Free By Your Side by Candace Calvert

Cabot looked up from her Bible study workbook to check the clock on the painted wood mantel. Charly Holt wouldn’t arrive for another ten minutes or so. When the text came in for an activation, Charly had insisted on driving, saying if she was coming back, she’d be back 100 percent.
    Taylor smiled, remembering the woman’s twangy version of Schwarzenegger’s line, “I’ll be baaaack.” The immediate addition of a hearty “Praise God!” was Charly’s own twist. Taylor couldn’t be more grateful to be shadowing Charly during her hours of field training. Today especially, when they’d walk up to someone’s home bearing the worst possible news.
    She found herself in front of the flagstone fireplace, gazing once again at the framed photos on the mantel. Abrightly enameled frame holding a close-up of her youngest nephew, enormous green eyes and a bit of a blond curl, the rest of his cherub face hidden by full ninja headgear. Her older brother’s oldest daughter primly holding a daisy bouquet at grammar school graduation. And the photos of her husband, Greg, newly framed after his death   —alive, he would have objected to them as vanity.
    Her eyes moved over the collection of random and unrelated images that held so much meaning for her, as if the camera had freeze-framed singular beats of her heart. Her husband as she’d known him, in a journey that had led her to love him more each day. On his college basketball team, caught midair as he went for an impressive dunk shot. Grinning into the camera while steadying his fire helmet on a shy kindergartner’s head at a community service event. Asleep on the couch with his fat golden retriever puppy in his arms. Taylor glanced at the old dog, sleeping on his fleece bed beside the couch. Her gaze returned to the photo display. Greg on the day he was finally baptized, hair wet and uncharacteristically solemn. And then . . . their wedding photo.
    Taylor touched a fingertip to the etched silver frame as if testing a healing wound. She could finally look at it without crying. She saw the love on their faces, the hope in their eyes, and found the blessings in that. She could do that now without railing against all they’d lost, grieving all they’d never have . . . including children. She was a survivor. Two years of sleeping alone, two sets of major holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries endured. She’d finally finished the endless changes in paperwork and policies. She wasworking at a career she loved and had found a new calling that spoke to her heart, made her feel alive again.
    She checked the clock. A death notification . . .
    It had been an ER physician at UCD trauma center who’d offered the official confirmation of Greg’s death. He walked into the sequestered “quiet room” with a nurse and a female hospital chaplain. And though Taylor had done that same thing a hundred times   —on the other side of the Kleenex box   —her mind refused to believe what was coming. Even though she’d seen the tragic expressions on the faces of Greg’s fellow firefighters and paramedics, heard their emotion-choked whispered exchanges of “changing a tire . . . never saw the car coming . . . massive head injuries . . . no blood pressure . . . ,” she couldn’t accept it. Until that hospital chaplain led her to the room where Greg lay. Too pale, too still. . . . She’d stood beside Taylor in silence, then slipped an arm around her as her knees weakened.
    “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cabot.” The chaplain’s whisper had been filled with compassion. “I’m very sorry your husband died.”
    Only that caring moment had made it real.
    Taylor glanced out the window and caught a glimpse of Charly’s Suburban at the curb. Today she’d be the one to do that for someone else. She reached for her purse, then stopped for a moment and bowed her head. Help me to offer comfort and compassion, Lord. Be there with me, please.

    “Coconut shrimp?” Andi Carlyle offered