He followed my gaze. “What do you want from her?”
I lifted a shoulder, feigning indifference.
He sighed and released me. I stumbled forward a step. His gaze traveled up the bank to Mom too, and his voice swelled with emotion. “You aren’t always going to be able to run to her.”
I knew that. But the words were like a knife.
“She’s going to be okay,” I insisted.
“Jackson.” Dad shoved his fingers through his graying hair. “Have you heard anything we’ve been saying?”
I lifted a shoulder again.
He dropped to my eye level and squared my shoulders to face him. “Son, no. She’s not going to be okay.”
Tears were threatening, hotter than before. Mom had been in hospice, but we’d brought her home. To my nine year-old brain, that meant she would be okay. Words leaked out around the lump in my throat. “But she came home.”
He cursed under his breath, and his voice wobbled. His brows slanted deeper. “You don’t listen to anything.” His grip tightened on my shoulders. “We brought her home because she wanted to be here. With us. Not in some room somewhere.”
I shook my head in denial. “She’s sitting outside. She’s feeling better.” A hot tear burned a trail down my face despite my efforts to swallow it back.
“Hey, nuh-uh, none of that.”
I reached to dry it, but Dad swiped it away with a rough hand.
“We are going to be strong. For her. For your sister. For each other.” I could tell he was trying to keep his voice level, but his teeth were clenched and his fingers were hurting me. Was he angry at me? He lightly shook my small frame. “We aren’t going to cry, okay?”
I nodded and bit the inside of my cheek.
“Life is full of loss, Jackson. Crying right now is only going to upset your mother. We have to?—”
Mom scolded him, “Nathaniel.”
Dad shook his head and stood up, pacing away from me. “He needs to learn.”
I squatted and drug my hand over the surface of the dirt. Feeling, not seeing, the tiny bits of gravel scraping the pads of my fingers.
“He’s going to learn all too soon.” Her voice was frail, her skin so white looking.
The bench groaned as Dad sat next to her and slipped his arm over her shoulders. She shifted, sinking into his chest. Their voices carried to the edge of the water.
“He needs to grieve, Nathaniel.”
He said nothing.
“You’re being too hard on him. You’re always too hard on him.”
Still nothing from Dad.
“Promise me you’ll let him grieve. No tough guy stuff when I’m gone.”
The bench groaned as they rocked. A breeze lifted the hair on my head and cooled my hot, damp cheeks. I watched as a motor boat zoomed by, just outside the no-wake zone. A wave lapped the tip of my boot, and I stuck my hands in, letting the dirt wash from my fingers. One of my tears mixed with the murky water.
A strange feeling unfurled in my chest—a burning and aching. Shecouldn’tbe leaving. My knees pressed into my sternum as I squatted lower to the ground and ducked my head down, hiding my now-flowing tears. Kept pretending to look for a good rock.
Dad lowered his voice and said something to Mom. But the quickened tide drowned out his answer. Then his special watch beeped. He scooped up Mom and walked up the hill to our house. The nurse would be waiting for her. Regret pricked as I watched them disappear through the back door.
I should’ve been sitting with her.
