“Why did he say he owed you then?” I ask.
“Your mom and I represented him in a negligence lawsuit against the hospital. His compensation helped him pay for the delivery expenses of his daughter and the funeral for his wife. I’m sure that’s all he meant. As far as your job, he called me after hearing from your recruiter. Jack always told me you’d be good at fire, but you got this job all on your own.”
That should make me feel better than it does.
“But then I screwed it up,” I add.
I’m waiting for theI told you soto follow that statement. The pretentious man married to the pursuit of hard work would harass me for fleeing the first chance I got.But that guy wouldn’t be relaxed against his headrest. He also wouldn’t be caught dead in those joggers and baseball cap either.
“Do you know why I flew with you to drop you off?” he asks.
“Because you didn’t think I’d actually go.”
He shakes his head. “I knew you would. I was afraid you wouldn’t come back. Despite how much grief you give me on a daily basis, I knew I’d miss your zest for life.”
I sigh. “You don’t want to know my outlook on it anymore.” The sadness I kept buried crawls its way back to the surface of my skin. I’d scratch it away if I thought it would get rid of it.
He reaches across the seat and places his hand on my forearm.
“I can’t go back there,” I whisper.
Just the thought of facing them all again… Looking Hailey in the eye after I left her like that.
“If you want to spend another week here, I’ll ride every roller-coaster a hundred times in the front seat. If it’s going back home for a while, your room is still waiting for you. But if deep down what you need is the family you made here, you better fight like hell against those feelings of inadequacy, because they miss you. You deserve to feel chosen not just by others but by yourself.”
I feel them before he sees them. Hot tears prick my vision. For the first time in a long time, I let myself cry in front of him.
We share the crappy bed for another night before parting ways the next morning.
When he calls five minutes after I pull away from the hotel, I answer with, “Forget something?”
“Yeah. I forgot to ask you about your summer,” he says.
And I spend the five-hour drive talking while my dad listens. He chuckles when I describe blisters and poison oak. He gasps over ants and spot fires. He cries when I tell him what happened to Dean and about my love for Hailey.
It feels like a new beginning.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
HAILEY
Sometimes it takes figuratively weathering a size-twelve boot with worn treads and the laces too tight to understand someone. Navigating this loss, walking in my dad’s shoes, I finally fathom it. Grief is claustrophobic and agonizing.
A soldier’s coffin is draped in a flag while the elderly are decorated with flowers. Dean’s is covered in pictures. I pick one up of him as a toddler. Chocolate smears his right cheek and mischief dances in his eyes. I set it back down next to the one of him with a cherry-red Strider bike, his helmet on too loose so it exposes his forehead. There are at least two dozen more painting his childhood memories… First steps, first tooth, first grade, first dance. Madison hangs on his arm for that one, and if it wasn’t completely inappropriate for a church, I’d shred it until there were no remnants left of that two-timing…
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Murphy’s burly voice booms.
“If God himself wouldn’t smite me for thinking it, then yes. That’s what I’m thinking,” I say.
“I think God has a sense of humor if you ask me. He wasperfectly fine letting farmer Dan over there believe he’s going to get a woman looking the way that he does,” Ramirez says.
Daniels threads his thumbs through the straps of his overalls and winks back at him. “You’re lucky I wore a shirt under this.”
“You boys are terrible,” I say.
“You love us.” Jackson carries a set of folding chairs down the aisle, passing them off to Marshal and Ramirez to build another row beyond the front pew. We’re expecting a large turnout.
On his second trip, he hauls an easel up the altar steps and sets it up beside Dean’s mahogany casket. I’m grateful his parents decided to keep it closed. I’d rather remember my friend’s beautiful spirit than a waxy replica of his body.
