“What happened?”
He runs his hands through his hair before lifting his head to reveal his bloodshot eyes. I don’t know how things could have gone downhill so fast. We weren’t gone very long.
“She just had a really bad episode. Her cough was awful and she was spitting up blood. She couldn’t catch her breath.” He shakes his head back and forth. “I just wasn’t ready for it.”
“How is she now?”
“Her nurse is in there with her. She gave her an injection and she’s sleeping. I swear, you can hear her struggling to breathe from in the goddamn living room.” He closes his eyes and scrubs his hands up and down his face. “Dad doesn’t think it’ll be too much longer.”
The three of us sit on the steps at a loss for words. There’s nothing to say… reassurances, apologies, and false hopes don’t do anyone any good. I don’t know how much time passes, but the nurse pokes her head out the door and says that Mrs. Vera’s awake and wants to see her sons. Doc comes out the house and takes off down the street. I want to follow him and make sure he’s alright, but that’s silly.
Of course he’s not okay.
***
“She’s been asleep for days now,” I tell my mom. I had to come home for a few hours and take a break from what’s happening across the street. Not that this place is sunshine and rainbows, but watching the three most important men in my life holding a bedside vigil next to Mrs. Vera’s dying body is too much.
She takes a sip of her coffee and strokes the cover of her Bible. “It’s time for her to be called home. You all will be hurt, but as the Good Book states in Psalms 34:18, ‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’”
I’m too tired to respond to her. She keeps throwing quotes at me regarding death and mourning, but my thoughts drift to Easton and Sutton. The clock on the living room wall chimes, and I decide I’ve been over here long enough.
“I’m going back over there, Mom. I’ll come by later.”
She nods, but the smile on her face is a bright, genuine smile. It’s a bit disarming because I haven’t seen that look on her since I was a child; since my dad was around. “I hate that you are suffering, but I’ve enjoyed being able to spend time with you. I miss you, Scar.”
“Me too.” It comes out before I can stop it, and I realize that I mean it. I miss my mom, not the alcoholic abusive version, but my old mom. This mom… the mom that’s slowly coming back to life. Maybe losing Mrs. Vera is forcing me to realize Amy Cook’s all I have left, so I better make the best of it. “I’ll come back tonight after your shift. Have a good day at work.”
We hug at the door, and it’s the most sincere one we’ve ever shared. My eyes burn as I pull away. She smoothes my hair down and stands in the doorway, watching as I go back across the street to the Winters’.
I can hear her as soon as I step through the house. Each inhale is pained, rattled. She struggles each time she has to pull in air. Each exhale is garbled and wet, like she’s breathing underwater. I know she’s hurting and she just wants this to be over. We’ve had hard conversations about it. If it was up to me, she’d be in the hospital fighting for her life, but it would just prolong the inevitable.
It’s time for Mrs. Vera to leave us.
Claudia is in the living room with an open book in her hand, but her eyes are scanning the family pictures along the walls. This is just as hard on her as it is on us. She’s hurting for Sutton and Estella.
“Where’s Estella?”
“She’s in her room. She got upset after going in to see her grandma.”
I decide to go check on her first. I peek through the slight crack in the doorway and see her curled up in a ball in the middle of Sutton’s old bed. When I sit down next to her she mumbles something in her sleep but doesn’t wake up. Dried tear tracks are marring her cheeks. I want to curl up next to her and wrap her in my arms and assure her that everything will be okay, but I don’t have that right, and I’m not sure that everything will be okay. This family might fall apart without their matriarch.
“She okay?” Sutton whispers from the doorway.
“She’s sleeping.” I turn from his daughter and look at him. The sight of him squeezes my heart. “Are you okay?”
He shakes his head and I watch his face crumble as he walks toward me. I open my arms and take him in. His sobs rock my entire body and trigger my own tears. We cling to each other with a fierce desperation and let all the pent up emotions come out.
“Sorry,” he says when he finally releases me. His hands wipe away the wetness on my cheeks, and I do the same for him.
“I don’t mind.”
I give him a reassuring smile and move my hands from his face to his hair, trying to tame the messiness. Movement in the hallway pulls my eyes away from him and I see Easton leaning against the wall outside the room. Claudia’s right behind him, both of them witness to everything that just transpired between us. Sutton gets up from the bed and walks over to his brother. He doesn’t say anything, just claps him on the shoulder a few times and goes back in the direction of his parent’s bedroom.
“Easton,” I say when I reach him, but he puts his finger over my mouth.
“I know,” he tells me.
“He was-”
“I know,” he repeats. He takes my hand and we walk to the bedroom, hovering in the door.
Doc is by the bed, his forehead against his wife’s. The hospice nurse is in the room, monitoring the situation but trying to give the family as much privacy as possible. Sutton and I linger just inside the room, but Easton moves to a chair on the opposite side of the bed from his father. Doc is whispering words of love and encouragement to his wife. I’m trying not to listen, and it’s almost impossible to hear through her labored breaths anyway, but things like it’s okay to let go, and I’ll love you forever keep jumping out at me, like hammers pounding against my already shattered heart.
