by Lucy Francis
“Dad?”
Mac’s voice broke. “Another heart attack, about an hour ago. He’s gone.”
The world spun wrong, and he sank to his knees, fighting for breath, the phone slipping from his fingers. In the distance, he heard someone crying out in agony. It took a few moments to register it was his own voice.
He pulled himself to his feet. His heart shredded, flaking apart, every fiber of his being aching. He couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much. Far, far too much.
Andri. Her image swam in his mind, an oasis taunting him as he stood, shaking, in the hellish wasteland of his life. He’d crawl, broken and bleeding to where she was, but what if she vanished, like a mirage?
He was vaguely aware of an aunt and uncle entering the room. His mouth moved on autopilot, sharing the news. More crying, clinging to each other, reaching for him—
No. Need for Andri forced him out the door. He concentrated harder than he ever had in his life to drive safely, blocking out everything but her. He clawed every last ounce of strength he had left from the tattered wisps of his soul, forced it into focus. He had to get to Andri.
She opened the apartment door as he fitted the key in the lock. She stepped back as he stumbled through.
“Travis, what’s wrong?”
He shook his head and she took his hand, drawing him to the sofa. He sank onto it. Instantly, she crouched beside him, her arms pulling him to her. It shattered him. “He’s gone, Andri,” he whispered, the last of his strength fleeing. “My dad died.”
“Oh, Travis. Kardia mou, I’m so sorry.” She wrapped herself around him, arms and legs. He tightened his arms around her, and the overwhelming feeling of security crushed the broken pieces of him into powder, scattering him like autumn leaves in the wind. He tucked his face into her neck as tears streamed down his cheeks. The pain ripped through him, and he cried out. He clung to her, shaking, as everything he’d stuffed into the dark corners of his soul poured out of him.
Andri rocked him, her own tears coursing down her face in response to his agony. There were no words of comfort, nothing at all she could say. She recalled her own loss, the depth of that pain, knowing that his must surely be worse. At least she had known her loss was coming. She’d had time to bleed out the misery over the weeks before her dad breathed his last. Travis’s burst all at once.
She did the only thing she could. She held him and let him mourn.
When his brutal storm of emotion finally subsided, Travis pressed a kiss to her throat before shifting away from her. She let him go, watching him walk down the hall to the bathroom. He moved slowly, gingerly, as though every muscle in his body ached.
Andri heard the shower running and went to make him a sandwich, though she suspected his stomach was too tied in knots to eat it. Travis walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, his hair still damp. He’d changed into a gray t-shirt and black jeans he’d left in the drawer she’d cleared out for him.
He slid an arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple. “Thank you.” His voice was gruff, raw. He stepped back as she reached for him. “I should go. I’m sure there will be a lot to do, and I’m the one who has to do it.”
“Did you get any sleep last night?” She guessed by the smudges under his eyes that he hadn’t.
Travis gave her a non-committal shrug that she was pretty sure meant not really. “I will at some point.” He looked down at her, his gaze unreadable. “You’re going to be the most stable person in my life for the next little while. And I don’t know what in the hell I’m supposed to do exactly. Would you mind helping me?”
She swallowed hard, determined not to get teary-eyed on him, though his request tugged hard on her compassion. As if he needed to ask. “Of course.”
****
Over the next several days, Travis remained subdued, very clearly functioning by sheer force of will. His mother had completely fallen apart and Danny wasn’t in any better shape, so Andri provided assistance everywhere she could as Travis worked out the details of his father’s funeral and burial.
The time passed in a blur of planning and coping with paperwork. Andri split her time between work, where her team and her boss offered incredible support, and being with Travis, shoring him up however she could. She felt incredible gratitude for Travis’s brilliant office manager, who took nearly all his company obligations off his shoulders. She’d see to it that Travis sent the woman on a vacation when everything eventually settled to what would be the new normal.
She sat with Travis at his father’s desk while he sorted through Terrence’s day to day life, making sure any bills were paid. He paused when he uncovered some pamphlets. “What is this?”
Andri stood beside him, looking over his shoulder as he perused the information before him. The pamphlets came from a local support group for addicts and their families, similar to the one she and Dmitri had attended in Colorado. Travis set the pamphlets aside and picked up another sheet, printed with meeting times and locations. Tuesday and Thursday evening meetings stood out, circled in red pen.
Travis dropped the paper on the desk and sat back in the chair. Confusion flickered in the dark depths of his gaze. “I wonder if Dad went to those meetings.”
“Maybe. Do you think your mom went with him?”
He shook his head. “I’d like to think so. If either of them did, maybe they’ve already learned some of what you’ve tried to explain to me. I’d sure feel better if Dad died with a little peace where Danny is concerned.”
Andri wondered if Danny had attended any meetings. If he had, maybe things were getting better, little by little, and Travis wasn’t seeing it. Though a backslide like the one that took his brother to Wendover probably damaged his optimism.
