“No one knew who’d be going into the well,” Wyatt pointed out. “It could have easily been one of my men that went down there instead of you or Max.”
“But you all know I wouldn’t have let that happen. I wanted to prove to you guys that you could all trust me. I didn’t want anyone to be put at risk. I was willing to take that burden on myself. But now it looks like someone in your crew is trying to mess everything up.”
“You don’t know that,” Wyatt said. “That’s a wild accusation to make. If anyone has a saboteur in the group it’s you. Look at Jade! You really don’t know her that well. From what I’ve heard, she’s done some seriously shady stuff in the past. She killed someone. She’s always volunteering for the dangerous assignments where she goes into town. She does things for her own advantage. Who’s to say this wasn’t her?”
“No way,” Matthew said and shook his head vehemently. “Jade has done some bad things, but she’s been working on redeeming herself. She’s done a lot for my family that proves she wouldn’t do this. She’s done what was in her power to be helpful and has proved her commitment to helping this hotel over and over again. She’d never put that into jeopardy.” Matthew paused and knew his next question would be full of venom. “What about the boys at the gun club that were a bad influence on Patton?”
“Bad influence?” Wyatt said. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Matthew said hotly. “Patton wouldn’t have done anything like that without those boys egging him on.”
Matthew stopped and took a deep breath. His father’s advice on the porch flowed back to him. He was in danger of throwing out endless accusations and drawing up old hurts that had been put to rest. He had to be careful about what he said next. Wyatt had been an ally, just like Jade had. He needed to see past his rage and fear to think straight. He just had to be sure on this one last thing. “Did those boys have access to the rigging?”
“Do you really think that children would do something so heinous? Do you really suspect them of doing something so calculated?” Wyatt sounded offended. He took a step back and looked at Matthew like he’d never seen him before.
“Okay,” Matthew said, knowing that he’d stepped over a line. “You’re right. That was out of left field and uncalled for. I’m sorry. The children didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Good,” Wyatt said. “If you really think that, though, we need to reevaluate this whole relationship. Do you hear me? Don’t accuse anyone like that again. I know this is between you and me, but don’t make me rethink our friendship.”
“Point taken,” Matthew said, somewhat startled that Wyatt thought of him as a friend and not just an ally. “That still leaves the question unanswered. Who could have screwed with our stuff? Are they targeting my family? Or is this something aimed at the gun club? Who do you think it could be?”
Wyatt opened his mouth, but his response was cut off by the sound of Kathleen screaming out Matthew’s name. Her cry cut through the air and sent a chill into Matthew’s bloodstream. He saw her waving at him as she ran toward him down the pathway from the hotel to the well.
“What is it?” Matthew shouted back at her, irritated that the conversation had been halted.
Kathleen came to a stop and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Come here!” she cried out. “It’s David. Matt, it’s David. He needs you.”
Matthew went pale and looked over to Wyatt. “I have to go,” he said and before Wyatt could respond, he took off running across the hotel’s property. His heart thudded wildly in his chest. Please, he thought to no one and to everyone all at once.
Please. Please. I can’t take it.
24
As Matthew bolted for the hotel, his mind was full of white noise. He couldn’t think around the panic. He didn’t know what was going on with David, but he knew by Kathleen’s pale face that it could be nothing good. Had he fallen down some steps? It would be like David to push his luck while he was recovering from a second heart attack. Did he hurt himself trying to do a task around the hotel? Smash his thumb with a hammer like he’d done when Matthew was young? Why couldn’t his father just stay still and heal?
Matthew burst through the front door of the hotel and hightailed it to the suite where his father was recovering. He cursed his own stubbornness. He hadn’t talked to David since that afternoon on the porch. He should have come and checked on him earlier, but instead, he’d buried himself in the well restoration. It wasn’t as if Matthew hadn’t wanted to be there, but he knew that water was more important to his father’s well-being than recounting old stories or reliving often-told favorite days. He had been doing everything in his power to help his father…
He just probably should have stopped by more often to check in. Maybe it would have stopped David from doing whatever ridiculous thing he had done to risk his life, yet again. The suite’s door swung open and Matthew took one step in, but then came to a dead halt as if he’d been electrocuted.
David was lying on the bed, but he looked like a mere shadow of who he used to be. His pale skin sagged, and his mouth was slightly open. His breathing sounded ragged with a wheeze-like quality, as if he couldn’t take a proper breath. His wrists looked knobby against the rose-patterned quilt, and his fingers seemed far too long and fragile. Everything about David looked as though he’d been sucked dry. It seemed as if his spirit had disappeared and that his mind had shut down. Even his body was failing him. Matthew gasped. David hadn’t been recovering at all. His health had been backsliding.
Nikki stood off to the side, back in the farthest corner. Ruth looked over at him from her seat in a chair beside the bed. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she gripped David’s hand. “Oh Matthew,” she whispered when she saw him. “He’s been waiting for you.”
“What do you mean he’s been waiting for me?” Matthew asked. His voice caught on the end of the question, making him feel lightheaded.
