Where You Lead

Part 4

September 4th 2009-

"What are you doing?" I asked when I woke up to see Logan staring at me.

"Appreciating my beautiful wife" he said. "And enjoying the fact that I finally get to call you that" he leaned over and kissed me. "Good morning"

"Good morning" I moved to put my head on his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around me.

"Have I told you that I'm the luckiest person in the world?"

"You haven't" I said. "Why are you the luckiest person in the world?"

"Because last night I married the most amazing woman to ever exist and I'm pretty sure that nothing can top that"

I smiled. "You're sweet"

He kissed the top of my head. "You're amazing"
——

Less than a second. For that split second between dreaming and awake I forget that he's gone. Just for a moment I can feel him next to me...and then I remember.

I glanced at the clock. 5:21am. I looked over at Sophie who was asleep in my bed before getting up and going downstairs. Could I stay in bed and try to go back to sleep? Yes. Did I know that no matter how hard I tried I wouldn't fall asleep? Also yes. So I got up and got an early start to the day.

It had been a month since Logan died and I'd decided that I needed to go back to work. I couldn't take being at home all day anymore, I needed a distraction. That meant that Sophie would be going back to daycare. I hadn't intended to keep her home, but at a certain point it just happened that since I was home all day, I stopped sending her to daycare.

Around 7, I was sitting in the kitchen, reading a newspaper when I heard Sophie shouting for me. I found her sitting behind the gate that was at the top of the stairs. "Are you stuck?" I chuckled.

"Mama help!"

"I'm coming"

——

Walking into work that morning was a lot harder than I thought it'd be. I was thinking that it would be good for me, that it would help me start to find my new normal. What I didn't think about was the fact that I disappeared for a month and everyone knew why. The sympathetic looks alone were enough to make me want to cry. I didn't...but I wanted to.

"Well, that sucked" I mumbled to myself as I closed my office door. I sat down and not even two minutes later there was a knock at the door. "Come in!"

The door opened and Carly walked in with that look on her face. The look I seemed to be getting from everyone. The look people give you when someone you love just died but they don't know what to say. "Hey" she said softly as she walked into my office and closed the door behind her. "How you doing?"

"Getting a little sick of that question" I told her without looking up from my computer.

"I didn't see you at daycare drop off this morning" she said. Carly was not only one of my favorite people in the world but her husband Mark had worked with Logan for a few years and they had a son who was a few months older than Sophie. "Was that on purpose?"

"Just trying to minimize the amount of pity looks I get in a day" I looked up at her. "Dropping Sophie off a little late means that I avoid everyone else dropping their kids off and by extension avoid hearing how sorry they are for my loss"

"People are just worried about you. They wanna help"

"I get that, I do, but people need to understand that when someone's struggling, constantly being reminded of the reason they're struggling doesn't help them" I said. "My husband died. I'm painfully aware of that. I don't need people asking if I'm ok when it's pretty damn obvious that I'm not. And I'm not kidding when I say that I'm really close to punching the next person who asks me how I'm doing or if I'm ok"