“Accident?” Kensie’s voice spoke up from in front of me where she was sitting in the grass. I hadn’t even realized she had gotten up and sat down there, but I was glad to have her sitting closer. I slid off my swing down to the grass too and sprawled my legs so that she fit perfectly in between them.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat trying to hide the way it cracked. “This is hard,” I admitted, “I haven’t talked about it since it happened.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “If you don’t,” she began, but I cut her off.
“No, I need to tell you. I want you to know, just as much as I need to say it aloud.” Part of me felt a sort of an anxious relief in finally having someone that I could unload the weight of this with. I had my family, but their pain was just as tangible as mine. Capri still couldn’t walk into Ella’s room after all these years. Having Kensie was like having a second skin. I was stronger now that she had burrowed herself into my soul.
She nodded her head and grabbed my big hands into her small delicate ones holding them between us. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and looked down at our clasped hands. “I was breaking down boxes in the receiving room when I got the call. It was Bree on the phone. I knew by the caller ID, but not by the sound of her voice. It was weak and shaky. The only words I could make out were accident and Ella’s name.”
I felt my heart tick reminding me that it was still beating when I saw the blinking of the red and blue lights ahead of me. I didn’t remember leaving work or how I got here, but I found the accident and that’s all that mattered. I ran towards the emergency vehicles at dream speed. I willed myself to move as fast as possible, but it felt as though I wasn’t moving at all. Ella.
My heart ticked again when I watched my feet splash into a stream of gasoline that reflected a murky rainbow back at me. I followed the stream with my eyes to see where it began, but fire trucks and ambulances were in the way. Ella.
Another tick of my still beating heart and the clicking of a gurney being rolled to the back of an ambulance had my legs moving again. The person lying down wasn’t whom I was searching for, but I knew her. Bree. I threw myself into the gurney tripping across a fire hose. I felt the whooshing of air in and out of my mouth and the vibration within my throat, but I couldn’t hear a sound. Ella…
The ticking picked up its pace making me anxious. Bree stared up at me wide-eyed and vacant. Her eyes blinked, but she wasn’t behind them. Her chest rose and fell with each steady breath she took, but without purpose. She was both alive and she was dead. Her body was there, but her soul was gone. Ella. Ella. Ella.
My search became frantic mimicking the rapid ticking of my heart. I was sucked out of my body and became merely an observer. My mind placed a guard over my heart, so that it could better withstand what I knew was coming.
People were everywhere, running, yelling, focused on each task. Lights were flashing reflections off the trees, yet everything was silent in me. The rigid hands of fear had grabbed a hold of my lungs and gripped tight.
The ambulance Bree had been loaded into pulled away and opened a curtain onto the vehicles smashed into one another. The ticking in my heart paused abruptly, and when my vision tunneled in on the paramedic pounding on the chest on the tiniest lifeless body, my world exploded.
I couldn’t put into words how it felt to have my child taken away from me. Words were meaningless. There weren’t any that existed for that kind of pain, because no parent should have to endure it. In an instant, my whole world imploded. I had no more meaning, no more purpose, and I was felt helpless to the little girl I swore to always protect. I was her daddy, and I couldn’t save her.
Chapter 27
Kensie
I was nervous about what to expect when he began speaking, but I never would have guessed this was what August was keeping from me. I couldn’t even say with certainty anymore that he was keeping it from me. I think he was keeping it from himself even more. He was protecting himself from reliving that night. My heart broke for him, in such a tangible way that I felt it bleed through our tears.
I climbed into August’s lap and wrapped my arms around his neck. He buried his head into my chest and wept. Sad, slow, hushed tears that were so calm they must have been familiar tears to him. Though he said he had never repeated what happened the night of the accident before, I don’t doubt it has played through his mind endlessly. As if sensing the sadness, the sky began to weep along with him in a gentle sprinkling.
“Thank you for telling me.” I whispered into his dampening hair. I couldn’t think of anything else to say except to thank him for opening his wounds to heal my own. I caught a glimpse of the tip of his tattoo under the collar of his shirt. “The scars?” I asked rubbing my thumb in across the back of his neck.
He looked up at me and I think I gasped at the depth reflected in his eyes. They spoke of the kind of wisdom that only comes from enduring such great pain. “I got the first one on the first anniversary of Ella’s death. It was a reminder that even though I appeared to be functioning on the outside, on the inside I was scarred forever.” He was getting a third scar added to his back when I met him for the first time. “Three years?” I asked making the connection. He nodded his head and adjusted me lifting one of my legs over his so that I straddled his lap on the grass.
“And the lyrics?” I asked. I remembered they were from an Augustana song. He surprised me when his lip quirked up on one side and let a chuckle slip out.
“Yeah, they were one of my favorite bands,” he said rubbing circles with his thumbs on my hips. “The song always made me think of her and how she gave my life meaning. I used to sing it to her as her bedtime song.” I smiled and ran my hand down his back over the place his scars were. He leaned into me and placed a kiss on my shoulder. “After she passed, the song took on even more meaning for me because I knew then what it meant to really be afraid of love.”