Ruth only gave him a small, sad smile. Matthew felt a hand on his shoulder and looked over to see Kathleen nudging him out of the doorway as she entered the room. Allison and Patton were behind her. Their two faces seemed young and solemn, and for a moment Matthew didn’t want them to enter the room. He wanted to save them from seeing that final shape on the bed. That wasn’t their grandfather. Their grandfather was the man who had taught them how to play chess and who listened to Patton’s incessant rambling. He was the one that teased Allison about her future until she rolled her eyes, put her phone down, and took him on with some sarcastic comment of her own. This person in the bed was not who they should remember.
Allison and Patton eased by Kathleen and Matthew and walked farther into the room. Matthew expected them to turn to him and ask what was happening, but instead, he saw Allison’s face drop with sorrow and acceptance. Patton started to cry, but it was a soft weeping, nothing panicked or fearful. Suddenly, it hit Matthew like a hammer that even if he hadn’t been coming to see his father every day, his children had. He remembered Kathleen mentioning that they had been checking up on David and renewing his spirits with chatter and company.
Not only that, but they had done more than speak with David. They had done their best to help him in other ways. Allison had dedicated her days to growing vegetables and greens that would help David’s heart recovery. Patton had searched for heart-healthy protein options, and even though he’d gone about it the wrong way, his intentions had been good. More than good. Noble, even.
And Matthew had yelled at him for being selfish and inconsiderate. He’d called a group of young kids at the gun club a bad influence, when in reality, they had been helping Patton do something that Matthew couldn’t. Accept what was happening and begin the grieving process.
Matthew swallowed hard, but the ache inside of him only increased. Looking at the tear-stained faces of his children, who were focused on their grandfather, he noticed how young they looked. Patton and Allison gathered around their grandmother, and Kathleen walked farther inside the room, sliding her hand through Matthe
w’s. She nudged him again, and he saw that another chair had been placed on the other side of David’s bed. Empty and waiting for him.
“I think you finally need to have that chat with your father,” Kathleen said quietly. Matthew nodded, and took a couple of stumbling steps toward the chair. He fell into it. This close, he could see the bags under David’s eyes and the sweaty, lank fall of his thinning hair. David gasped for air, and Matthew couldn’t figure out if he was in a deep sleep or if he was suffering. A sudden wash of anger filled him. It was like an arrow ready to fly, and he nocked it, directing it at Nikki. “How could this have happened?” he demanded. “How has he fallen this ill so rapidly? What’s wrong with him?”
Nikki took in a deep breath, as if she had been expecting his question, which only served to infuriate Matthew further. “He’s been failing for a while, Matt,” she said in a gentle voice. “This comatose state was to be expected. This wasn’t a rapid process.”
“Are you kidding me?” Matthew demanded. The word comatose left Matthew feeling terrified. “I saw him just the other day. We sat on the porch. We chatted for a while. He looked weak, but he didn’t look like this would happen to him. We were talking. We were laughing. How could you call this normal?” He gestured to David.
Nikki crossed her arms and gave a slow shrug. “It’s not unheard of that terminal patients…I mean, people who are dying will experience a surge of energy. It will give them strength and energy to make their rounds to talk with their loved ones. It’s so they can say their final goodbyes.”
“When we talked, that wasn’t a goodbye,” Matthew insisted, feeling the sorrow clench his heart and fill him with pain. “It wasn’t.”
Nikki’s face softened, and she tried to give him a comforting smile. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s a phenomenon that I’ve seen a lot in the medical field. It’s been documented by many medical journals and has been reported by family who have been left behind. Dying loved ones will seem revived so they can say their last farewells. David wasn’t getting any better, per se, but his body had allocated an extra amount of energy so that he appeared better, or gave the impression that he wasn’t on the brink of passing.”
Matthew remembered his father suddenly feeling exhausted at the end of their conversation. He remembered how he had smiled in that soft, prideful way at Matthew when Ruth took him back inside. He hated that he hadn’t seen, that he hadn’t known, and it didn’t make sense because Matthew was an intelligent person who knew his father—he should have known. He should have seen this coming. It didn’t make sense that he didn’t know. All the things David had told him—all the wisdom and final lessons he’d tried to impart—had actually been a final goodbye. Matthew felt as if someone had just punched him in the stomach.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, he could have been poisoned. Did you check to make sure he didn’t eat something that could have induced this? That reacted with his heart medication? Listen to his breathing. It doesn’t sound normal!”
Nikki’s features collapsed into an expression of pained sympathy. “It’s a symptom of end-term heart failure. He’s not suffering. It is just difficult to listen to. His heart is generating fluid that is backing up into his lungs. It’s making it difficult for him to breathe. There isn’t anything I can do. I don’t have the resources to drain the fluid, and it honestly wouldn’t do anything to help him in the long run.”
Matthew stared at her, frantically searching for something to say that would make her get that pensive look on her face. That look that would make her think there was another alternative. A treatment that hadn’t been tested yet. Instead, Nikki’s sorrow increased and she said, “I’m so sorry. There isn’t anything else I can do for him. I did everything in my power, but I’m still sorry to see him go. He was a good man. A stubborn man. But one of the best men out there. I’ll leave you to say your goodbyes.” And with that, she left the room, closing the door behind her.
