Chapter 1 Prelude
We called ourselves “The Gang.” Each one of us had a long-standing connection with at least one other person in the group. Luckily we were comprised of five couples: Linda and Tom, Brenda and Brian, Karen and Jimmy, Kristen and Freddy, and last but not least Maria and me.
We have been a group of ten ever since the final couple tied the knot. That would be Kristen and Fred. Over the course of the last sixteen years, each and every one of the other male members of our gang has passed away from one thing or another. Tom and Bill both died from heart attacks, Fred died as a result of not taking care of his diabetes, and Brian ended up looking at the wrong end of his gun.
I never wanted to know what it was like to lose my partner, my wife, my lifelong lover, but one year ago today, my Maria didn’t wake up. She had never let on that she had been feeling unwell, and for reasons that were never disclosed to me, or that I might have just tuned out, she just stopped breathing during the night. That reduced the gang to five, me, as the only male, and the four widows.
The timing of Maria’s tragedy sucked. Not that there’s ever a good time for that to happen, but I had just retired a few months before. We were going to do some traveling to parts of the world we had only ever dreamed of, just like everybody else says they’re going to do, but we had made plans.
For the next six months, I was out of touch with the rest of the world, then one by one my former buddies’ wives started calling me to do odd chores for them. I became somewhat of a plumber/electrician/carpenter/I can fix anything kind of guy. I didn’t mind because on most occasions they would thank me with a home-cooked dinner which was most appreciated. Cooking was something that I had never mastered, nor did I ever need to. Maria was a chef-like wizard in the kitchen. It had truly been a miracle that I didn’t weigh 400 pounds.
