Chapter 2 - The Man Who Remembered Two Creams
I called Megan immediately.
She answered before the second ring.
"Mom, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, sweetheart. Tell me what your brother said."
There was a long pause.
"He's furious about Wendell."
"I noticed."
"Mom, he told me he's thinking about stopping the kids from visiting you."
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
Zach had two children, twelve-year-old Eli and nine-year-old Sophie.
They were the brightest lights in my life.
Eli loved helping me plant flowers, even though he usually managed to dig up more than we planted.
Sophie still climbed into my lap whenever she visited and insisted that nobody made pancakes as good as mine.
The thought of losing them broke my heart.
"He wouldn't do that," I whispered.
"Mom, I'm afraid he might."
"But why?"
"He says Wendell could be dangerous. He says he doesn't want the children around someone who might be taking advantage of you."
I closed my eyes.
My son was using my greatest love against me.
"Have you met Wendell?" I asked.
"Not yet."
"Then perhaps everyone should stop judging a man they don't know."
Megan sighed.
"I agree. But Zach isn't listening to anybody."
After we hung up, I sat beside Dwight's recliner and thought about the afternoon I had first met Wendell.
It had happened seven months earlier.
My neighbor Carla had practically dragged me to a grief-support meeting at our local community center.
"Winnie, you cannot spend the rest of your life talking to that empty chair."
"I'm not ready to meet people."
"You don't have to meet anybody special. Just come sit with people who understand."
I almost refused.
But that afternoon, I put on a blue blouse, brushed my hair, and drove to the community center.
There were eleven people sitting in a circle.
Some had lost husbands.
Others had lost wives, parents, or children.
I sat near the door, ready to escape if the emotions became too overwhelming.
Then a man with silver hair and gentle brown eyes sat two chairs away from me.
His name was Wendell Mercer.
He wore a plain plaid shirt, work boots, and a slightly faded leather jacket.
When it was his turn to speak, he said only a few sentences.
"My wife, Ruth, died four years ago. We were married thirty-eight years."
He looked down at his hands.
"I thought I was prepared because she'd been sick for so long. Turns out you can't prepare for an empty house."
Something in his voice reached straight into my heart.
He wasn't performing grief.
He wasn't asking for sympathy.
He was simply telling the truth.
After the meeting, he approached me near the coffee table.
"First time?"
"Is it that obvious?"
He smiled.
"Only because you looked at the exit about twelve times."
I laughed.
It was the first genuine laugh I'd had in months.
The following week, he brought me coffee.
Two creams.
No sugar.
I stared at the cup.
"You remembered?"
"Of course."
"Why?"
He shrugged.
"Some things are worth remembering."
That was how it began.
Not with expensive flowers or extravagant promises.
Just a cup of coffee.
Soon, Wendell and I began talking after meetings.
Then we started having lunch together.
One afternoon, he came to my house and noticed that the porch light wasn't working.
He repaired it in twenty minutes.
When I offered to pay him, he looked offended.
"Winnie, I was an electrician for forty years. If I can't fix a porch light for a friend, I ought to turn in my toolbox."
I invited him to dinner.
That dinner became another.
Then Sunday evenings became our tradition.
We cooked simple meals, listened to old country music, and shared stories about Dwight and Ruth.
Wendell never asked me to remove Dwight's photographs.
He never seemed threatened by my memories.
Once, he found me crying beside the brown recliner.
Instead of offering empty reassurances, he sat quietly beside me.
After several minutes, he said something I would never forget.
"Loving somebody new doesn't mean you loved the person you lost any less."
That was when I realized my heart might not be finished living.
But there was one strange thing about Wendell.
In seven months, he had never once invited me to his house.
Whenever I suggested visiting, he became uncomfortable.
"I'm still working on the place."
Or he would say:
"It's not quite ready for company."
Finally, one Sunday evening, I confronted him.
"Wendell, is there something about your house you don't want me to see?"
He set down his coffee.
For the first time since we'd met, he looked genuinely nervous.
"Winnie, I need you to trust me until Christmas."
"Why Christmas?"
"Because there's something I want to finish."
"What something?"
He took my hand.
"Something that matters more to me than you can imagine."
I wanted to believe him.
Then his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen and quickly stepped onto my back porch.
Through the partially open door, I heard him lower his voice.
"No. She can't see it yet."
A pause.
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"Because if she finds out before it's finished, everything could change."
And suddenly, the man who had made me feel safe was keeping a secret that seemed to grow more troubling every day.
