Charlie's Friend's Wife

After my husband died
Charlie was real good
About coming around
And checkin on the kids and stuff

Did the birthday parties
Did the family functions
Had us over for Thanksgiving
That kinda thing

But when I said I was getting remarried
He got all uptight
Like he could have an opinion about it

I told him, 'Charlie, it's been five years.  It's been long enough.'

To be serious with you
I think he took my husband's death
Worse than I did

Suicide is like that
It has different kinds of effects
On different kinds of people

I didn't hold it against Charlie
That he never let his best friend go
But I didn't think that meant
I couldn't let him go either

I had kids
And my kids needed a father
And Charlie had his own kid
And a wife

And I needed things too, you know?

I'm just another human being

I told Charlie just because I was getting married
That didn't mean he couldn't come around anymore
And check in on everybody

Then he got mad
And we said some things
We shouldn't have said

The both of us

I wasn't good with my words
Like Charlie was

I couldn't always say what it was
That was bothering me about something

But what was bothering me was I felt like a charity case

Like I was the widow
That everybody had to look out for
And not just because my husband died
But because of how he died
And because he took his own life
And because he probably did it
Because of who he was
And wasn't I some poor dumbass
For not seeing it?

Yeah, well, I ain't dumb
And I never was dumb

I had a husband who worked
And came home every night
I never looked for anything more than that from him

I never saw that he wasn't any more or less torn up
Than every other guy I knew in my life

My next husband was the same way as the last
Except he died of a heart attack
Not from jumping off a bridge

Charlie and I didn't talk much
After I got remarried
But he still sent the kids presents
On Christmas and their birthdays

He was a good guy, Charlie
I won't ever say he wasn't

If I could have wound up with a guy like him
I'd have been happy

But not all of us got that lucky, you know?

Some of us just took
What we could get