It was Eric’s blog, running as usual under the banner of Hudson Lifestyle Online.

The Cancer Chronicles by Eric Fisher, it said, and then the headline:

Cutting Free from the Corpse of My Old Life.

On Friday night, it began, I made a difficult, exciting decision. To live life large. In order to do this, I had to assess what had been holding me back. Now that my Cancer Journey has drawn to a close, and because the Universe has shown me how fragile life is, I had to make some changes.

The first step was big. I had to separate myself from a person close to me, even knowing it would cause her pain. But sometimes pain makes you stronger. It did in my case. The pain of cancer was the fire that burnished my soul. (Sigh. There really hadn’t been much pain.)

On Friday night, I used my strength to cut free from the person who represented the old, sick me: Sunshine.

The corpse of his old life was me.

My lips started to tremble, and the words jumped around on the screen.

He had to break up with me, the blog said, despite my tender loving care during his “life-and-death battle” because I was “the weight around his ankle,” dragging him under. My lack of support, my love of the status quo, my failure to understand that life “demanded more” now that he had “stared Death in the eye.”

He described my anger on Friday. How I kept eating lobster (I regretted that now). My insistence that we should get married.

Rather than focus on the heart of the matter, she repeatedly asked me about the Tiffany engagement ring I bought her. And I had bought her one, but that was before I understood my life’s new meaning.

And while he regretted having to hurt me, he was nonetheless “ready to take on the challenge of living life in the moment.”

Jonathan was silent. Outside his office, the rest of the staff was silent. So they already knew.

“Please,” I whispered. “Take...take it down.”

“Look at the comments.”

I tried. I was blinking rapidly, as if the computer were about to slap me, which, metaphorically, it already had.

There were 977 comments.

The blog posted at 6:00 a.m. every Monday.

977 comments in two and a half hours. No, 979. Nope, 985. 993. 1001. 1019.

Oh, my Jesus.

This guy is a total dick, the first comment read. She’s better off without him.

Bruh, good for you! said the second. Women always think it’s about them.

As a leukemia survivor, I also had to scrape some people off my shoe...

This column makes me sick. He used her, plain and simple. Live life large, my ass. He should be...

Outside Jonathan’s office, the phone started to ring. Another line. Another. I could see the lights on Jonathan’s phone. The magazine had five dedicated lines. All were lit up.

“Take it down, Jonathan,” I said, my voice shrill.

“I’m not going to do that. I’m sorry.”

“You have to! You hate this column anyway.”

1034. 1041. 1075. God, it was going crazy! I put my hand over my mouth, unable to process what I was seeing.

Jonathan turned the screen back and clicked a few keys. “Our Facebook page has seven hundred new likes since yesterday. The story has been shared on social media more than a thousand times.”

Oh, shit. Shit! The blog automatically linked to our Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter accounts...all of which I’d set up when I started work here.

“Take it down!”

“Ainsley, I can’t. It’s gone viral. I’m sorry.” He almost sounded sincere.

“So? That’s my life there! That’s me being humiliated! Please take it down.” Tears were spurting out of my eyes.

Jonathan folded his hands together. “You’re the one who fought for this column. I’m sorry it’s your personal life, but that was exactly what you and Eric wanted. And clearly, we can’t turn away this kind of exposure.”

“Do you have a beating heart, Jonathan? Come on! Please.”

His door opened, and Rachelle stuck her head in and looked at me apologetically. “Mr. Kent, Good Morning America is on the line.”

“I have to take this,” he said. “Excuse me.”

Chapter Twelve

Kate

My mother called seconds after Ainsley left. “How are you?” she asked. I could hear the clatter of something in the background. My mom was a multitasker; unless you hired her, she would never just sit in a chair and talk. “Things good?”

“Yeah, they’re, uh, fine. Fine.” As fine as things could be, considering my husband was dead. I didn’t mention that Ainsley was staying here. Mom would not approve.

Today was May 1. Our five-month anniversary. No one had mentioned that so far. I was probably the only person who knew. Nathan would’ve known. He would’ve bought flowers.

“It’s important when dealing with grief to continue self-care and your normal routine.” That was probably a line from one of her books.

“Yes. Well, I’m going to the studio today.”

“Good! Work is balm for the soul at a time like this.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll talk soon. I’m here if you need me.”

“Okay. Thanks for—” Nope, she’d already hung up.

My mother had never been warm and fuzzy.

I had a vague memory of Dad’s second wife, Michelle. She smiled a lot. Baked cookies on the weekends Sean and I came over. When Ainsley was born, Michelle let me give her a bottle, even though I was only seven at the time. But Sean and I didn’t go over a lot. Our father’s job as an umpire meant that he traveled from April through October, home infrequently for short visits. And Mom didn’t like us going to see Michelle if Dad wasn’t there.

And then, of course, Michelle died.

The divorce and Ainsley were never discussed at home; Sean and I were little, after all. Or little-ish. Mom had suffered the all-too-common indignity of being dumped for a younger, shinier woman, who’d been pregnant before the marriage, before Dad left. After the divorce, Mom had to work more hours, and dinnertimes were tense affairs with dry chicken and vegetables from a can.

It was before Mom’s books were published, before she’d invested in a face-lift and started coloring her hair white blond and taking karate. Back then, she was just used up, like an old paper bag.

And then Michelle was gone, and Dad came knocking, and Mom took him back. Him, and the progeny of the other woman.

I knew my mother loved Ainsley...in her way. It was just that her way wasn’t the most demonstrative, not even with her biological children. The fact that Ainsley looked so much like Michelle didn’t help.

I was glad Ainsley was here, even if she kept putting her foot in her mouth. She gave off a lot of energy, and while that often irritated me a little, I welcomed it now. Without her, the house was very quiet.

I fed Hector, who ate his flakes with gusto. Funny, that this fish pre-and postdated Nathan. A fish with a life span of what?—three years?—bore witness to the beginning, middle and end of my time with Nathan.

“That doesn’t seem right to me,” I told Hector. Considered flushing him down the toilet to balance the (fish) scales of justice. “I’m just kidding, buddy.”

On the shelf above Hector’s bowl was my everyday Nikon, the same one I’d been using the night Nathan died.

I hadn’t looked at the pictures yet, terrified of what I’d see. Once Nathan fell, my memory of that horrible night was sketchy. I hadn’t taken a picture of Nathan going down, had I? I mean, I did have professional instincts. What if there was a picture on there of my husband dying or...dead?