Matthew looked at Kathleen beseechingly. “There has to be something we can do,” he said to her, knowing she would agree with him. “We have to do something, Kathleen. We can’t just let this happen. There must be something we can do.”
Kathleen opened her mouth, but her expression told him she would be saying nothing but platitudes. Ruth broke in by saying in a gentle voice, “Matt, honey, Nikki is right. There isn’t anything we can do to stop this. He’s held on this long because he wanted to say goodbye to you. Nikki wasn’t lying. This is the time to say what you’ve always needed to say.”
Matthew’s fight went right out of him. He looked at his father and felt something thick fill his throat. With great hesitation, he reached out and took his father’s hand. David’s fingers felt brittle. Matthew let out a soft breath that came out more as a sob. Ruth reached over David with her free hand. Her palm was open and inviting. He took his mother’s hand without thinking, and felt strengthened by her touch. Ruth’s grip was strong compared to David’s limp one. He squeezed David’s hand and for a brief moment thought that he felt his father squeeze back.
Maybe Nikki and his mother had a point. This was the only time he would be able to tell his father anything and everything. There would be no more antique shopping or stupid jokes or fights that would dissolve into jokes. David would never see what the hotel could become. How was Matthew going to get through any of this without listening to his father’s advice? How was he going to know if he was being too hard-headed or not seeing things in a certain light or being too soft? Who was going to continue to guide him through this life?
No one. No one was going to help Matthew or be that role model for him. That was what David was trying to get through to him when they were sitting on the porch. He couldn’t have that role model because now he had to be that role model. He would have to think of others like his father would and see things from other perspectives. David had taught Matthew everything to make him a good leader and a good father. Matthew would do everything in his power to honor that legacy.
There was only one thing left to say. “I love you, Dad,” he said in a soft voice. “I know you know that, but now it’s been said. I love you.”
He waited for a moment, expecting his father to say it back, but only silence met his declaration. He squeezed David’s hand one last time, hoping for some kind of reaction.
David’s hand slackened in his. His chest stuttered up and down as his breathing continued to roughen. The breaths started to shorten and then stopped completely. David’s chest let out one last rattle and wheeze before he went silent. Everything stopped.
Matthew couldn’t believe it. His father was gone.
25
Matthew didn’t know how long he sat in the chair next to David, but he knew that the sun had changed position from early morning to afternoon within a blink of an eye. Kathleen had shooed the children out, giving Matthew some peace and quiet. He studied his father, trying to reconcile the lifeless form with the larger-than-life presence that had filled Matthew’s world since day one. He didn’t want to cover David up with a blanket. This would be the last day he saw his father, and once he started to take care of his body, he wouldn’t have him anymore.
At some point, Kathleen walked back into the room. He looked up at her, his eyes blurry with tears. Her own face was puffy with crying. She leaned down to kiss him on the cheek.
“I don’t know what to do,” Matthew said brokenly.
“I do,” Kathleen whispered. “It’s time for you to find a spot to bury him. Let Ruth and me do the other preparations, okay? We should finish by the evening.”
Matthew understood, even if he couldn’t imagine finding the spot where he would lay his father to rest. Kathleen helped him up, and Matthew realized his feet had gone numb. He staggered to the door and took one last look at his father. Silence filled the room, and a new wave of grief hit Matthew. He would never hear his father’s voice or his laugh again. It would be a long time before he accepted David’s death.
Outside, he wal
ked around the property in a daze, looking for a spot that would match what David meant to him. He studied the way the leaves rustled in a soft summer breeze and thought that David would never see the hotel in the late bloom of August. He wandered around the back end of the property where there was a small meadow where the sun shone down, leaving sunbeams cascading through pockets in the clouds. He thought about how David would never tell another story or remind Matthew about embarrassing moments in his life to keep him humble. But when he looked out across the small clearing, he saw a huge tree at the other end. Moss crept up one side of the dark brown trunk. The light hit the leaves just so to make them glimmer silver. The grass around it was both green and light yellow, but at this time of day it had an auburn cast to it, like a crisp fall day. Matthew approached the tree tentatively, wondering if he could come to this place often, knowing his father was buried at the base of it. He had no stone to carve David’s name. No plot to visit. If this was where he would bury his father, the ancient tree was just as much a monument to his father as a gravestone would be. Stalwart. Strong.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded to himself. Yes, this was it.
He walked back to the hotel and picked out a shovel. His heart was heavy, but having a task gave him some kind of forward momentum. He needed something to do that would help his father. Just like the obsession of trying to help his father by repairing the well. Maybe this time he’d do it right.
The first time he stuck his shovel into the ground he knew it was going to be a difficult task. Within a few shovelfuls, he ran into a variety of roots. Some were thick and hard to dig past. Others were thin, white tendrils. Sweat broke out on the back of his neck as he struggled to dig. The sun roasted his cheeks, but he had to keep going. He didn’t know how long he had been outside digging, only that he felt like he wasn’t making any sort of progress. When two shadows fell over him, he looked up and wiped away the tears and sweat from his face.
EMP Catastrophe | Book 3 | Erupting Chaos Page 16
