, I feared introducing anyone new to my daughter and McKayla's parents, but that had apparently been taken out of my hands. I didn't know quite how I felt about that right then.

Nichole took a place across from me, between Kevin and Don.

The servers simply started bringing food. We had been coming here so often, the owners knew exactly what we liked and soon the table was filled with calamari and mozzarella and bruschetta and carpaccio and steamed mussels and anything else you could think of.

After the introductions, neither Maureen nor McKayla's parents turned the conversation to Nichole, which was a relief to me.

I knew from experience that if Alan and Marissa wanted to make a big production out of a meal, they were going to. The first wave of food was quickly followed by a second, and then a third. The portions were all small, but it seemed like they were cooking the entire menu for our table.

Don and Suzie asked Maureen and Emily about school. Melanie dispensed investment advice. I tried not to make eyes at the woman sitting across from me.

At a lull in the conversation, Nichole spoke up. "So, tell me about McKayla."

It could have been taken as awkward, but no one took it that way. We were out to celebrate our anniversary, and we would have eventually gotten around to talking about her at some point, even if Nichole wasn't with us.

"She was the smartest, prettiest, funniest girl in the world," Kevin started, and I could see him smile at the memory. "We were roommates in college . . ."

Throughout the rest of the meal, everyone shared their stories of McKayla with Nichole. We broke out our iPads and smartphones and even some old-fashioned pictures (remember those?). Nichole seemed to soak it all in.

For the rest of us, it was a new, wonderful experience. The first couple of years after she died, we always talked about McKayla with sadness and loss in our voices. As time went on, the feeling changed to fond, nostalgic remembrances. But there was always this undercurrent of, "what might have been" hanging over us.

This time, we were sharing our beloved daughter, wife, mother and friend with someone who never knew her. Where there had always been grief underlying our feelings before, on that night, laughter rang throughout the patio. We recounted stories and relived memories in what truly became a celebration of the life of the person symbolised by the empty plate to my right. And in a way, it was like she was there, laughing along with the rest of us.

Don and Suzie even told us a couple of new stories that they had forgotten over the years, like the first time he took her sailing and they capsized their small boat, when she pitched a no-hitter for the boys' Little League team and the first time she had asked why one squirrel was climbing all over another squirrel in the backyard.

When it was time for the main course, the servers brought out several dishes and served them family-style, so everyone could get a little bit of something.

Except for one plate, which Alan brought out personally. The owner of the restaurant gently set the rose to the side and placed the dish at the empty place. The crab-stuff lobster was steaming hot, served in a heavy cream sauce over a bed of risotto and asparagus.

It was McKayla's favourite meal, which they had intended to be a short-term special. She loved it so much that if they knew we were coming, Alan and Marissa would order the ingredients just to make it for her. It hadn't been on the menu for many years.

Alan said nothing, but leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek and squeezed my hand, as I wiped the tears from my eyes. Like Nichole, he also knew what it meant to lose a spouse, and in the weeks and months and years after McKayla's death, he and his new bride had always been there for me and Maureen in whatever ways they could.