Excerpt of Braking Hard by Gloria Joynt-Lang

He relaxed as the woman came back into view. She
hadn’t moved, other than to offer a forced smile at him.
He didn’t mean to stare, invading the woman’s privacy,
but he couldn’t look away. Her eyes, beseeching and
beautiful, yet without any spark. Her vulnerability
beyond raw, verging on potent.

The words grief and sorrow flashed at him like
flipped over cue cards from childhood. He reminded
himself of the circumstances. It was a wake after all.
Not everyone got plastered and told ill-humored jokes
to mask emotions. But this was a different kind of grief.
It went beyond that which had emanated from the
employees of Big C’s and others who knew Elroy. The
woman’s sorrow so intense, so forceful, he felt her
profound loneliness. There wasn’t a name or a way to
describe what he witnessed in those big brown eyes of
hers, but it existed in the same way the moon existed
during the day. Her grief radiating from a place no
armor could protect, from deep within, bursting directly
from her soul.

He too experienced this level of pain, not only
today but every day since Elroy left this world. Plenty
of people missed the old mechanic, but until now, he
hadn’t thought anyone ached like he did. Elroy’s life
meant something extraordinary to this woman.
Something which brought her here. To a hole in the
wall bar, in a town so small, businesses shut down for
funerals.