She sighs through the line.“Okay, well, you didn’t call to shoot the shit with me, Maddox.”
Damn right I didn’t.Those days are long gone.
“It’s Granddaddy, Della.”
“What about him?Is he giving the aide a hard time again?I told you we should’ve listened to Judy when she suggested we put him in a nursing home.At least there he would have?—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
An exasperated sigh sounds on her end.
“Don’t get that tone with me.All I’m saying is that a nursing home would’ve been the best choice for him, but your ego wouldn’t allow it.Now, you’re calling me at four in the morning because he’s having an episode, and you don’t know what to do.”
The fucking nerve of her.If I could somehow reach through the phone and throttle her, I would.
“No, Della, I’m calling you because Granddaddy is gone.He fucking died tonight.But go ahead, tell me again how I should’ve put him in a nursing home.”
She’s gonna say it anyway when she learns the truth.
I might as well get used to it.
The shit thing is… she’s right, and I fucking hate that.
ChapterFour
Amelia
“Dylan, you have five seconds to get your ass down here or…”
My words trail as I try to figure out how to threaten my twelve-year-old son effectively.Deep down I know it’s a losing battle, though.I thought the hardest years of being a mother were behind me, but I’m learning it’s all hard—the lonely nights I spent as a teen mom trying to soothe a colicky babyandthe mornings I’m currently working through, trying to get a grumpy preteen up and out the door for school.There is no manual for this shit.You just got to wing it and pray your kid doesn’t wind up in therapy for something you inadvertently did.
The bathroom door slams shut, and I take that as a small win.At least he’s up.Now, to get him dressed, fed, and into the car in the next five minutes.That’s where the actual test of strength comes into play.
But first…coffee.
I pop a pod into the Keurig and grab a mug from the cabinet.Mondays are awful regularly, but not getting any sleep last night is making this one much harder.Every time I tried to close my eyes, my mind drifted back to Maddox.We’ve mostly kept our distance from one another over the years, but there have been a handful of times when it’s been unavoidable, and whenever that’s happened, intrusive thoughts of him always plagued the nights that followed.
Last night was different, though.
Instead of lying in bed mourning the past and thinking about all the ways he hurt me, which usually only ever leads to me being filled with rage, I stayed awake hurting forhim.
I was sixteen when his mom died, just a hormonal girl with a crush on her best friend’s brother.I remember him being upset, but he held himself together.He was a pillar of strength for Della, and stoic in a way that went far beyond his years.I attributed all of that to his grandfather.William Meadows demanded a lot of his grandson, and I think that’s because his only son was a failure at best.He taught Maddox how to be a man, and ultimately, he taught him how to carry his family legacy with grace.But I don’t think William gave much thought to how Maddox would grieve the man who paved the way for him to be his successor as the family patriarch.I don’t think he accounted for the emotions Maddox would feel in the event of his death.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe we can ever prepare ourselves for the death of a loved one.Even when someone is terminally ill and we know it’s coming, the moment that person draws their last breath, they take a piece of our hearts to the other side with them.
What happened to William was an unexpected tragedy, though.It completely blindsided Maddox.One look into his eyes, and I knew for certain that he was not equipped to handle everything he was feeling.He runs on autopilot, and routine is his companion.Disrupting any of that or cracking through the walls he’s built around himself will put him in uncharted territory.
How he’ll respond to it all is what worries me.
I can hate the man for what he did to me… for what he did to us, but to my dismay, there is still a soft spot for him nestled deep inside my heart, and it would hurt to see him fall apart, mainly because I know there is no one to put him back together.
We’re alike in that regard.
Neither of us has anyone to rely on when things go sideways.
We’re the heroes of own stories.
I think that’s another reason I’m so bitter when it comes to him.I was too young for the feelings I had for him.I didn’t understand them, and I sure as hell didn’t know how to process them.Anger and resentment became my crutch, but sometimes I let myself believe that if we both weren’t so stubborn, and just a little older, maybe even more mature, then things could’ve been different for us.Instead of spending years avoiding one another, we could’ve been friends.
