Love Resurrected (Love in San Soloman Book 5) Read online

  Praise for Love Resurrected

  Denise’s best work to date!!

  Goodreads Reader

  This book touched my heart. Brilliant writing!

  Goodreads Reader

  Loved this book! Denise Wells did an amazing job! Definitely an emotional roller coaster, in the best way!

  Goodreads Reader

  Love Resurrected

  A Love in San Soloman Novel

  Denise Wells

  Copyright © 2019 by Denise Wells

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any mistakes or misrepresentations are the authors alone.

  Editing: Missy Borucki

  Editing: Jenn Wood, All About The Edits

  Publicity: Linda Russell, Foreword PR

  Proofreading: Crissy, The Word Fairy

  All Around Awesomeness: Rachel Radner

  Created with Vellum

  For Tracy: my badass, tough-as-nails soul sister.

  In memory of Courtney.

  The rain can make us sad until we see closely the beauty of a single raindrop. And so to the same with life.

  Atticus

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Brad

  2. Tenley

  3. Tenley

  4. Brad

  5. Tenley

  6. Brad

  7. Tenley

  8. Brad

  9. Tenley

  10. Brad

  11. Tenley

  12. Brad

  13. Tenley

  14. Brad

  15. Tenley

  16. Brad

  17. Tenley

  18. Brad

  19. Tenley

  20. Brad

  21. Tenley

  22. Brad

  23. Tenley

  24. Brad

  25. Tenley

  26. Brad

  27. Tenley

  28. Brad

  29. Tenley

  30. Brad

  31. Tenley

  32. Brad

  33. Tenley

  34. Brad

  35. Tenley

  36. Brad

  37. Tenley

  38. Brad

  39. Tenley

  40. Brad

  41. Tenley

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Denise Wells

  Sneak Peek of How to Ruin Your Ex’s Wedding

  Prologue

  KAT

  My Obituary

  By: Katarina Oxana Walker

  August 4, 1975 - February 25, 20-something*

  It all started with my tits. Which really were my best feature. Once they got hacked to pieces, the rest of me went to hell. To my credit, it took a really fucking nasty, tenacious disease years to take me out. They should have given me a goddamn medal for lasting that long. Or one of those fancy belts boxers get. I’ll even settle for a plaque on a park bench. Hint, hint mo-fos. Let my name live longer than I did.

  That said, I lived a great fucking life, surrounded by the people I loved most in this world. Even though I’m dead, I don’t regret a thing. As the late, great Dylan Thomas so eloquently said:

  “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

  *If I don’t die on February 25th as referenced above, please adjust the date accordingly.

  To Be Read Upon My Death:

  Brad - Thank you for loving me so wholly and completely. You are the love of my life. And for a while I was yours. Just not anymore. Your forever is out there, my love, lock that shit down. Don’t let it die with me. There’s another woman out there who deserves all that you have to give. You promised me, now make it happen.

  Remi - I still can’t believe you didn’t name one of the gruesome threesome after me. Speaking of, I guess it's good Lexie and I were co-godmothers since only one of us remains. Stay strong, beautiful girl. Stay strong and power on.

  Lexie - Don’t cry, everybody dies. I just did it sooner than you wanted me to. Remember, it's impossible to be sad when you’re holding a cupcake. Especially one with sprinkles.

  Bauer - Keep an eye on my girl. And by that, I mean hire a nanny and distract her with sex. Lots of sex.

  Ethan - Stay studly, dude. And take care of my guy, we both know he’s a big teddy bear on the inside. Don’t let him wallow. Help him live.

  Cole - We talked about this. You know what to do, hot cowboy. She needs you now more than ever.

  Sadie - Just because you’re new to our family doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. Watch out for E. He will miss me way more than he’ll admit.

  Mavis - Don’t worry, bubbe, I’ll watch out for Stone for you, and make sure he’s resting in peace.

  I love you all. May you forever enjoy your margaritas cold, your salsa spicy, and your chips salty.

  - XOXO, Kat

  Brad - A Few Days Before

  Sunday

  I am beyond caring.

  At that point where nothing else matters.

  Literally.

  I don’t care. Not about myself or what people think. Fuck, I don’t even care about what’s happening in the world. Kat is dying and with that, anything that matters goes with her. Anything I’ve ever cared about. Wanted. Loved.

  Gone is any shred of humanity I may have once had. What might have been good in me has deteriorated. That’s something they don’t tell you when someone dies. What the dying takes with them. The answer to that is every-fucking-thing, leaving you alone and empty.

  Until there is nothing left.

