Excerpt from Come October by Patricia Kay

A thousand goodbyes come after death--the first six months of bereavement.

-- Alan Gregg

Prologue

The woman sat so still a casual onlooker might have thought she was a statue. It was only when you looked more closely that you could make out the faint rise and fall of her chest. Her hands, with short, unpolished nails and long, elegant fingers, lay motionless on the arms of her wheelchair.

She wore a plain, long-sleeved, navy blue cashmere sweater and her only jewelry was a delicate platinum watch worn on her right wrist. Her eyes were hidden behind tinted glasses. Her hair, dark and silky, was brushed back in a simple style and held in place by amber combs. A pale rose afghan covered her legs.

The only sounds in the room were the muted tick of the mantel clock and the occasional soft snore of the fat Calico cat that slept curled on the hearth.

The woman sat for a long time, just staring out the third-story window that overlooked a narrow coastal road and afforded a magnificent view of the lichen covered rocks and gray, seething ocean beyond.

Today was a windy, overcast day, but at this time of year in this part of northern California, most of them were. Occasionally, a shaft of sunlight appeared, but not often.

As she watched, a silver speck cut through the cloud cover. It was visible only a moment, just long enough to remind her that the outside world existed, no matter how much she tried to pretend it didn’t.

Behind her, an elevator door slid open.

"Claire." A tall, stooped, older man walked into the room and placed his arthritic hand on her shoulder. "Alejandro is driving into town for supplies. Would you like to go along for the ride?"

"No, thank you, Uncle Richard."

"Claire, my dear, you haven’t been out of this house all week. Don’t you think--"

She shook her head. "I’m fine, Uncle Richard. Please don’t worry about me." She still hadn’t looked at him.

The old man seemed about to say something else, but then he simply sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. He would have given anything, anything he possessed, to bring some lasting happiness back into the world of his beloved niece. He’d have given his entire fortune. The past six years of his life. Anything. But nothing could give back to Claire what she had lost.

It made him sick to see her when she was like this. By now, he’d hoped her bouts of depression would be gone, that she would have built a completely new life, maybe even found someone else to love. Instead, her periods of melancholy had seemed to intensify with each passing year.

Despair nearly overwhelmed him. Sometimes he thought she might as well have died in the accident, because everything that had made her uniquely Claire had disappeared. All that joy, all that energy and enthusiasm--vanished as if it had never existed.

In her old life, she’d been a people person.

Now she was a recluse.

Richard Fitzhenry Sherman was eighty-five years old, and on days like this, he felt every one of them. He looked at the back of his niece’s head. Love constricted his chest. "I’ll be downstairs if you want me."

"All right."

"Rosita’s roasting a chicken for dinner."

"That’s good."

"Don’t stay up here too long."

"I won’t."

When she heard the door close after him, and she knew she was once more alone, she removed her glasses and placed them on a nearby mahogany table. Then, wearily, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. This had been a rough week. One of those weeks when even the act of breathing seemed like too much effort.

And yet . . . she didn’t want to die. At first, right after the accident, especially once she realized the extent of her injuries, she had wanted nothing else. She’d even prayed for death.

But later, after the shock had worn off and she’d made her decision about the future, the wish to die had faded, and she’d begun to cooperate with the surgeons and nurses and therapists all through the arduous process of putting her broken body back together.

Now everything that medical science could do to heal and repair had been done, thanks to her uncle’s money and influence.

She knew she was lucky. Another woman with lesser means wouldn’t have been able to afford the extensive reconstructive surgery that had transformed her into a woman whose scars were no longer visible to the outside world.

Claire turned and wheeled herself over to her desk, which had been specially made to accommodate her chair. At the movement, Daisy, her cat, stretched and yawned, then settled back into sleep.

Claire looked at the screen of her computer monitor. A screen saver design swirled in an ever changing kaleidoscope of color. She tapped the mouse, and the screen saver disappeared. Now her monitor displayed a white screen filled with text. It was Chapter Twenty of her newest book in progress, and although she’d sat there attempting to work all morning, she still hadn’t written her daily quota of four new pages.

She knew exactly why she’d had so much trouble concentrating. She wondered if her uncle was aware of the significance of today’s date. If that was why he’d seemed so especially concerned and solicitous today, even more so than usual.

Suddenly, tears filled her eyes, which surprised her--for she prided herself on her calm acceptance of her life, particularly of the fact that she never allowed self pity to undermine the peace she had achieved with such difficulty.

Six years ago.

Six years ago today.

The tears slid unchecked down her cheeks as memories engulfed her, memories of the day her life changed forever.