Chapter 20: The Blue Pen

The fourth anniversary of her husband's death fell on a Sunday, and the sky for once had no rain in it.

Missy woke at five with a hand flat against his side of the bed.

It was cold and smooth, as it had been every morning for four years.

She did not wake the others, who were tangled together on the living room floor.

She put on her coat and walked up the cliff path alone.

The cabin was dark.

She had a key, and she used it, which felt wrong, and she did it anyway.

Inside, it smelled of the woodstove and four men's shampoo.

His desk stood under the window, exactly where he had left it.

Hyunjin had drawn on a sheet of paper and put it in a frame beside the lamp, and Missy looked at it for a long time.

It was her doorway, with a cat on the shoulder.

She sat down in his chair.

The blue pen lay on the blotter, where nobody had moved it in four years, not even the rental guests.

She picked it up.

It was heavier than she remembered, and the cap was chewed, because he had chewed everything when he thought.

"I'm doing it wrong," she said out loud, to the empty room.

"I'm in love with five people, and you aren't here, and I haven't cried yet."

Her voice cracked on the last word.

Then the tears came, ugly and all at once, with her forehead on the cold wood and the pen still in her fist.

She did not hear the cabin door open behind her.

She heard a board creak, and then nothing, and then a hand came down very lightly on her back.

She didn't look up.

Another hand touched her shoulder, and a third, and a fourth.

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