About a month ago, on a total whim, I bought a new fish tank for our house. I had just dropped my dad off after a doctor’s appointment, and I decided to go to the pet store. I have no idea why it happened to pop into my head right at that moment. It just did. We’ve had a fish tank in the house for quite a few years now, but it’s been empty of fish since shortly after Dennis passed away.

Dennis loved goldfish. He used to tell me how he kept goldfish in an old refrigerator laid on its back in his yard in Trinidad. There is a buffet restaurant in Toronto that he loved called The Mandarin. The food is amazing, but I think the real reason he loved it was the glass floor in the entryway where you could see the koi in the tank underneath.

When Corinne won five carnival fish about three years ago, he went all out. We bought a 29-gallon tank, a stand, and a few fantail goldfish to round out the family. Fantails were his favorite. And despite carnival goldfish typically having notoriously short life spans, these fish thrived. After Dennis passed away though, one of them got sick. We treated the tank, but within a week, all of them died. We decided that Dennis wanted his fish back.

Considering the fish were sick when they died, we chose not to replace them right away. We had planned to empty the tank out and clean it really well, but honestly, it just sat on the stand in the corner for the last two years. The water gradually evaporated to the point where there was hardly any left, but the tank was still dirty. 🤢 I was afraid that if we tried to clean it, any new fish would still die.

But Christmas was around the corner. It was our third Christmas without Dennis, and it was the first since losing him that we really felt ok celebrating. The first (2020) was just excruciatingly hard because the doctors had said Christmas would be a stretch and we had hoped he would make it. Christmas of 2021, Corinne had Covid, so we didn’t even get a tree up and didn’t celebrate until New Year’s Eve.

This Christmas…we were still sad he wasn’t here, but it was easier to remember how much he loved it and to smile at the memories. So in the interest of getting everything ready, I decided to get the nasty old fish tank out and bring in a new one. We bought mollies, not goldfish—two dalmatian, two gold dust, one black, and one gold. The gold one is the biggest, and the guy who helped us at the pet store said it would get to be about 6-7 inches. We decided to name that one Dennis since it would be the biggest and can be the ruler of the tank. 🥰

While Dennis was going through chemo, one of his biggest fears was that we would forget him. That belief set off quite an argument because I was so offended that he felt that way. He told me that, a couple of months after he died, Corinne and I would establish our new routine and move on with our lives. I told him (ok, I probably yelled at him) that it didn’t mean we would forget him. We could never forget him. We are surrounded by too many reminders.

I understand, of course, that his fear came from a very real place. In the moment, it made me so angry that he thought so little of us to think that we could ever forget him. But I get it now. He always thought about the things he would be missing out on, all of the things that Corinne would grow up and accomplish, all of the things that we hadn’t done as a family. And as much as we and his doctors told him he had to enjoy the time he had, it was hard for him to know he wouldn’t see Corinne graduate or get married and have kids of her own.

The future isn’t promised to anyone, of course, but he knew his time was limited. He struggled to make the most of it because there was so much that he wanted to do and see in his life.

Our lives shattered into a million pieces when he died. And just because you reach the acceptance phase of grief doesn’t mean that you no longer experience it. He was right that we would move on. You have to.

We picked up the pieces that meant the most and put the puzzle of our lives back together. Some of the pieces got lost along the way, but we saved the important ones. They fit a little differently, but Dennis is still very much a piece of our puzzle. We moved on with our lives, but we didn’t move on without him. What we say now is that he actually has the best seat in the house for everything. He sits with us. We just can’t sit with him.

Amanda Prowse has a new release out this week, and as usual, she made me feel a lot of things. When I finished the book, I closed my Kindle, put my hand on the case and audibly said “oof.” Then I put my Kindle away and didn’t start anything new for a couple of days.

I needed to feel the feelings. (I always do with her books.) I hope you will too.

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Book Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for Picking Up the Pieces by Amanda Prowse

343 pages
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: January 10, 2023
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing.

Publisher’s Description

As Nora and her British Army officer husband, Gordy, pack up yet another home and leave the sun of Cyprus for the drizzle of England, she can’t shake a feeling of regret—at her failure to follow her own dreams, but also, if she’s honest, at having ended up an officer’s wife at all, drifting through a life of temporary homes and temporary relationships.

