“Yes. He was in a horrific car accident on 95 in Topsfield. It was a bright-white winter’s day. No snow on the ground. The other driver was at fault—he was a teenager, still on his provisional license. This was before texting, of course, but he was distracted by something in the car, I don’t know if he was fiddling with the radio or what, they never knew for certain, and anyway in the end it didn’t matter. He was going too fast to begin with, and he took his eyes off the road, and he forced my Jerry right into the guardrail, at sixty-five miles an hour. Jerry never had a chance to react.”

“That’s terrible,” said Rebecca. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I thought you’d been married to Bob forever. Your kids—”

“Jerry is the father of my children. Bob and I just celebrated fifteen years,” said Patricia. She lifted her sunglasses and winked at Rebecca. “We’re practically newlyweds.” She paused and reached down to pat Bernice’s head. “Anyway. I remember like it was yesterday, being in the stage that you’re in now. You’re grieving, but you’re living, and some days you’re doing more grieving than living and some days you’re doing more living than grieving. And you never know which kind of day it’s going to be until you open your eyes in the morning.”

“That’s exactly right,” breathed Rebecca. “Exactly right.”

“And I remember how it was after I met Bob too. He would do something, I don’t know, something silly that would rub me the wrong way, and I’d think, ‘Jerry would never do that.’ But that wasn’t fair to Bob, you see. Maybe Jerry would have done the thing that rubbed me the wrong way! But I was holding Bob up to some impossible standard. The standard of a dead man. So. I don’t pretend to be an expert on the topic, but I have been through what you’re going through now. And it’s terrible, and it’s painful, and it’s exhausting. But if I could go back in time to my forty-nine-year-old self, I’d tell her not to discount the value of getting back into the world.” Patricia rapped on the bench three times, as if to signal that she’d dispensed all of the advice she’d come to give, and rose. “It was lovely to run into you, Rebecca. Your spot is always available, should you decide to return to the committee. Even if someone else has ostensibly claimed it. We’ll always have room for you.”

“Thank you,” said Rebecca.

Rebecca watched Patricia resume her purposeful stride toward the rail trail, and she thought long and hard about what the older woman had told her.