“What are you doing out so early?” I ask since it’s barely seven in the morning. The fact that he’s dressed in running shorts, sneakers, and a T-shirt should make the answer obvious, but I’m at a loss as to what else to say.
He steps closer and peers over my shoulder since I’ve now stood and turned fully in his direction. He stares at the headstone behind me, his lips pulling downward and a sadness invading those golden-brown orbs.
“You couldn’t have saved her.” He allows his statement to hang in the air for a few brief moments before he pins me with his gaze.
It’s hard to speak around the lump that forms in my throat, but I manage to eke out, “I could’ve tried harder. Forced her to return to treatment again.”
Neil shakes his head against my stubbornness. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Sure it does. I went to college with a guy who was in and out of rehab, and finally, when his parents kicked him out and told him they were done, he stopped. Another girl I know from high school got sober after her first stay at your rehab center. And Jackie told me about another patient with a similar story.”
“But none of them were Dierdre,” he says dryly. So dry that it cuts off any retort I can think to say back. Why? Because he’s correct. Not one of those people I mentioned was my sister.
I lower my gaze and turn my back on Neil, or Mr. McKenna as I’d taken to calling him since I first met him almost five years ago.
“She should still be here,” I mumble, staring at the date of her death engraved on her headstone.
October 3, 2017.
“She was only twenty-eight,” I murmur and lift my head to the right. He’s standing beside me, staring at me instead of the headstone. “I’ve lived a year longer than my older sister,” I whisper. It doesn’t feel right saying it out loud.
There’s something incredibly wrong about the fact that I’ve had a year longer on this planet than Dierdre.
Suddenly, the chill that threatened to invade every cell of my body begins to recede. Swallowing, I look down at my right hand to find it covered by his larger, left hand. He squeezes, and my knees weaken, not to the point of toppling me over, but noticeably so.
“I should’ve been able to save her.”
His hand firms around mine again, this time pulling me to face him. He’s shaking his head. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” I demand, stomping my foot in denial and anger. “She was my sister. Our parents turned their backs on her. I was the only family she had left and, I … I …”
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I didn’t do anything right,” I yell, jutting my free hand toward the headstone as if offering up proof of my failure. “She’s dead.”
“And there’s not a damned thing you could’ve done to stop it,” he says, just as forcefully, although he’s not yelling.
“I shouldn’t have gone out that night. I knew she was—”
“An addict. She was an addict, and an addict isalwaysgoing to keep going until they want to stop. Whether you had gone out that night or not, Deirdre would’ve found a way to get high. It wasn’t your job to stop her, and it damn sure isn’t your job to beat yourself up over it, year after year.”
I snatch my hand away from his and take a step back. Shaking my head, I refuse to let his words penetrate my psyche.
“I don’t know if that’s how they do things wherever you’re from, Neil, but that’s not how I do things. It’s not how I care for the people I love.” I take another step back and stare at Neil through watery lenses. Pressing my lips together, I shake my head in refusal at whatever he’s about to say.
The words die on his lips as he firms them together again, obviously realizing that I’m not up for whatever response he has.
“That’s not how I do things,” I say more to myself than to him. Taking one final look, I peer up at Neil and see something in his gaze that I refuse to allow myself to register. It’s too early in the morning. It’s the third anniversary of my sister’s death. And the guilt I’ve carried for the past thirty-six months is palpable.
Refusing to add another dimension to this odd mix of emotion I find myself in the middle of, I tear my gaze away from Neil McKenna and take one final look at Dierdre’s grave.
Beloved daughter, sister, and friend.
Those are the three relationships that define her. Not wife or mother. Two things I knew she wanted desperately in this world. But apparently, not nearly as much as she wanted to feed her addiction.
“That’s not how I do things,” I repeat before turning away from Dierdre’s grave and Neil, the man who also tried to save her, and head in the direction of my car, leaving them both behind.
Chapter 2
