The General (Professionals 4)

“Craft store or Marshall’s?” he asked as we loaded up the bed of his truck, him pulling a cover over it all to ensure everything would make it home safely.

“Marshall’s,” I decided solely because it was on the same side of the highway. I found I was equally excited about all the options. And as each moment passed, the tension of the morning and the uncertainty of the night before lessened, became background noise.

“They have teacups,” I announced loudly, making a few women in the housewares section turn, brows raised, lips only quirking when Smith called back from two aisles over. “With saucers,” I added with emphasis, finding myself unusually charmed by their delicate design and feminine patterns. They were something Teddy never would have allowed in the house. And I suddenly found myself wanting to fill it with. The sheets I bought for the bed earlier had flowers on them. Pink and yellow flowers.

“Well, then you have to get some, right?” Smith called back, and maybe it was crazy to say, but I could have sworn I could hear the smile he had on right then.

“That man right there is a keeper,” an older woman in the same aisle as me declared with a firm nod, like she knew from experience what it was like to have a man veto everything you wanted. And, well, I knew how that felt too. And Smith’s amusement over all my little selections did, indeed, make him a keeper.

Just not for me.

It wasn’t like that.

Even if I wanted it to be.

“Indeed,” I agreed, giving her a smile because I wanted to sell her the fantasy. Sometimes, that was the kindest thing you could do for someone else. It was probably why I picked up that book with the happy couple on the cover. The fantasy. The happily ever after. The things life had pounded into me that I simply could not have.

“What’s with the dark cloud?” Smith asked, finding me a moment later, the cup still perched in my hand, but I was looking through it, lost in my own head again – a land so barren and empty of promises that I wasn’t sure why I was so adamant about visiting as often as I did.

“I can’t pick,” I said instead of answering, picking up the pink, white, and gold floral cup that didn’t have the saucer, but was equally as cute. “This one without the saucer probably holds more tea though.”

“Sweetheart, it’s not like you don’t have the space to store two extra cups. Get both.”

And it really was that simple.

We left when my cart was full of jeans, yoga pants, sweatpants, socks, t-shirts, long sleeve tees, sweatshirts. Comfortable clothes. The kind I wore as a girl. Clothes that would be a little more forgiving at my newfound appetite.

The only section I skipped was the intimates. Because, quite plainly, I liked that one indulgence. Overpriced lingerie. Priced so high because it felt buttery smooth on the skin, because they were actual works of art in the painstaking, flawless details.

The back of Smith’s truck was near to bursting after we took a trip to the drive-through, then finally made it to the craft store.

I’d been inside countless times, picking up little things I could get back in the house in my purse, not wanting Teddy to say anything, not wanting the staff to report it.

Seeming to sense this mental process, whenever Smith saw my eyes land on anything for longer than a passing glance, he pulled it off the shelf and threw it into my cart. When I’d tried to object, he had reminded me that if I was going to try to start my business, that I needed all my supplies on hand. I needed to be efficient and organized. And a whole bunch of other B.S. that I just stopped fighting it. He made it sound like I was going to be selling thousands of pieces of jewelry a month. I didn’t tell him, but I would be over the moon if I sold a dozen total. Or got rid of the stock I already had. I didn’t have any high expectations, but I also had no reason to nitpick over a couple of dollars either.

It wasn’t until we got back to the house and he handed me the garment bag holding my dress that I felt pulled out of this dream – a floaty fake reality we had been inside for the afternoon.

“It’s just a day, Jenny,” he reminded me, seeing the way my smile fell as the bag lay over my arm. “Just one more day of putting on a show. Then this is all over.”

I wanted to say there was no just about a funeral, that I had no idea how I was going to fake tears yet again, that I had no idea what I was supposed to say to people offering me their condolences, how I was going to find a single happy story to say at the service afterward like everyone else likely could.