I let my head fall onto his shoulder one last time. The spreading wetness beneath my cheek makes no impression on me. Nothing does.
I don’t know how long I’ve been like this when a nurse comes to help me to my feet. She explains something about having to get him ready for the funeral home and then tells me I need to get some rest.
Something in me says that’s funny—rest. Rest? Who could rest at a time like this? And what kind of person would even suggest it?
My radio fades in and out again, taking the nurse and her silly words with it. Absently, I wonder if I’ll be able to experience true rest ever again. Right now, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to experience true feeling ever again, much less rest. Or peace. Or happiness. Only numbness. Blessed numbness.
She leads me to the door and I look back, back at my father one more time. And then, with the one step that takes me from the room, I’m as gone from him as he is from me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Rusty
I’m surprised when I see Mom come back through the door. It’s Saturday, so she stayed home most of the day, stopping in after lunch to see me before she went downstairs to catch up on some paperwork and then go back home. Only she didn’t. She’s here instead.
“I thought you were going home?” She doesn’t answer me right away, which gives me time to notice her expression. She’s got bad news. I can see it in the way her mouth pinches in at the corners. “Please don’t tell me they’ve decided to keep me another week.”
“Son, I’ve got some bad news.”
“Well? What is it?”
There’s a long pause and a sigh before she answers. “I was going over some reports with the unit manager down in the ER when they brought in Cris Theopolis.”
Using my good arm, I push myself up in bed. “What? What happened?”
“Evidently he was in an accident at the orchard. He passed away, honey.”
I throw back the covers and climb quickly out of bed. I don’t hesitate. Not for one second, not for one heartbeat.
“Jeff, listen to me. I’ll do whatever you need me to do, but you need to stay put until they let you go.”
“To hell with that! I’m going.”
I walk to the closet to get the clothes Mom brought me a few days ago.
“Jeffrey, this could set you back. It could—”
Angrily, I whirl toward her. “I don’t give a shit, Mom. It’s Jenna.” When she does nothing but stare at me, I repeat. “It’s Jenna.”
I pull on the jeans I was going to wear when they let me go. Turns out I’m going to wear them today.
When I go find Jenna.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Jenna
I hear the honking again. I wonder vaguely why people keep honking at me. I’m driving straight. I’m within the lines.
Another car goes flying past as though I’m standing still. It’s then I realize that I am. Again. For the fourth time, I’ve stopped in the middle of the road and not even realized it until a car honks its horn angrily and then speeds by like a bat out of hell.
The nurse in the ER asked if there was family she could call for me. I stared blankly at her as I went through a mental list and came up with no one. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My brother is…well, he’s somewhere. But not here. My answer to her was no, I have no family for her to call.
I could’ve had her call Cami, but she feels far from me today. Her life is happy and perfect, not a place for all my troubles and woes, let alone a place for death and loss.
Without her, I really am alone. All alone. The only other person who means anything to me in this town couldn’t care less that my world just exploded. He made his feelings about me very clear.
As I pull off the road onto the long drive that leads to my house, I remember how, just a few weeks ago, I was enjoying the feelings of comfort this part of the drive was bringing me. Now, it feels empty. Hollow. Painful.
Once I park in my usual spot at the house, I get out of the car and, on stiff legs, make my way up the steps to the porch. The door is slightly ajar; I didn’t even bother to close it before I left to follow the ambulance.
I push it open and stop just inside the foyer to listen, to smell, to experience home the way I always have. But I can’t. This isn’t the home that I’ve returned to every year for so many. This is just the place that my dad no longer inhabits. It’s just a series of rooms alive with only the ghost of his memory. Nothing more.
I hear a slow, steady clicking and look up to see Einstein standing in the kitchen doorway. His eyes are sober as he watches me. He drops to the floor and lays his head on his paws, a soft whine screeching at the back of his throat. He knows something is wrong. So, so wrong.
I walk past him to the kitchen. I see my father reheating fried chicken for me and scrubbing me on top of the head in that loving way he used to do. I turn away, back toward the den. There, I see my father laughing and eating popcorn, and giving me philosophical advice. I turn back toward the stairs and know that, at the top, is his bedroom—now and forever empty and cold.
There is no longer any happiness here, any comfort. There is pain and loss and a future without my father. The floorboards don’t ooze peach syrup anymore; they ooze the most hideous kind of heartbreak. The walls don’t shake with laughter anymore; they shake with grief. The air doesn’t smell of home anymore; it smells of my own personal hell.
So I run.
I run back through the house, back out the door, back out into the driveway. And I stand there. Looking at the house. Knowing I can’t go back inside. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Little by little, this town has taken every bit of happiness I’ve ever had. It has swallowed it up and left me standing, broken and alone, staring at an empty house with an empty life.
I feel the first drop like a cool tear to my cheek. I look up at the sky, at the dull gray clouds that mirror the bleakness in my chest, and I see the rain begin. Slow at first, like the sky itself is suddenly feeling my pain. And then, like the break in my heart, it opens up and weeps for me, pouring rain over my upturned face.
Impervious to the downpour, I stand in the driveway, in the rain, looking at the house. I wish with all my heart the drops would just wash it away. Along with the pain.
I glance up at the windows, gaping black holes staring back at me, mocking me with what is no longer behind them, with who is no longer behind them. And never will be again.