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their other grandmother at all. I know Mom still thinks of Cassie as her daughter, and I’m happy these two are so close. Cass always said my mom was the one she wished she’d had growing up instead of her own - and having met her mom, I understand why.
    Standing in my mom’s house with Cassie is surreal. I’m not sure the last time I had a conversation with her outside of a text message or e-mail. She’s usually at yoga on Saturdays when I pick the kids up. Sometimes she’s there when I drop them off, but more often than not I just drop them off and go. Sometimes it’s just too hard to make that walk to her doorstep only to suffer forced politeness. That formality more than anything else cuts me deep. I stand three feet away from the love of my life and we talk to each other like casual acquaintances. I’d rather never see her face-to-face again than communicate like that for the rest of our lives.
    So I stay away as much as I can, and that’s for the best. But seeing her now - open, friendly, generous - sets some thoughts churning in my brain that shouldn’t be there. Hope that we can be friends again is about as much as I’ll allow myself.
    Cassie looks good. Distractingly good. After years of wearing it shoulder-length, she’s let her hair grow long again, and when I hugged her she smelled like the same fresh, floral scent that’s clung to her all her life in some mysterious combo of soap and shampoo and perfume. Those jeans she’s wearing make her look even leggier than she already is, and her sweater is snug against her curves. Silky dark hair, soulful eyes, lush body. God, she’s beautiful. How the hell I’m going to survive this week with her staying in this house I have no idea.
    Torture. Pure torture.
    Carl knew I wanted her back. He was the first person I called when she threw me out, the only person I could ever really talk about Cassie with. More than once I cried on his couch like a baby, and he never gave me shit about it. Carl got it. He knew I loved her, and he knew I fucked up, and he knew I knew just how badly I’d fucked up.
    He tried to warn me at the end. A lot of people did, but Carl’s warning wasn’t just about the drinking. It was about the look in Cassie’s eyes.
    That light is dying, brother , he’d said. You’ve got a devoted woman who used to look at you like you lit up her world, and that light is dying. You keep it up, you’re gonna lose that girl, and God help you when you do.
    God help you when you do . He’d never spoken truer words.
    It was Carl who shook some sense into me when I was going through that period of self-pity right after Cass and I split up. He told me I had a choice. I could either let myself spiral out of control, in which case I would never get Cassie back, might lose my kids, and would definitely lose everyone’s respect - or I could get my shit together and be the kind of man who just might have a shot at getting back what he lost or at least having something close to it again.
    It was also Carl who took one look at Yveta that Thanksgiving when I brought her home to Mom’s and told me I had another choice to make, almost as big as the one I had to make when Cassie threw me out. Carl recognized Yveta for the good woman she is and told me I’d better be damn sure I wasn’t about to break a second woman’s heart by giving her half a man.
    And since that was all I was ever going to be able to give Yveta, I heeded Carl’s warning and let her go. I was never going to love her the way I loved Cassie. It would’ve been unfair to keep things going with Yveta, especially when I knew she was in love with me. Better to cut it off and be alone again.
    I miss my brother. He was the bedrock of our family, the best friend I ever had, and if I’d died instead of him I know without a doubt he’d take care of Cassie and the kids for me. So that’s what I have to do for him this week and for the rest of their lives. I’m going to give him a funeral he would