I sat at the table where Daniel and I had eaten countless breakfasts, holding a cup of coffee gone cold and staring at the empty chair across from me. It had been a month since my husband’s funeral, and the house still smelled of him.
I’m Eleanor, 50, and I don’t know how to be a person who isn’t his wife yet.
Daniel and I first met when we were both 20, skipping college classes on the same Tuesday, on October 30 years ago. We ended up on the same hill overlooking the same river. It was a lifetime ago, but I can still see the way the light hit the water.
The house still smelled of him.
I sat three feet away from this boy I’d never spoken to, and for 20 minutes, neither of us said a word. We just watched the water.
Then Daniel looked over at me with the most ordinary face in the world.