Claudia takes off down the hallway when Doc’s words stop. He buries his face in the crook of Mrs. Vera’s neck and Easton grabs her hand. He leans over and kisses her cheek. Doc’s sobs become louder when her tortured breaths stop.
She’s gone.
The nurse pats Doc on the shoulder and opens the window. Easton wipes his face and runs out the room, Sutton and I following. I call his name but he ignores it, slamming his bedroom door. The click of the lock echoes through the hallway.
“Come on,” Sutton says, taking my hand and leading me out the house. I don’t have to ask where we’re going. There’s only one place that he would bring me to get rid of some of this pain.
“We always seem to end up back here,” Sutton says as we climb on the roof.
“This was like my therapy back then.”
“Ahh, look.” He stretches out his arm and I follow the line of his finger. “Do you see her? The Queen of the Night Sky.”
“Who?” I laugh, but it feels wrong. I shouldn’t be doing that when Mrs. Vera just died. “You know I can’t ever find anything without your help.”
“Cassiopeia. She’s right over there,” he tells me, taking my arm and running his hand down to mine, pointing me in the right direction.
“I still don’t see her.”
“She’s there, just buried. You’ve got to find a flattened ‘w’.” He scoots closer to me and leans against my back, sending chills along my skin. “Just over there.”
“Got it.”
“If you add up all the energy in her stars, she shines forty thousand times brighter than the sun. She’s home to some of the youngest stars in the galaxy.”
“Can I have the pre-UCLA version of the story, please? Tell me about the myth, not the stars. I need a distraction.”
He launches into his story without moving away from me. His warm breath tickles the skin on the back of my neck. I should scoot away from him, but I don’t. I need the contact, the comfort. I need to forget what just happened.
“Cassiopeia was married to King Cepheus and was the
mother of Andromeda. She was very beautiful, and knew it. She often bragged that she was the most beautiful woman in the world, which pissed off Poseidon, god of the sea and the brother of Zeus. He created his sea nymphs to be the most beautiful creatures in existence, and didn’t like her challenging that.
“Poseidon made a great sea monster to destroy ships and beings in the sea, and the towns along the coasts, in an effort to get Cassiopeia to stop her boasting. She wouldn’t stop, of course, and the people of the coastal towns were getting fed up. They asked Poseidon what could be done to stop all of the destruction. He said that if Cassiopeia would sacrifice her daughter to the sea monster he would stop. The townspeople took her daughter, Andromeda, and chained her to a rock that hung over the sea. She was saved at the last minute and the sea monster was turned to stone.”
“What happened to Cassiopeia?”
He points to the stars. “Zeus and Poseidon declared that she live out eternity in the sky as a punishment for being so conceited. They placed her upside down in order to humiliate her.”
“Harsh.”
His lips brush against the back of my neck. It’s the softest caress, and I don’t make myself pull away. “I miss sharing these stories with you.”
“I miss hearing them.”
His head hits my back. “I can’t believe she’s gone.” I turn and wrap my arms around him in an attempt to console him. “Thank you for being here with me, Squirt. It’s easier with you here.”
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
He stares at me for a minute, scaring me with the things I know he wants to say, but won’t.
“We need to get home,” I whisper. I need to get out of this situation before one of us does something that we can’t take back.
Much like after the park, Easton and Claudia are together on the porch, huddled together and comforting each other. I don’t have the right to feel jealous at the picture they make, not when I just sat on the roof with Sutton and wished that things were different between us.
She stands up and slips inside with Sutton when I walk up the steps. Easton never lifts his head when I sit down beside him. I don’t ask him if he’s alright, because clearly he’s not. We sit on the porch, listening to the sounds of the night, and I wait for him to open up to me.
He never does.
Chapter Twenty-six
Mrs. Vera is laid to rest on a beautiful Friday afternoon. It seems as if the entire town came to pay their respects. I look out into the sea of black and gaze at teary eyed faces saying goodbye to one of our town’s most beloved citizens.
“My wife wanted one thing out of her life,” Doc says, standing stoically next to her coffin, which is adorned with a spray of beautiful white roses. He lets his tears flow freely down his face, a testament to the love he has for his wife. “She wanted to see those three happy.” He extends a shaky hand and points to me and his two sons, sitting in the first row of chairs in the grass. Doc gives us a sad smile. “It’s a work in progress, but I think, in the end, she’ll get what she wanted.”
Sutton and Easton are on either side of me, each one of the brothers gripping my hands to the point of pain, and letting their tears fall as they listen to their father continue to talk about how much their mother loved the three of us, and how much he loved her.
I listen to Doc’s moving words, my own mother’s hand resting on my shoulder, and I come to several realizations. I need to fix my life, live like Mrs. Vera wanted. Relationships need to be repaired, rekindled, changed. This life is not guaranteed. As I sit and reflect on mine, I can’t help but think that it could essentially end at any time, and I don’t want any regrets. I would hate to look back and feel guilt over not working things out with my mother, or be ashamed for leading Easton on because he makes me feel good. Every day that I stay with him, even though we’re just friends, I’m breaking his heart.
