The tremble from my hand makes it difficult to put the dark purple straw between her lips, the liquid threatening to spill in the process. She lets go of the oatmeal bowl, its contents so coagulated they hold firm to the sides as it spins to a stop on the floor. She jumps slightly at the sound before taking the straw between her fingers and guiding it to her mouth.
Her cheeks are sunken, her skin sallow—except for the dark circles that rim her eyes. Even her green irises have lost their sheen. As the cup slowly empties, I struggle to maintain my composure. I need to get out of here.
“Your brother’s coming,” I say casually, even though I’m feeling anything but.
I’m hoping for a reaction.
I need a reaction.
She hasn’t let them come, not for weeks. In the beginning, when all she could do was cry, she’d let them come, hold her—cry with her. Now she doesn’t want them here. Just like she doesn’t want me here. I’m so fucking scared for the day I wake and she’s gone. She’s going to die. I need a fucking reaction.
“Here?”
“Yeah, Rice, here.”
I rub my hands down my face, the exhaustion of the last few weeks settling in like an ache in a bone—constant, throbbing—to match the ache in my chest. Exhaling a sharp breath, I stand, hearing a quick rap on the door. It swings open before I reach it. Jesse steps in, slipping his work boots off beside it.
His gaze lands on Brice before I have a chance to say anything.
“What the fuck, Ford? You’re supposed to be taking care of her.” He brushes past me, his cheeks flushed a livid red.
I look at her, really look at her.
Her beautiful, chestnut curls are dingy and dark, slipping from the knot that began on top of her head. Now it’s hanging loosely at the side, a solid, matted clump.
How many days has it been since she combed it?
She’s lost so much weight; her bones are jutted out at sharp, angry angles. I’m failing her as much as she’s failing me.
I have to get out of here.
I hang my head, trying to form a response. The life raft of anger that slipped in to propel me out of the sea of sadness burns away and I’m left flailing in the turbulent waves.
With my last breath before I’m pulled under I say, “I called you here for help. Not a fucking guilt trip. I can manage that on my own. She needs to eat.”
I grab my keys from the coffee table, scattering garbage in the process. I don’t care. I walk out the door without another word. I have no idea where I’m going, but I have to get out if I’m ever going to breathe again.
34
Mom
“Knock, knock.”
I open the door to the tiny apartment. I’ve been driving around aimlessly for an hour, finally giving in to the pull to see her. “Mom? You home?”
“Am I ever not home?” She laughs from her spot on the tattered, blue sofa. “Question is, how did I get lucky enough for a visit?” The edge of hurt in her voice makes my skin bristle.
Why did I even come?
Closing the door behind me, I step into the room. The dim glow from the table lamp is the only thing warming the bare walls. Haphazard stacks of books and magazines cover every flat surface.
She stands, trying to clear a seat on the sofa beside her. The voices from the television do nothing to fill the vast silence between us.
I step to her as she places the last stack of magazines on the floor. I feel an old ache in my chest as I wrap my arms around her. “Missed you, Mom.” It’s true. As hard as it is to be here—to see her as she is now—I’ve really missed her.
She pulls back from the hug, running her hand down the back of her head, trying to smooth her disheveled hair. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have pulled myself together.”
“You know you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, always,” I tell her, happy to see the light ignite in her honey brown eyes. She’s exquisite in her tattered sweatpants and wrinkled tee. You can’t dress down a beauty like hers.
I never understood my father leaving. I used to imagine confronting him as a child. Tracking him down, knocking on his door—demanding answers. It played out differently every time. Often, with him crying and begging for forgiveness.
Occasionally, there were lightsabers and a great battle involved. But I never had the opportunity to ask in real life. I haven’t seen him since I was four.
We sit down, and she grabs the remote, muting the TV. A young Anakin and Padme continue their conversation in silence.
She turns her attention to me, and I see the swell of emotion that’s been in everyone’s eyes since that day. She reaches over, grabbing my hand. “How are you, baby?”
I feel the tears well up, spilling over.
“I’m cracking up, Mom. I don’t know if I can put the pieces together again. I feel like I can’t breathe in that house.”
I shake my head, angry at the voice inside me, whispering that I need to run away. It wakes me in the middle of the night, chanting, like the slow beat of a drum behind every thought. “She won’t…she won’t look at me. She won’t talk to me. I can’t fix that.”
Mom takes a shaky breath, pulling her legs up beneath her. Her gaze is fixed on the couch beside my leg for a million years. When she finally looks back at me, her eyes are full—tears threatening to spill at any moment. “I really did you wrong, son.”
I pounce to interrupt her, but she puts her hand up, shaking her head.
“This is something I should have shared with you long ago. I think you really need it now. It’s taking everything in me to tell you this, so please—just let me get it out.” She squeezes my wrist, and I nod my head, vowing to hold my tongue if it means the mystery that is my mother will be revealed.
“I never told you about your brother.”
“Brother?” My vow is broken instantly as I try to sort the tangle of thoughts that bombard me at the sentence she whispered so softly. “I don’t understand…”
I’m helpless for anything else to say. I do the only thing I can. I sit back into the sofa, wrap my fingers through hers, and wait for her to save me from this sea of questions.