The funeral service was huge. It was held at a church in the Holts’ neighborhood, and the building filled to overflowing. Terrence had lived a full, generous, respected life, and it seemed everyone who had ever met him, even the most passing of acquaintances, came to mourn his death. Andri sat beside Travis, glancing back a row at Rachel, Ian, and their parents, who had flown in to pay their respects. Those who spoke, including Travis and two of Terrence’s siblings, related fun times and memories of him. Still, a feeling of deep, abiding sadness clouded the building.
Andri measured the sharp contrast to the party they’d had for her father. Again, perhaps, the mood varied so drastically because they’d had time to prepare. Dad had insisted that he didn’t want sadness, he wanted joy. So they threw a party. Friends and family alike swapped stories and laughed for hours. They had even decorated his gravesite with balloons and party favors in addition to flowers.
Ma had been sober, just for Dad, and in giving it everything she had to remember only the happiness, it helped her start to heal and truly desire to be different. That had been her starting point, though it took both Andri and Dmitri refusing to play her games or cater to her to finally make Ma turn around for good.
Andri looked over at Danny, slumped on the pew, hair hanging in his face. She knew suffering such a great loss could easily send him over a cliff. But maybe it would do the opposite. Maybe it would push him in a better direction. Andri prayed it would. She kept her thoughts to herself, though, knowing what a touchy issue it was for Travis. If things were really getting better, eventually he would realize it for himself.
After the graveside service, people crowded around Travis and his family. She edged away, staying near enough for him to find her if he needed her, but far enough away to be out of the fray. She looked at the nearby gravestones, wondering about the other Holts buried there. The family had been in Utah since the late 1800s, and some of the softer stone monuments were weathered to the point that she had difficulty making out names and dates. She examined one of the nearest stones, a gray granite marker with stark, strong lettering.
Jacob Terrence Holt. Beloved son of Terrence and Sophia Holt.
Wait, what? Son? She calculated the birth and death date numbers. He wasn’t quite seventeen whe
n he died. She thought back to the eulogy during the funeral. There had been no mention of individual names of family members that had died before Terrence, just a vague reference to those who had gone on before.
Jacob had been Travis’s older brother. Clearly, the family didn’t speak of him. She recalled the look on Travis’s face during their first date when she’d asked about his siblings. The loss of a brother would no doubt have hit him hard, especially when he’d been, what, ten or eleven? She turned this new piece of the puzzle that was Travis over in her mind. What had that loss done to shape him into who he was now?
****
Every night, Travis came to her, quiet, still caught in that numbed yet functional state he’d fallen into after he’d cried for the loss of his father. He had to climb out eventually, but Andri had no idea how to help him. He made love to her urgently, his need so great she could see it in his eyes, filtering through the wall that blocked off the rest of his inner turmoil. He slept poorly, restless in her bed, and as a result, she found herself looking more haggard every morning. Something had to give.
A week after the funeral, Travis sat beside her on his chalet’s couch as she worked on the laptop. He’d barely spoken two sentences since she’d arrived an hour earlier, and the silence ate at her. Finally, her patience wearing thin, she closed the laptop and set it on the end table. She turned to Travis, took one of his hands in hers. “Travis. Talk to me.”
He glanced at her. “About what?”
She looked him up and down, waving her hand to indicate all of him. “About this. About you.”
He sighed, dropping his head against the back of the couch. “I’m not sure what to say.”
A chill skittered through her, chased by the thought that he wanted to end their relationship. Surely not. Not with the way he wrapped himself around her every night, seeking comfort. Still. She’d rather ask than be blindsided later. “Do you want to break up, Travis?”
His gaze snapped to hers, more alive than she’d seen him since before the trauma began. “No.” His voice was flat but firm.
She chose to take his answer at face value. “Then what’s going on inside that head of yours?”
He stood up and paced for a moment. “A lot of things. I feel guilty.”
“Why?”
He turned on her. “Why? Seriously? I foisted my brother off on my dad, and now Danny feels like he was that last bit of strain that pushed Dad’s heart too far. Plus, if I’d just made Dad go to the doctor, even if I had to force him, he’d still be here.”
She frowned. This was heading downhill fast, and though she could see the craziness of his logic from the outside, when she looked at the situation through Travis’s lens, he was right. How could she stop this? “You don’t know that, Travis.”
“Yes, I do.” His voice dropped, soft and dripping with pain. “Dad is dead. Mother is devastated. Danny is broken. My aunts and uncles and cousins are hurting. The company employees are all holding their breath, wondering if things will continue on without a major disaster. I know full well I’m on the edge of completely destroying things with you. And it’s all. My. Fault. Failure, Andri. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve always done. And I haven’t the slightest damned idea how to stop it.”
A wave of anger swamped over her, completely unexpected, and snapped her loose from her carefully cultivated moorings. “Travis, what happened to you? I can piece together some of what is going on in your head, but the sheer mass of the responsibility you put on yourself, that I don’t get.”
“I’m not putting it on myself, Andri. It’s mine. It’s just the way things are.”
She shook her head, tension clawing through every muscle. “I hate to break it to you, kardia mou, but you are not the center of the known universe. Everything doesn’t fall on your shoulders, but you sure try to stack everything there. And you don’t trust anyone else to handle anything, not even their own lives.”
