She Wore Mourning by P.D. Workman (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

come from a diminutive, scraggly-blond, thin man who didn’t look a day over twenty.

“Uh, thanks,” Zachary said. “I don’t know…”

“Come on,” the young man encouraged. He reached as if to put his arm around Zachary’s shoulders to sweep him into the room, and then jerked back before touching him. “Sorry. Sorry. Come on in. There are cookies!”

Zachary stepped in through the door and moved toward the snack table to give himself some space.

“Looks good,” he agreed, looking at the sad little coffee station and plates of store-bought cookies.

“My name is Winston,” the young man said.

“Uh, Zachary. Good to meet you.”

“It doesn’t have to be your own name. Just something that people can call you. There’s a sign-in sheet over there.” He pointed to a clipboard attached to a pen with a string.

“Thanks.”

In a few minutes, all the members of the support group had assembled, and they made their way over to the chairs, where introductions were made, and a group leader ran through the usual order of business for the group.

Zachary introduced himself by his first name only, and glanced around the group, trying to analyze all the faces. Who would have known Spencer? Who would have associated with Isabella? Had they made other friends before they had gotten involved with each other? Or had they immediately been drawn to each other to the exclusion of anyone else? Isabella still went to the group sporadically, though she obviously hadn’t wanted to show up while Zachary was there.

“I have a friend who used to go to this group. Do any of you know The Happy Artist? He’s married to her. He told me about this group, said I should come.”

They looked at each other for a few seconds, no one saying anything.

“Spencer?” a man with a bushy mustache asked finally. He had introduced himself as Dave. “Long time since I saw him.”

Zachary nodded eagerly and looked around at the rest of the group to see a couple of other nods as people remembered Spencer. “Yes, Spencer. He thought the group would help me.”

Dave’s mouth pursed sourly. “Really. I don’t know how much it ever helped him.”

“He came here, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, he came, but I don’t think he ever really invested in the group. He thought he was better than the rest of us.”

“That’s not fair,” the redheaded woman called Angie spoke up, shifting uncomfortably and darting quick glances at Zachary. “He never said he thought he was any better.”

“He didn’t have to. It was obvious from his attitude.”

“He didn’t share with the group?” Zachary asked.

Angie sipped her coffee not from one of the foam cups provided at the coffee station, but from a chipped ceramic mug, reminding Zachary of the story of the plate Spencer had disposed of.

Dave shrugged. “He shared… inconsequential stuff. Fluff. The things that didn’t matter. The work that we’re trying to do here… it can be pretty painful. Gut wrenching. People dig down deep and bare their souls. Then someone like Spencer comes along, pretending that he’s got it all together.”

Zachary nodded, trying to work through this. “He did seem like he had it all. Married, good job, taking care of his little boy…”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” contributed the woman in a blazer and skirt. Zachary couldn’t remember her name. Something that started with an M? She looked professional and perfectly coifed. Was she referring to herself or to Spencer when she said that? Maybe both.

“Did you know him?” he asked her.

“I remember him. He did act like everything was going pretty well for him, but I think he had problems he didn’t want to talk about.”

“Everybody has things they don’t want to talk about,” Dave said. “But we have to share them if we want to overcome them. This inner work; it’s not for cowards.”

“What did he talk about?”

There were looks exchanged around the circle.

“Maybe you should talk to him,” Angie said. “We’re not supposed to be sharing information about other people.”

“I just wondered,” Zachary said. “With the trouble he’s been having since his son died… I wondered if he ever talked about Declan when he was coming here.”

“I heard about that,” Angie said with a nod. “Poor Spencer and Isabella. I can’t imagine what they must have been going through. They both loved that little boy.”

Zachary didn’t want to press the question, worried that the harder he pushed, the more they would push back about not wanting to talk about someone else.

“I lost my parents when I was a kid,” he offered. “My whole family. I’m just starting to realize how much it affected me…” He paused, and no one said anything. “Not just grief,” he explained, “but… psychologically… the fear I carry into other relationships.”

There were nods and noises of agreement from around the room.

“It must have been hard for Isabella and Spencer to parent, with both of them being OCD… and so different from each other.”

“Spencer didn’t talk much about Declan,” Dave said. “He was more likely to talk about business stuff than anything personal. Isabella was more likely to talk about the difficulty of being a parent, responsible for someone else. Spencer just stopped coming. Like he didn’t need the group anymore.”

“He was complaining about intrusive thoughts,” M said. “I thought maybe he’d open up, but then he faded out. He hadn’t ever been one to come every week, but it got less and less often…”

“It’s only been Isabella the last couple of years,” Dave agreed.

“What does that mean, intrusive thoughts? Is that like his counting compulsion, before he came to Vermont?” Zachary intentionally dropped another hint that he knew all about Spencer and his history.

Winston was frowning at Zachary. “You have OCD and you don’t know what intrusive thoughts are?”

Zachary snorted. “Well, I know what my intrusive thoughts are, but I thought that was more… PTSD. Flashbacks. I can’t imagine Spencer getting as emotional over his own thoughts as I do. He’s so… ordered.”

“He was, though,” Angie said. “There was one day when he broke down about it. I think he