Thank You for Loving Me

Early Praise This heartwarming story shows the intricate realities of moving on after loss. Bea’s prose paints a beautiful image of each emotion and the setting, making the reader feel as if they are present in her story. Devon Thiele, author of Burnout The book is classic Nicole Bea; the description is lush and the east coast setting is a character in its own right. The world can be impossibly hard, but [Bea] shows us that it can be kind, too. Zilla Novikov, author of Query Thank You For Loving Me Nicole Bea Silver Shell Publishing Copyright Thank You For Loving Me Copyright © 2023 by Nicole Bea All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. Editing by Jennia Herold d’Lima Contents Dedication Content Warning Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Acknowledgments About the Author Also By Nicole Bea Dedication To anyone struggling with their grief ship. May you soon find the shore. Content Warning Please be advised that this novel includes themes of grief / depression, references to spousal death, and drinking. Chapter One I find myself waking up early most days to work on a painting, even though I don’t have to. The yellow glow coming through my bedroom window matches the paint smeared across my palette and canvas. Fine print that’s now faded away on the tube called the shade ‘lemon balm’ which I hate, because the word ‘balm’ is too close to ‘bomb,’ and the thought of anything crashing and burning is too close to my memories of last summer. I call the paint ‘egg yolk’, which I dislike slightly less. At least eggs are linked to happy memories: the nostalgia of Taylor making me breakfast in bed on the weekends, the hilarious image of his last birthday cake that I tried to bake, the reminder of that time we vacationed at a farm in Charlottetown and were able to pick out our own eggs for brunch. Reminiscing about eggs provides good memories. Thinking about crashing and burning does not. Breathing a sigh as I stroke my paintbrush over the blank white spaces, I perch a little more comfortably on the edge of the bed. I have a studio at the back of the house, one that overlooks the water and the beach. This morning the blankets feel like a better home for me while I work on this custom piece for a client who commissioned it through my website. Even though there’s a dog bed in the studio, Jovi—named after Bon Jovi due to my late husband’s love of the artist’s music—seems to like being allowed on the comforter more than anything else. He’s somewhat patiently waiting for me to say the magic word “walk,” and then he’ll become sixty pounds of husky fluff hopping up and down until we head toward the ocean’s shoreline. I swish my brush around in the little cup of murky water on the bedside table, looking at the art piece. The sunrise is a bright yellow with tinges of pink and blue, cotton candy colors around the edges of the clouds that hang over the top of the space where I’ll add rolling hills and a cottage. So far, the shades are a match to the photo that’s laying on the bed next to me. I’m rather proud of myself for color-matching so perfectly despite my distraction this morning. The cerise hue is striking in itself, and I know that recreating it for another painting in exactly the right shade will be impossible. I should charge extra for these perfect colors that I’ll never see again. But I don’t, and never will. My hand clenches around my paintbrush at the thought, my heart picking up the pace just enough that I feel a difference in the way it beats, while my wedding band—signifying what?—feels tight on my finger. Jovi lifts his head from the blanket the moment I stop painting, looking at me with his liquid brown eyes. I know he’s waiting for that magic word, and he’s been so patient with me this morning that I set my brush down on the paint-splattered night table. “Walk?” He tilts his head to the side, hesitating for a moment before he launches himself off the end of the bed in a barking flurry of gray fur. He leaves the room and his nails click across the hardwood floor toward the front of the house before I hear him skidding back to the bedroom. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” I unravel myself from the draw of the bed sheets before setting the wet canvas on the easel in the corner of the room. The wooden stand is situated by the spot where the sunlight is streaking through. Admiring the piece for a moment, I can’t help but remember all the sunrises Taylor and I watched from the back patio, our coffees in hand, when he’d come home from duty or would be leaving for work. It takes effort to tear myself away from looking at the colors of the artificial sky—but I remind myself that this isn’t my sky. This sky belongs to Cordelia Martin of Saint Peter’s, Missouri. Jovi plops his wet nose in my hand, a reminder that we were going somewhere. I give him a scratch behind the ears as I turn toward the bedroom door, my