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into the car and out of there.
    More cars were at my house, more people offering sympathy. I wanted to tell them to fuck off.
    Jo parked the car. I climbed out and tried to walk up to the house, but instead I sank to the snow drifted on the side of the driveway. All of the sobs that hadn’t come when I’d been touching my husband’s embalmed body came ripping out with a vengeance. Jo was at my side again in an instant and she was sobbing too, trying to help me up, but like a petulant, inconsolable child I curled in the snow, wrapping my arms around my head. I wasn’t sure if the horrible, choking sounds were coming from my throat or from my sister’s. The snow froze my body, but I welcomed it, wanted it. I wanted to freeze. The early evening cast long, blue-gray shadows all across the driveway.
    â€œHelp me,” my sister was pleading.
    Strong arms came around me, lifting me up. Dodge , I thought. I tried to fight away, but there was no strength left in me. I buried my face behind my forearms and felt as though something had broken inside of me, cracked or split, releasing a hellacious floodgate of sobs.
    My heart , I realized.
    â€œBring her to her room,” Gran was saying, holding open the front door.
    He carried me down the basement steps, where the roar of voices in the living room was blessedly muted. I was deposited with great care onto my bed, the room dim in the encroaching evening. Blindly I reached for my husband’s pillow and pulled it against my face. Seconds later Jo was lying down behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist, fitting her body to mine. I didn’t know how much time passed before I calmed. Jo stroked my hair and murmured to me until drowsiness began to weight my eyelids. I whispered, “Where’s Clint?” through a throat that felt lacerated.
    â€œHe’s at the café with Mom,” Jo reassured me. “She took him over there earlier today. He’s just fine, Jilly. He’s all right.”
    I put my forearms over hers, clinging to her. Jo pressed her face against my back and held tightly. I had the irrational sensation that if she let go, I would die. I whispered, “Thank you for bringing me down here. I’m sorry…I’m sorry I freaked out.”
    â€œDon’t apologize,” she whispered. “Jilly, don’t. And Justin carried you down here, not me. I couldn’t get you out of the snowdrift. Thank goodness he was here.”
    But I’d exhausted all of my words. With Jo holding me, I slept.
    ***
    Chris’s service was the next day, a Sunday, two days after he’d drowned. Early that morning I’d stood before the mirror in our tiny basement bathroom and spread my hair long over my shoulders. Joelle, who’d been staying with me, was still asleep in my bed; I couldn’t sleep unless her arms were locked around me. I ran my fingers through my hair, imagining Chris doing the same. I brushed it slowly, carefully to a gloss before neatly braiding it, drawing it over my left shoulder. It was so long these days; I hadn’t cut it since our wedding.
    The scissors on the counter were the sharpest in the house, wickedly long-bladed. I clutched my braid in one fist and lifted the shears in the other. For a moment, looking into my own eyes, which looked like burn holes in a white sheet, I considered jamming the blades into my wrist and then tearing a long wound. I’d watch the blood rise up and then cover the bathroom floor in a crimson rush. I fantasized about it for awhile. Maybe I could jam them into my neck, my soft pale neck. Then this misery would end, and I wouldn’t have to think about facing the rest of my life alone.
    But I wasn’t alone. I was a mother. It was selfish and cowardly to even imagine killing myself. But I did imagine it, in vivid detail. When the scissors snipped I shuddered a little, but they cut through my thick blond braid easily. My remaining hair was shaggy