“Irish twins.” The soft, sad smile she gives breaks open my heart. “Do you know what those are? Have you heard that term before?” she questions, waiting for a response.
I sift through my muddied mind, trying to supply her with one. “Close pregnancies? Back to back?”
“That’s right. You always were so smart,” she says in the way only a mother can, patting my hand with her free one. “It was only a few months after you were born that I found out I was pregnant again. I was a soggy mess for almost a week. In that week, I mourned what I thought I would be missing out on in your childhood because of it.” She shakes her head, growling at herself. “I felt so much guilt over that week—after—”
She buries her face in her hands and begins to sob.
“Mom, you don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do. I need to do this, Harrison. I do. We both need this. When you were little, after your father left, I could stuff it down inside. Ignore it. Because I had you. But that hasn’t worked in a long time.” Her voice comes out strong despite her breakdown.
We sit quietly for a moment, and I feel her energy flow through me where our hands are clasped. I think about Amelia—how hard it’s been to lose her. How hard it is to talk about it with anyone. I look at my mom, wondering how I ever could have missed the veil of sadness she wears like a second skin.
“He would have been named Mark. Original, I know,” she chuckles. “I was so hung up on Star Wars.” Her eyes land on the screen in front of us, her cheeks coloring. “I guess was isn’t the correct term. Oh, how it must look to you…” She gives my hand a squeeze. “I honestly do other things. I read…” She drops my hand, waving hers about the cluttered room.
I try to process everything she’s telling me. Try to fit this other boy into the memories of my childhood.
“I know, Ma,” I answer absently,
my focus lost in the tidal wave of thoughts all around me. Phantom people—empty spaces.
“I shut down completely after—holding him in my arms, looking at that little face that would never be. I saw it every time I closed my eyes, every time I looked at your father. You’ve always resembled me more than him, but Mark would have been the opposite. So, I began building walls…until I had walled him out completely. There was no room for him. And the pain—I chose the pain. It may have been different, if he had pushed me more. If he’d taken a sledgehammer to those walls, fought his way in.”
She pauses, and I think about what she’s saying and the life I’m living. She’s right. Brice and I are both doing our part in sabotaging our love for one another by making the pain bigger—by feeding it daily, letting it grow.
“So, what do I do?”
“You fight your way in. Break her open. Show her your pain. Don’t hide it from her. Rescue her from the pit of despair she’s trapped in.”
35
I pull into the rocky driveway and let my truck idle. I don’t know what I’m going to find when I go in, or how I’m going to break through it. But I know I owe it to us to try.
I close my eyes and see her as she was—lying naked in front of the fire the night of our wedding—so much life in her eyes.
I want that girl.
She’s mine, and it’s time to break her free.
I turn off the engine and slide out of the truck. Wearing my resolve like armor, I make my way to the house. I will break through. Because if I don’t, she’s going to die.
I slide my key in the lock, walking in the front door. The house is quiet and clean. I stand, motionless, as my eyes make their journey through it, landing on Cassie where she sits in the armchair by the fire, a book laid open on her lap.
“Cassie?” I’m surprised to find her instead of Jesse.
She gives me a knowing smile, and I feel as if she’s processing my thoughts like they’re her own.
“He couldn’t hack it either, had to call in the big guns.” She pauses in her speech, flexing her arm. “What the fuck, Harrison? If you can’t do it, let us in. We’re all just chomping at the bit to help, to share the heartache, you know? We see her crumbling. Truth is, you don’t look much better, my friend.”
I sit in the chair across from her. “Where is she? Did you get her to eat?”
“Jesse managed a piece of peanut butter toast before I got here. When he left, I gave her a shower…scrubbed her nasty ass hair.” She shoots me a look. “You vowed to be here for her, Harry. She looked like she should be living on the streets, and this house was a fucking disaster.” She holds my stare for a long moment before she stands, closing the book together.
I watch in silence as she makes her way to the door, sliding her feet into her crocs. She opens it, turning back before she steps out. “You have to remind her that she’s important, too.”
A nod is all I manage, and it earns me a sad smile before the door closes behind her.
I rake my hands through my hair. It’s amazing how much lighter the house feels without the clutter and mess weighing it down. We brought sadness home from the hospital. There was no space left for trivial things like responsibility. It spread like a virus until it owned everything. It’s time to take something back. It’s time to swing the hammer. I just hope the walls aren’t made of rubber.
Her back is to me when I walk in the bedroom door, but I know she’s awake. I see it in the stiffening of her shoulders.
The moonlight shining through the thin curtains is the only light in the room. It’s enough so I don’t flip the switch as I walk in. I undress in silence, sliding into the clean sheets beside her. She takes a sharp breath as I wrap my body around hers. She tries to pull away; I fold myself closer.
“I’m not letting you go, Rice. I can’t. Part of me wishes I could.” I’m surprised by the words as they leave my mouth. I don’t want to hurt her more, but I owe her the truth.
Her silence ushers me forward.