Frustration clouded his expression. “You don’t understand.”
Emotion boiled, raising her volume when she said, “Then make me understand. Explain it to me.”
He dropped back onto the couch, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. “I can’t.”
“At least give me something to make it worth putting up with this for the long haul. Do you love me?”
The brilliant flash of panic in his eyes told her she’d pushed as far as she could.
She clamped down on her anger, and on the sudden rush of pain. She bit off a curse and turned away from him. She went out through the sliding glass door onto the deck. Another afternoon thunderstorm gathered over the mountains that made up the spine of the Wasatch. She turned into the wind as it kicked up, drawing deep, calming breaths scented with pine, aspen, and the coming rain.
He didn’t follow her outside, and honestly, she hadn’t expected him to. She was losing him. Not to another woman, or a hobby, or work, or even fading interest. She was losing him to the dark vortex that swirled around him, sucking at his soul, keeping him mired in the misery of his misplaced guilt.
Andri separated herself from the emotions breaking over her, then processed the situation, calculating her options. There were only so many choices. Stay and do nothing, hoping he eventually pulled himself free of his baggage. Stay and nag him to change, and she knew better than to think that might actually work.
Suddenly, the pieces clicked into place and she knew what she had to do. Once it dawned on her, she realized it was really the only choice. The only thing she could do that might help push Travis to find his way out of his prison. Her heart ripped in two the moment she accepted it, and the pain sucked the air from her lungs. She waited for a few seconds until she had enough self-control to proceed. It had to be now. Before she found a way to stop herself.
She walked back into the chalet, coming to a stop a few feet in front of where he still sat on the couch.
“Travis. You’re letting yourself stay anchored in a dark place in your world. You’re not ready to move forward. If I stick around, you’re never going to be ready, and I’ll keep making excuses for you and trying to help you without really being any help at all. I can’t allow myself to do that. For both our sakes.”
She watched as panic infused his gaze. “Andri, what are you doing?” He rose, crossed the distance between them. He reached for her, but she shook her head, taking a step back.
Panic crossed into desperation. “Andri, please.”
Completely calm now, she stepped forward and put a hand on his chest, the other bracketing his face. “Listen to me, because I want you to remember this. I love you, Travis. I will always love you. But you need to get yourself in a better place. You need to learn to let go and not assume responsibility for your entire sphere of existence. Heal yourself, kardia mou. When and if you do, come to me.”
She rose on her toes and pressed her lips to his. He might have been granite for all he responded. She picked up her laptop and purse and left, never turning back.
There was one thing of which she was completely certain. When the calm wore off, she was going to second-guess every word she had just spoken.
The calm carried her into the car. Tears began rolling down her cheeks before she got her seatbelt on.
Her strength gave out halfway to Park City. She pulled off the next freeway exit, onto the shoulder at the bottom of the hill, and turned off the car just as the first wave of sobs sliced through her, cutting her to ribbons. The anguish bent her forward, crushing her under the intense pressure.
Andri cried until her throat grew raw, until her muscles ached from being clenched, until her stomach threatened to empty itself under the brute force of her pain. The storm finally subsided, leaving her drained, body and soul.
She waited until her breath smoothed out, until she regained enough composure to be safe on the road. Then she pulled her car around and headed for Rachel’s house, avoiding thoughts of Travis and how much he might be hurting right now.
****
Travis
’s feet unfroze moments after Andri walked out of his home. He raced out onto the front steps in time to see her swipe a hand across her cheek, wiping away tears, then drive away. Dazed, he went back inside. He kicked the door shut, cursing, and slammed his fists against the wall.
And then the onslaught hit, driving him to his knees. His heart shattered, the intense sorrow ripping his soul, searing him from the inside out, until he felt like ash on the wind.
He knew it. He knew it would end badly, damn it, and he pursued her anyway. She tilted his world on its axis and pulled him free from the morass so he could breathe. She was everything he wanted, everything he needed her to be, but what he knew from the beginning held true. She, with her warm heart and kryptonite smile, was the last thing tossed on the pile, the rock that pushed him under.
She’d said she loved him, and, God, that was the worst part. She’d given him everything, body, soul, heart, mind. He’d betrayed her in his own way, unable to show her all of his failures, unable to tell her how much she meant to him. He’d broken her heart, after he’d sworn never to do to another person what Melody had done to him. But he had done it to Andri. She’d given him her whole heart. He’d held his back, and kept his darkest secrets. He’d unbalanced their relationship, and it had crashed.
Travis stripped off his clothes and tossed himself onto his bed, staring at the ceiling, seething inside. What in the hell was wrong with him, that he couldn’t just let go and love her? Nothing about her resembled his mother, or Melody, or any other woman, for that matter. She came to him with an open heart, offering him the world on a string, and he couldn’t reach out and take it.
Three little words he’d not said to a woman in a long, long time. Three little words that had torn holes in his soul every time he’d used them. He tried to say them, and his throat constricted, his heart pounded behind its cage.
It broke him to know he had failed her, like he failed everyone else. Now it was over. She’d learn to hate him. It wasn’t that far from loving him, after all. She’d find her way there.
