I’ve been living twenty minutes from our old house, and I still take the long way around to avoid driving past it.
Three years, nine months.
“I went on a date. First one since—well, since before. He was nice. Polite. Held the door. Talked about his truck for forty-five minutes.” A sound that’s almost a laugh. “I kept thinking about how Rose would’ve kicked me under the table and whispered ‘this man is putting me to sleep, Bexley, save yourself.’ I didn’t go on a second date. Not because of you. I just—I don’t think I’m ready. Maybe I’m like you. Maybe once is enough.”
My hands tighten on the phone.
She went on a date.
A man held the door for her and talked about his truck and she sat there missing Rose and thinking about me.
The thought of another man across a table from Bex—even a boring one, even a failed one—produces a reaction in my chest that I have no right to feel and can’t stop feeling.
Four years. The anniversary.
“Four years. Yellow roses on her grave. I go every year. Do you? I don’t know. I don’t know anything about you anymore. I don’t know if you’re still riding. If you’re still with the club. If you’re okay.” Long pause. “I was supposed to be your family too, Lee. Rose would be so angry at both of us.”
Four and a half years.
“Earl fell. Broke his wrist. He’s fine. Stubborn as ever. Just thought you should know.”
Twenty-two seconds long.
The shortest of all sixty-three.
She’s running out of things to say to a man who doesn’t answer.
The messages have gone from pleas to stories to updates to facts, stripped of everything except the bare minimum connection she can’t quite bring herself to sever.
Four years, eight months.
“I had a dream about Rose last night. We were at Earl’s, all four of us. Sunday dinner. She was laughing. You were stealing food off her plate. I was telling some stupid story. Earl was pretending to be annoyed. Just—normal. Just us. And when I woke up I reached for my phone to call her and tell her about it before I remembered.” A breath that shudders. “Four years and I still reach for the phone. Four years and I still forget for one second every morning that she’s gone. Does that happen to you? I hope it does. I hope you still get that one second.”
I do. Every morning.
The half-second between sleep and waking where the bed is warm and the world is intact and Rose is downstairs making coffee with too much sugar.
Then the second ends and the bed is cold and the grief is exactly where I left it, patient and heavy, waiting for me to open my eyes.
Five years.
The last anniversary before the diagnosis.
“Five years today. Half a decade. It doesn’t get easier, does it? It just gets quieter. The grief stops screaming and starts whispering and somehow the whisper is worse because you have to lean in to hear it and leaning in means letting it close.” Asound that might be a laugh or might be a sob. “I’m still here, Lee. I don’t know why I keep calling. Habit, maybe. Or maybe I just need to believe someone’s listening, even if they’re not.”
And then the recent ones. The ones that brought her back.
Five months ago.
“Earl is sick. Cancer. Stage three.” Controlled. Flat. The voice of a woman delivering information she’s already processed alone. “Colon. Spread to a lymph node. He starts chemo next week. I thought you should know.”
Three months ago.
“I’m moving back. Packed up Amarillo in two days. I’m not coming for you, Lee. I’m coming for Earl. Because when your family is dying, you show up. Oh, and Hank died. Heart disease. Not that you care.”
The same words she said to my face in the feed store. She rehearsed them. Delivered them first to my voicemail, then to me in person. The line she’d been sharpening for five years.
The last voicemail.