Since losing her parents at a young age, Nora’s life has been lacking an anchor: someone or something to make her feel secure. Her marriage has been her only permanent relationship, and just as even that appears to be fizzling out, a tragedy forces Nora into the role of legal guardian to her seven-year-old nephew, Ted. Faced suddenly with a responsibility she never dreamed of, how can Nora possibly offer the boy the kind of unconditional love he deserves, when she’s never experienced it for herself?

But as she navigates the precarious and unfamiliar world of parenthood, Nora begins to see herself through Ted’s eyes, as someone worthy of love and even joy. When she’s welcomed into the previously intimidating huddle of mums at the school gate, she has to wonder: is it too late to smash down the other barriers she’s built—and to have a second chance at a happy marriage with Gordy?

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Main Characters:

• Leonora Brightwell – mid-40s, goes by Nora, grew up in England, orphaned at 12, raised by one grandmother (Granny Magda), married for 18 years to Gordy, studied botany and horticulture, but has spent her entire marriage as a military wife, following her husband around the world to every command
• Gordon Brightwell – goes by Gordy, just promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and reassigned from Cyprus to England
• Kristina Morris – goes by Kiki, Nora’s sister who is 12 years younger and was just a baby when their parents died, raised by their other grandmother (Nana Dilly), single mother to Ted, still lives in England
• Ted Morris – Kiki’s seven-year-old son
• Santiago Agostí – 86 years old, increased the Santiago fortune by investing in the arts, which included allowing Nora and her parents to live in his villa for a time while he was a patron for Nora’s father, who was a painter

Trigger warning: attempted suicide, substance abuse

Amanda Prowse’s newest work is another emotional addition to her prolific collection of novels. Picking Up the Pieces takes us on quite a journey with Nora Brightwell, who has to pick up the pieces of not only her own marriage but also her sister’s life, her nephew’s life, and her own childhood. There is a lot going on for a lot of characters in this story, and everything brings us back to Nora.

The book begins with a glimpse of Nora’s life as a child before her sister is born, living in Agostí’s villa La Fosca, adored by her Nana Dilly and La Fosca’s housekeeper Luna. Nora remembers life at La Fosca as her happiest time. But after her parents’ untimely death shortly after Kiki is born, Nora spends her time at boarding school and lives with her Granny Magda when she comes home, while Kiki stays with Nana Dilly. Because of a near tragedy when Kiki is a toddler, Nora believes that she isn’t capable of taking care of a child, and she and Gordy never have children of their own.

Nora’s story as an adult begins at a celebration of Gordy’s promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and his new commission in England. Gordy encourages Nora to spend the evening out with the other officers’ wives since they’ll be moving, but Nora has always felt out of place when the conversation centers around their children.

When Nora returns home for the evening, she and Gordy argue. She loves Gordy but is angry that he pushed her to go out when he knew she didn’t want to. When she tells him she has nothing in common with all the moms, the argument escalates to why they never had children. Nora is hoping for a fresh start in England, and Gordy says he thinks they should get a divorce. With those words hanging in the air, Nora gets a phone call about her sister Kiki’s attempted suicide. Nora is needed in England to care for her nephew Ted while Kiki is hospitalized.

That’s a lot of emotion in a couple of chapters, and there’s a lot more to come. Nora’s perspective drives every chapter, with a short section at the end of each chapter centered around Santiago Agostí trying to find Nora and Kiki to return a painting to them.

Thrown into caring for Ted while Kiki recovers, Nora has to come to terms with being a mom to Ted (who she barely knows), interacting with teachers and the other moms who are Kiki’s friends. We know from the argument with Gordy that she is completely out of her element, but she has to make it work for Ted and for Kiki.

But what of her marriage? An hour away in their new home, Gordy has to unpack their belongings, which has always been Nora’s role. He makes it clear to her that they will make sure Ted is ok, and that confuses Nora even more because she isn’t even certain about the future of their marriage.

Nora battles so many demons in this story. At one point, she talks with Ted’s teacher and tells him something her mother told her before Kiki was born. “…my mother told me that when my world fell apart, I had two choices: I could either collapse and sink into the ground, as if I were never really here at all, too broken to be, disintegrated, back to the earth. Or I could pick up all the little pieces and rebuild myself.”

We get to see what Nora does. She sorts through her relationships with her sister, her nephew, her husband, and she does it all as she sifts through the pieces of her own childhood. This is truly a journey of self-discovery for Nora, and I loved every word of it.

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