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The Badass Widows

Chapter One (excerpt)

Beth wore an itchy black dress and the biggest damn sunglasses she could find. She didn’t wear them to hide tear-swollen eyes, she wore them to hide her attitude. She glanced around the church at the people who filled the pews. Where had they been when she and her husband needed them? Nowhere, that’s where. Beth’s grown daughter, Marly, stood at her side with eyes streaming, lost in her own pain. Across the front of the sanctuary were showy floral displays, or guilt flowers as Beth thought of them.

For seven years, she had watched the man she loved fade away. She’d retired early to take care of Jim. A thirty-year career with the FBI had in no way prepared her to be a caregiver. She learned as she went, ordered their groceries online, and only left the house for pointless trips to the doctor’s office. Her universe shrank until it fit entirely within their four walls. Jim had kept his wonderful sense of humor for a while. When he could no longer speak, his bushy eyebrows signaled their private language until they grew still. It was almost anticlimactic when he died. By the end, all that kept her going was sheer stubbornness, a trait she had in abundance.

What she did not have was any more illusions. She’d overheard Marly on the phone telling her husband, “Mom is tough. It won’t take her long to bounce back.” Beth had always thought it was her job to stay strong for her daughter, but “bounce back”? Really? Marly clearly had no idea what her mother was going through. Everyone seemed to expect her to quietly join a garden club for her “golden years.” Not bloody likely.

Beth had worked her way through the so-called stages of grief before Jim died. Okay, so maybe she had circled back and pitched a tent in “Angry Town” for a while. But now that Jim was truly gone, she had started imagining a future centered on taking care of herself and no one else. She longed to whip out the to-do list in her pocket. She did love a good list . . . Instead, she straightened her shoulders and brought her attention back to the minister. The memorial service would be over soon. Then she could get on with the rest of her life.