The silences on the other ends of those calls were sweet. It was the stunned confusion of women who have spent so long being useful that being invited to receive felt indecent.
I booked a beachfront house in Gulf Shores. Six bedrooms and a big porch with a view of the white sand.
I paid extra for a long dining table because I wanted no one sitting at the corner. I shipped a box ahead with candles and the framed photograph of Arthur.
When we arrived, I put his picture in the center of the dining table. Alice touched the frame.
“He looks like a man who knew how to love,” she said.
“He did. Exactly that,” I replied.
That first night, none of us spoke much. We sat on the porch in rocking chairs and listened to the ocean.
If you have never heard women exhale after years of carrying too much, you might not understand what a sacred sound it is. No one talked about empowerment.
We just sat there while the waves came in and the wind moved across our arms. After a while, Grace stood up and went to the porch rail.
She stared at the black water for so long I thought she had forgotten we were there. Then tears started running down her cheeks.
“I can hear them,” she whispered.
“The waves?” I asked.
She nodded. “They sound like applause.”
That week, we did nothing important and everything meaningful. We made real breakfasts with grits, bacon, and biscuits.
We walked the beach barefoot and took proper photographs of each other. Nancy sat in the sand and built a crooked sandcastle while laughing like a child.
Sherry waded into the ocean on the third day and came up sputtering. “I am not afraid of anything anymore!” she shouted.
Every night after supper, we lit a candle beside Arthur’s photograph. Each woman said one thing she wished someone had told her when she was younger.
Nancy said, “You are allowed to stop giving.”
Alice said, “The right person won’t make you feel small.”
Grace said, “You do not have to be strong all the time.”
Carolyn said, “Silence is not peace.”
Sherry said, “Grief doesn’t mean your life is over.”
When it came to me, I looked at Arthur’s face and said, “You were never a burden. You were the reason.”
On the last night, we walked down to the shore. The moon silvers the water and the tide came up around our ankles.
Nobody said the moment was sacred. Nobody had to.
When I got home three weeks later, an email from Bridget was waiting.