  There are supposed to be stages, in death and grieving. Instead, my emotions are spanning the spectrum on a minute by minute basis. Feelings that aren’t even supposed to be part of the grieving process. Incredulity. What step is that? The one where I can’t fucking believe she’s leaving me? We did everything right. Yet she’s dying anyway. And when she does, I’ll be alone.

  I remove her cold, clammy hand from mine and place it gently on the bed beside her. Lately, I get up only to stretch my legs or relieve myself, or sometimes to look out the windows at the stormy sky above the sea. Its fitting nature would have the same struggle as I. Not sure whether to be calm and bright or dark and turbulent. It all depends on Kat and where she’s at in this fight for death. Because it's no longer a fight for life, that ended a while ago. Now it's just about navigating the pathway to whatever lies beyond. With me on the sidelines, watching. And waiting.

  Her breath hitches and a soft cry escapes her.

  I rush back to her side and brush the thin hairs from her brow. “I’m here, baby. I’m right here.”

  Her eyes open slightly. “Brad?” Her voice is raspy and low.

  “Yeah, babe. Hi.” I smile and kiss her on the cheek.

  “Tired.”

  “I know, sweetheart. I know. You just rest. Okay?”

  “Water.”

  I get her cup of water from the bedside and hold the straw to her mouth. The pull from her lips is feeble.

  She struggles to sit. I help prop her up with pillows behind her and to her sides until she looks relatively prone.

  This past week, people have been coming by the house to pay
their respects and say goodbye. I hate them all. That they waited until now is unforgivable, now that she’s this shell of the person she used to be. Gone is the vibrancy and vivaciousness; the smile that would encompass her entire face is no longer. The sarcastic, inappropriate, beautiful, loving, pain-in-the-ass who would give up her last everything for someone she loved.

  Just gone.

  These people parade through to say goodbye to this thing lying on our bed comprised of dying tissue, a weakening heart, failing liver, and confused mind. And for what? So they sleep better at night? Ease their conscience?

  What will it change?

  Nothing.

  It’s for them, not her. They know that.

  Assholes.

  But I let it start. And I continue to let it happen, because I’m weak. All I can do is react. I’m a pathetic excuse for a caretaker. A pathetic excuse for a man. They’ve provided a distraction I would not have had otherwise, and I’ll take about anything right now to stop me from thinking.

  The hospice nurse told me this morning it won’t be long now. So, our core group came by earlier for one last pseudo-hurrah before everything goes to shit. Kat was alert for it, issuing her directives for each of us. The amount of energy she spent doing so was immense. After this, there will be no more visitors. Just me, Kat, and the hospice nurse.

  “Promise me you’ll move on,” she’d said to me. In front of everyone. “Find another love.”

  “I will, baby. Don’t worry,” I placated.

  She looked at Ethan. “He’s lying.”

  Ethan nodded. “Totally lying.”

  The two shared a look I didn’t quite understand.

  “You are all here to bear witness,” she’d said to the group. “Brad said he would find love again. Hold him to it.”

  Teary-eyed Remi and Lexie both voiced their agreement.

  “We aren’t thinking about that, okay, babe?” I’d said. Because as open and accepting as she’s been about her own death is about how disbelieving and rejecting I’ve been about it.

  Kat was doing better.

  For a long time, treatment was working, and she felt good.

  Until she didn’t.

  Now the decline is happening so fucking fast and I can’t stop it. In a few days, I’ve watched her go from our new—then—normal, to about gone. Organs began shutting down, one by one. Renal failure set in. Those are the words they used to describe what is happening inside her. Defining the atrocity that is sucking her very life force away. “Renal failure,” the doctor said. “A side effect of terminal cancer.”

  Side effect, as though it's something to be ignored. Cured. Incidental by nature. Just an effect. Not a cause.

  Because no one knows the cause. Aside from terminal cancer. First, the bloating, as her body began collecting waste instead of expelling it. Then the jaundice when her liver took an indefinite break from working. Her lungs filling with fluids, her breathing labored. The body I have memorized better than my own, that I’ve had my hands on every inch of. That I have loved up close and from afar and has held mine in its heart. That body morphs into something not even remotely resembling my beautiful girl. No longer a person at all. The brilliant, vibrant Katarina Walker.

  My Kat.

  Slipping away hour by hour. Moment by moment.

  Machines bleeping in dissatisfaction with how her vitals respond. Her mouth open like a fish, gaping and trying to take in air. Every breath raspy and forced. Her lips are chapped beyond repair, her insides no longer able to keep anything down. Her brain is gone. I don’t know where it went. I hope it's just tucked away somewhere, hiding out, laying low for safekeeping. I don’t want her aware of how she is in these final moments. But I want her aware of me. I want her to know I’m here, with her, until the very end. I’m never leaving. She’s not alone, she’ll never be alone.

