how to help James

The next morning, Robert finds Sarah sitting at the kitchen table, staring into her coffee cup with an expression he's learned to recognize as internal struggle.

"Rough night?" he asks, pouring his own coffee and joining her.

"I kept thinking about James," Sarah admits. "About what he's going through. The funeral is tomorrow, and he's... he's barely holding it together. I can hear it in his voice."

Robert nods slowly. "I know something about that kind of grief. The public performance of loss while the private reality is something else entirely."

Sarah looks at him, remembering that Robert is dealing with his own impossible grief—mourning Charlotte while living with her body, caring for the woman who isn't his wife while preparing to raise their child alone.

"I wish I could be there for him," she continues.

Robert is quiet for a moment, turning his mug in his hands. "What if," he says slowly, "we went to see him after? As Charlotte and Robert."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asks.

"I mean, what if we're the couple who met James in the hospital during our own crisis? Charlotte had her aneurysm right around the time Sarah died. We were there, going through our own trauma, and we connected with this man who was losing his wife. Now that we're both home, recovering, we want to check on him. Offer support to someone who showed us kindness during a dark time."

Sarah stares at him. "You'd do that? Come with me to visit my husband, pretending to anyone else to be Charlotte's husband offering condolences for Sarah's ****?"

"If it means you get to see him, support him through this... yes," Robert says simply. "I know what it's like to feel completely alone in grief. "Those days in the hospital, waiting, not knowing... James was the only person who understood what I was going through. He was afraid he was losing everything too – you - but he still took time to sit with me, talk me through the worst moments. He didn't have to do that. James shouldn't have to go through tomorrow alone, and you shouldn't have to watch him suffer from a distance."

"And now you're returning the favor," Sarah realizes.

“Partly,” Robert admits. “When he suggested you stay with me, I could see how much it cost him. He was giving up time with his wife – with you - when he needs it most to let me be with you for the rest of the pregnancy. Not just to maintain the cover but because I needed this to deal with my own loss.”

He pauses a moment. Sarah could see he was remembering once again that she was not Charlotte. Robert's smile is sad but genuine. "Sarah, I've been watching Charlotte's body live and breathe while knowing Charlotte is gone. I've been listening to you speak in her voice, seeing you move with her gestures, watching you exist in her space while mourning the woman who used to inhabit it. I think I can handle helping your husband grieve appropriately while you comfort him.”

He stops again, almost overcome with motion. Sarah reaches out to take his hand, intertwining her fingers with his.

"He shouldn't have to bury his wife’s body and then go home to an empty house," Robert says simply. "Not when I can do something about it. He was there for me when Charlotte died. I can be there for him now."

"I know this is incredibly difficult for you," Sarah points out, gently squeezing his hand. "And tomorrow – pretending that I’m Charlotte when we go to see James.”

"Everything about this situation is incredibly difficult," Robert replies. "But losing someone you love... the isolation of that grief... I wouldn't wish it on anyone. If I can help connect you two during the hardest part, I will."

"You're a good man, Robert," Sarah says.

"So is he," Robert replies. "That's why this is worth doing."

They sit together in silence for a few minutes.

The complexity of it makes Sarah's head spin, but she also feels something like hope. "When would we go?"

"Tomorrow evening, after the funeral. Let him get through the service, the reception, all the public grief. Then, when everyone else has gone home and left him alone with his loss, we show up. Charlotte and Robert Young, offering quiet support to the man who was kind to us during our own crisis."

"And if he needs privacy? If we need a moment to actually connect without you there?"

"I'll find reasons to step away," Robert says. "Check on something in the kitchen, make phone calls, whatever it takes. This isn't about me inserting myself into your marriage. It's about giving you both what you need while maintaining the necessary deceptions."

"What if he breaks down when he sees me?" Sarah asks. "What if seeing Charlotte's face, knowing it's me inside, is too much for him right after burying my body?"

"Then I'll help cover for whatever reaction he has," Robert says. "I'll attribute any emotional response to the shared trauma, the bond formed during crisis. People understand that hospital connections can be intense."

The plan is both perfectly logical and completely insane—Robert helping his dead wife's body comfort her actual husband about her fake **** while they all maintain layers of deception that would collapse under the slightest scrutiny.

Okay," Sarah says finally. "We'll do it. Tomorrow evening, after the funeral. Charlotte and Robert Young pay a condolence call on their friend James."

"Charlotte and Robert Young," Robert repeats, and something in his voice suggests he's still processing the surreal nature of what he's agreed to do.

That night, Sarah lies in bed, one hand on her pregnant belly, thinking about tomorrow. She'll go to their house—her house—as Charlotte, to comfort her husband through grief she can't acknowledge experiencing herself. It's twisted and complicated – but that is the nature of her life now.