“She would have been the center of our world. She would have been the sun, and we would have rotated around her, basking in the glow of her light. But she’s not—she can’t be. If she stays the center, our world will crumble around her, and we’ll be sucked into the black hole she’s become.” I hold my breath, icy fear pricking my skin as her silent sobs wrack my body.
“I close my eyes and I see her. I want her with an ache that’s larger than life,” she whispers, her words so quiet, the night sounds threaten to steal them before I can make them out.
“I can’t lose you, Rice. You have to let me in. You aren’t alone. I want her too.” I feel my words vibrate against her back. I hope I’m not doing more damage. “Yesterday, when I went to the store, I saw a little girl with her dad. She couldn’t have been more than two or three. Her giggle rang out across the parking lot, piercing through me, shattering me. I sat in my truck and cried for her. I wanted so badly to be that man. To hear the delight in her giggle and not feel it slay me.” Sharing the words returns me to the spot. I’m helpless to stop the flood of emotion that lives right behind my every thought.
I hold her, imagining my silent tears falling across her body, mingling with hers. I take in the scent of her, run my fingers up her bare arm, and lose myself in her. I pepper kisses across her shoulder up to her ear.
“We lost her, but we can find each other.”
She shifts beneath me, lying flat on the bed. She pulls my mouth to hers, our lips coming together for the first time in weeks. The tears continue as the sadness flows through us, mingling in the places where we touch.
We abandon words, our souls communicating in the most primitive way.
The bed is empty when I wake. The house is silent, except for the occasional call of the songbirds outside. I grab a pair of sweats from the drawer and go in search of her. Opening the door, I hear soft music coming from her small studio at the end of the hall. Kelly Clarkson’s voice rings out from the speakers as I cross the entry.
Brice is lost to everything, except the painting before her. Her microscope remains covered. What’s her inspiration?
The hues of deep purple and indigo swirl on the canvas with a trace of light coming from some unknown source. I’m not sure how she makes the colors appear like something you could be standing in, but she does. Every painting—every time.
My question startles her—the brush freezing before the canvas. She stares, lost in thought for a moment before she answers.
“Sadness, I guess, or what it feels like to me. I imagine those traces of white scattered about—that’s you. You always shine like a beacon for me, lighting my way through the darkest night. Thank you for finding me in the darkness…” Her words trail off as her brush connects with the canvas again.
I back out of the room. Hope blooms inside me as I make my way down the stairs to start a pot of coffee. I know this is just the beginning. We have a long road to walk. I just put on a fresh pair of boots, and I’m ready for the journey. Wherever it takes us.
Part 3
2015 - BRICE
36
Past Time
“Mama, when can we go in the tiny house?”
Charlie waits patiently for an answer. Even though he’s just four years old, I know he knows the answer already. But he’s just stubborn enough to ask anyway. We go through this every time we’re playing in the yard.
I look over at the little home—dark and dreary. Unused. Unloved.
Harrison takes care of it. It isn’t in shambles by any means. It just has a big, gray thundercloud hanging in the cloudless sky above it. The smooth layer I’ve laid over the old wound shifts, feeling brand new again.
“Why do you ask? Always? You already know the answer.” I look into the most precious eyes I’ve ever seen and smile as he weighs my question.
The dimple on his cheek is leaping from side to side as he moves his mouth this way and that. I reach for m
y phone, wanting to capture the moment.
It’s over before I get it turned on. Figures. I rarely catch them in time.
“One day it’ll be different. One day you’ll be ready. Then we’ll get to go in. I bet it’s so cool. Daddy says it has everything a big house has!”
“You’d go with me? Hold my hand?”
I feel my heart begin to accelerate. I’m losing to a dimple. If it hadn’t been doing such an irresistible little dance, I wouldn’t even be contemplating it. This boy has evil powers of persuasion. I hope he never finds out.
“Yes!!” He runs around me in fast circles. “Oh yeah! Oh yeah!”
Coming to the spot in front of me, he holds his hand out to help me up. His dark chocolate curls are as wild as mine, and his eyes—the same golden honey color as his dad’s. He’s a perfect blend. Parts borrowed from each to make a unique new whole.
I try to get my feet beneath me and push with just one hand, the weight of my front making it hard to balance. Laughter bubbles out of me as I tumble back to my bottom. Charlie’s giggles dance with my own, his hands in front of his mouth, body bent at the waist, dissolving into pure delight.
“I think we may have to try a different way, Captain.” Standing on my knees, I brace my weight on my hands in front of me. Planting my feet on the ground, I push off. I laugh again as I find my balance. “Whew, that was hard work.”
“You did it! Can we really go in now?” His eyes are pleading, the delight from moments before nowhere to be seen as he holds his breath, waiting for my reply.
I think about the house, how long it’s been since I spent time there. Ten years. Ten long years of ignoring the elephant that’s sitting in my backyard. So much wasted space.
I’ve been hiding from ghosts that have haunted me for way too long.
“If I have the brave Captain to lead the way, I think I might just be able to do it. If we can find the key. Do you know where Daddy keeps it?”