  Tuesday

  The hospice nurse recommended I write my feelings down. So I can better accept that Kat is dying. But I’ve accepted she’s dying. All you have to do is look at her to see that. She’s in fucking renal failure, her body filling with its own waste and no way to filter it. Her legs so swollen she can no longer stand. Her brain so befuddled she didn’t know what the laundry basket was this morning.

  What happens when she dies? My entire world will be gone, yet life still goes on. People carrying on as though nothing has changed, when absolutely everything in my life is changing and will never be the same. People are living. Working. Laughing. Fucking. Things I can’t bring myself to do. I hate them. Each being still living. Still in a relationship. Still in love. I yell “Why her” out to the universe. Half-expecting a response, even though it’s the oldest question around that has yet to be answered. And not this time either.

  Grieving never ends. It’s not a process like they say. That implies a beginning and an ending. Something finite and measurable. Do you ever stop missing someone you love after they die? My mom passed over twenty years ago, and I still miss her. My process with her death isn’t over yet. Kat is my entire goddamn life.

  How long should I give that process to finish? Forty years? Fifty, maybe? How about if I just wait until I die? Would that be better?

  Grief is all-encompassing. It never ends. Waiting in the corner, the silent killer, ready to consume all that is happy or whole and shred it into something that barely resembles pieces.

  All I want to do is write down every experience Kat and I have ever had. Everything from the mundane to the miraculous so I don’t forget.

  But experiences have already gone missing.

  All I can think about now are platelets and liver numbers, sodium levels and morphine doses.

  If I could, I would document every detail of her personality, so it lives on. The light that she brings to my life and to everyone who knows her. And how she is the glue that holds us all together.

  When that glue is gone, that’s when everything will unravel.

  Fuck. I'm sad. I'm crying. I'm a little drunk. Sitting by her bedside, nothing but my good friend Jack to keep me company. Or is it Jim? Johnny? Does it matter? Not the best time to write. No one reads it anyway. It’s to help my process. Of grieving and acceptance. That the love of my life is dying.

  Because in reality good people die and the shitty people live. It’s just the way it is.

  If I don’t write it here, I’ll yell it from the fucking rooftop. Which is what I really want to do. Except this is supposed to be private. Private, so I’m honest and say whatever the fuck I want to. It's just cathartic for me, right? I need catharsis right now, because I don't know how to deal with this otherwise. Sometimes, not often, a smile slips through the mask of misery on her face, her vacuous eyes light with clarity, and I know my Kat is there, deep inside that decaying vessel, trying to break free. I grasp on to that moment and allow it to fuel me through another hour of holding on to hope, as it slowly destroys me.

  I miss Kat already and she's not even gone.

  Wednesday

  This process is exhausting. Watching her die, saying goodbye, it’s fucking exhausting. I just want it to be over with so I can sleep. So I don’t have to be always wondering when it will happen. Which breath will be her last? Will I have one more moment of coherent Kat before she goes?

  And, I don't want her to die at all. I’d rather have this Kat forever than no Kat at all.

  I want her to die. I want her to live. I want her to stay like this. I want her to get better. Mostly, I just want to go back in time and meet her sooner, so we have more time together.

  I’ve failed her so completely. In our relationship, in life, and now near death. I promised her a cabin in the snow with a hot tub. Just for a weekend. I never delivered. She's never been in a hot tub in the snow. And she loves hot tubs. There is no better hot tub experience than one in the snow. I promised her that experience at the beginning of the year. Now here we are, in February, and she's dying, and I have yet to deliver. What kind of an asshole am I?

  I never married her. Why
the fuck did I never marry her? I never gave her that. It would have been so simple. I don’t know why we didn’t. All her friends did. We’d done everything else—joint accounts, shared responsibility, power of attorney, medical advocate.

  She wore my ring. I wore hers. She was my wife in every way but the one that mattered. On paper. Never have I felt that loss more than now, when she is near passing.

  I just want one more day. That’s all I ask. One day of clarity, to hold and kiss her. Hell, I don’t even have to kiss her. Just one day to hold her and talk to her and have her answer back. Just one more day. Please. It’s such a small request in the big scheme of things. I’ll settle for five minutes. Just let her open her fucking eyes and remember me. Look at me with recognition. I don’t even need a smile. Just one more moment to know I’m here. To give me a connection. I’m not ready. I can’t be without her yet. My life doesn’t work that way.

  Thursday

  It’s funny how you can know someone will die, and think you're prepared, then have it all go to shit when it happens. I prepped for today so many times in my mind. I planned exactly how it would go. What I would do. How I would react. Things I would say. Because I knew it was coming. I’ve known for years. Over four years.