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thought I was handling things, able to cope so much better because the man I’d loved for so long was at my side. I had six books on grieving and dealing with loss, and I followed all their advice. But now, all these months later, I suddenly felt…
    Nothing.
    A month later, I asked him to leave.
    And he did.
     
     

Ten Years Later
    Ahren
    Ahren flicked his cigarette off the cliff looking out onto the Pacific. “Fucking fog,” he quipped as he heard footsteps come up from behind. He looked over the headstones of his parents and made a decision. It was time. He loved Genevieve, and time hadn’t changed that. No matter whom he fucked, whom he even dated, he never forgot her. There would never be room in his heart for another woman, because Gen filled it completely. They’d both been broken by grief, essentially useless to each other; they just didn’t realize it at the time. She was healing from her loss, and through it, they were starting a relationship, getting reacquainted. Then his accident changed all of that. He knew she was shutting down, he watched it happen, but he’d also just lost his dad. He wanted to be strong enough for them both and fight to save what they were building, he just didn’t know how.
    “Mr. Finnegan?” one of the cemetery staff called behind him. “Your taxi’s here.” He always used the same guy, a former trucker named Jimmy.
    “Thanks,” he said to the man’s back as he walked away. “Bye, guys. Thanks for the talk.” He laid his hands on the flat, marble surface and closed his eyes. “I’m done with this shit. I’m gonna get her back. It’d be great if you could talk to your people about making sure death doesn’t come knocking when I do. I’m thinking we should be in our nineties, at least.” He smiled, even though tears fell from his eyes onto the smooth surface below him. “Love you.”
    Ahren made his way to the waiting taxi. Jimmy “Hazz” Hazzard had a permanent booking with Ahren the third Saturday of each month. He went to the cemetery and stayed for an hour, sometimes longer and once, he stayed overnight. He’d arrived with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and pale pink roses for his mother in the other. The following day, woken by the sound of sprinklers, he stumbled back to the waiting cab. Jimmy had been there all night and that was when Ahren knew, Jimmy was a friend. He told Ahren that when he was driving a truck, he’d seen abductions, murders and suicides. Driving a cab, the worst he saw were broken hearts and drunks.
    Jimmy asked, “Where to?” taking him out of his memory of that drunken day.
    “Home,” was all he had to say. Jimmy knew “home” was not the house where Ahren lived. He turned out from the cemetery and headed to the little riverside town of Greer’s Rest.
     
     

I sat across from the pissed-off looking females who had hired me for a combo package. I always met clients somewhere that had decent coffee and a good dessert menu. If neither of those were available, I told them to meet me at a Denny’s. A waffle would work in a pinch if I couldn’t get decent cake. Or pie.
    “So,” I said with a pen in my hand as I went over everything they’d filled out. “You want The Banshee and the Dancing on your Grave, Motherfucker.”
    The four women exchanged glances. The two youngest were sisters, Emma and Anna, and they were openly hostile toward one another. But the voice of reason, their mother, seemed to calm them down with one word. “Ladies…” She glared and disarmed them instantly.
    “Fine!” The youngest crossed her arms like a spoiled child and huffed. “Just to say, I would like to hire a hitman instead. We’re like, ten miles from a state penitentiary. I’m sure we can just go on visiting day and ask around.”
    “Anna!” the older women scolded.
    “Are you stupid or something?” her sister asked. “Everyone knows, you want a hit, craigslist is the way to go.”
    The other older woman turned to her own sister