We say our final goodbyes to Vera Winters and watch through heavy tears as she’s lowered into the ground. I don’t know how we manage to keep it together through the priest’s final prayers, but we do. The three of us have cried enough over the last several weeks to last a lifetime. Doc lingers at the gravesite while Mrs. Vera’s friends and extended family pile into their cars to head back to Emily’s parent’s house for food and drinks. Emily and Gregory flew in yesterday, and she’s been such a godsend with finalizing everything and making the whole day perfect.
“Will you take a walk with me?” Easton’s voice draws me out of my thoughts. He’s been very quiet, understandably so. I’m terribly worried about him, but he’s always been the quieter of the two Winters brothers.
“We should get to Em’s house.”
“No one will even notice. I want to talk to you.”
We haven’t had an actual conversation in a while, so I slip my hand in his and we walk through the gates of the cemetery, and he leads me toward the neighborhood next to it. I feign interest in the houses we pass while I wait for him to open up to me.
It takes a few streets before he speaks. “I spent a lot of time talking about us with Mom. I never let those conversations sink in until today.” He shakes his head. “That’s not right. I didn’t like what she was saying. But listening to my father today, I realize she was right. What we’ve been doing isn’t fair to any of us. Not to me, you, or my brother.”
I wince, even though I just went through this exact line of thought at the burial. It seems much worse coming from him. My hand grows clammy in his, and I’m scared of what he’s going to say next. I had my fair share of conversations with Mrs. Vera, too, and I’m pretty certain she didn’t hide her feelings from him on which brother she felt I should be with.
“You don’t belong with me, Scarlett,” he continues. “Not even in this farce of a relationship. It’s killing both of us.” He stops walking and takes hold of my shoulders so that we can look at each other. “I can never compete with Sutton where you’re concerned. The two of you are meant to be together. As much as this kills me, I have to let you go.”
The warmth of the sun beating down on us is sucked away with his words. “I love you, Easton,” I cry, not knowing what else to say.
“I know you do, Scarlett, but not in that way. Not in the way I love you, and not in the way I need you to love me.” He wipes at my tears and smiles. “I know it seems silly that we’re breaking up, when we’re not even together, but we can’t keep going on like this. I can’t let you go completely, though, Scarlett. You’re my best friend. We’ll still be friends, just how we used to be. Before the wedding. Before everything got so fucked up.”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes. “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to say when you break up with someone, but it’s never the case.”
“It will be with us. We’ve been best friends most of our lives. That’s what we were meant to be. I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t.”
We walk a few more minutes, letting the heaviness of the day sink in. “What are you going to do now?”
He shrugs. “I think I’ll stay here for a while. My dad needs people around him. I can finish school here. What about you?”
“I might stay here, too. It’s time to make amends with my mom.”
“I’m proud of you.” That means a lot coming from him. “What about my brother?” he asks.
“That’s not something I’m ready to think about. My life is a bit of a mess right now. I’m lost, so I need to get myself sorted before I can even entertain the idea of him.”
“He’s still in love with you.”
I smile, but then my face falls. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Seeing you happy won’t hurt me. You’re not a very good liar, Scarlett. I know that you’ve never stopped loving him. Things would have been a lot different between us if you had.”
I bite back the apology that’s on the tip of my tongue. “I’ve probably been hurting you this whole time.”
His smile is sad. “I’ll never regret any time we spent t
ogether.”
“You’re going to make someone very happy one day.”
He gives me a gentle kiss on the forehead and starts walking again. “We need to get going.”
I wait for the ache in my heart to grow heavier. I just buried the woman that was more of a mother to me than my own, and my best friend just told me our whole relationship has to change. It hurts, but I know that what just transpired was necessary. I push it all out of my mind and focus on the feel of Easton’s hand in mine, the warmth of his arm against my skin, and the closeness of him. This might be the last time we ever walk like this, and I want to remember it forever.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Congratulations,” they all yell and clap when Easton and I join them on the front lawn of the auditorium.
We haven’t all been together like this since last year at the funeral. Everyone came to our graduation today… Mom, Doc, Emily and Gregory, Sutton, Claudia, and Estella. It’s nice to see everyone together and smiling. It’s such a difference in atmosphere from this time last year.
“Look, Squirt,” Estella says, smiling and pointing at a gap in her teeth.
“You got brave enough to pull it?” We’ve been Facetiming several times a week, and that pesky tooth is often the topic of conversation.
“Nope. I was eating an apple, and it just popped out.”
“Did the tooth fairy come and visit you?”
She shakes her head. “Daddy says she got confused because we’re not home. Maybe tonight.”
I peek at her father, who is grinning sheepishly behind her. The poor child’s been wiggling that tooth for a month, dying for it to fall out, and Sutton dropped the ball.
“I hope so.”
“Everybody ready?” Doc asks. “We don’t want to miss our reservation.”
“Are you riding with us?” Estella asks. “Please, Squirt?” She draws the word out for several seconds, making it hard to resist.
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