“And you love me anyway?” I asked, in awe of the capacity of his heart.
He smiled at me then and it was his face consuming, eye crinkling one. “No Kensie, I don’t love you anyway. I love you, all the way. I love you to my core, and with every cell in my body. I have so much love for you, there is no room for fear.”
My heart broke then, in the sweetest possible way. I leaned my head to meet his and watched his eyes flutter closed before I brushed my nose along his. I pressed a soft kiss to his lips and whispered, “I love you.” He grabbed my face in his hands and pressed my soft kiss into a heavy one. It was desperate and restorative with slow, deep strokes of his tongue against mine. When we broke our kiss, I kept my eyes closed and brushed my open mouth against his. We inhaled each other’s exhales combining our independent breaths into one, and I felt fearless.
The drizzle from the clouds was light but steady and our clothes quickly became uncomfortably damp. We walked back to my mom’s house down the dark street. Unlike our walk to the park, our walk back from it buzzed with a little more life. Lights were on in houses and engines of cars coming to life could be heard in the distance. That was the thing about retired people. For some reason they were up before dawn, even when they had nowhere to be. When I got to that age, I was sleeping in. Well, if August’s snoring allows it.
I glanced up to where he walked next to me holding my hand and smiled at him, but I felt it stop short of my eyes. I was more connected to August now than ever before, but there was still a nagging in the back of my mind. Sensing my mood August squeezed my hand, “I should have told you from the beginning, about Ella and Bree. I should have told you.” I nodded my head unable to disagree with him. He should have told me, but I understood why he didn’t. Talking about Ella wasn’t easy for him, but there was more to his relationship with Bree than he had initially told me.
“Tell me about Bree.” I said feeling ashamed of myself for asking him to tell me more, but I had to know.
He rubbed his free hand down his face and looked up to the night sky that was hiding the stars under a blanket o
f clouds, but no longer weeping. “Bree has had a difficult time grieving. Almost immediately she started self-medicating with the painkillers she was prescribed after the accident. I’ve tried to help her throughout the last few years, but she’s only gotten worse. She drinks a lot now too, like what you saw at Tommy’s.” I nodded remembering the mess of a woman I saw being too friendly with August. If I had known then what I know now, I wonder if I would have looked at her differently.
“So, all those phone calls and texts?” I asked linking those moments that caused a dose of hesitation in me with Bree. “Last Sunday?” I whispered as if not giving it volume would make it untrue. It was true though. He nodded his head, but didn’t say anything. I felt a hammering of agitation in me. “So, it was another girl.” I confirmed aloud for myself.
“It wasn’t another girl, Kensie,” He replied hastily. “It was Bree.”
That wasn’t working for me. “Bree or not, another women took your time and attention from me.” I told him not caring if I sounded irrational or jealous. I hated the thought of any other woman taking time with August away from me.
“She’s usually not that bad,” he said starting to make excuses for her. “Ever since I told her about you, she’s gotten worse.” I snapped my head from where I was looking at the ground and glared at him.
“Of course she’s gotten worse.” I tried to control my voice, but it grew with my irritation, “She doesn’t have your full attention anymore.”
He shook his head as we walked up to his truck in front of my mom’s house. “It’s not like that, Kensie.” He told me beginning to sound frustrated himself.
“Oh, it’s not?” I asked him taking a step away and throwing my arms up to my side. “Then tell me how it is, cause from where I’m standing it looks like she takes advantage of your loyalty to her, and you let her.” I remembered then, his self-described biggest flaw. Loyalty. It made complete sense, but if he knew he was loyal to Bree to a fault, why was he being defensive now?
August leaned back against his truck and pinched his eyebrows together with his fingers. “Look,” he sighed, “I know I’ve enabled her over the years. I know I haven’t helped by being available to her, but I don’t know how else to make it up to her or Ella.”
I dropped my arms from where I had crossed them defensively over myself. “Make up what to them?” I asked him sounding much calmer than before. He looked off into the distance unable to make eye contact with me.
“If I hadn’t had taken that extra shift, I would have had Ella with me that night.” He said clenching and unclenching his fists at his side.
“And then she would still be here?” I asked finishing his thought for him.
August nodded and then pinned his pleading eyes back on me. Pleading me to what? Agree with him? I stepped into him closing the gap between us and tilted my head up to maintain the connection of our eyes. “That is not your fault.” I said and held his hands in mine when he tried to shake it. “No, listen to me, August. It was an accident. You didn’t do anything wrong, and helping Bree hurt herself isn’t going to solve anything.”
I lowered my hand from his face and held both of his hands in mine. The next part I was going to say was going to be the hardest, but I had to do it. I had to for me, for August, and for the future that we both deserved together. I chewed on the inside of my cheek trying to find the words. “Say what you’re thinkin.” His voice came out in a rough whisper.
“I love you.” I told him first because that was the most important thing I had to say, or would ever have to say to him. “I love you, but you need to work out things with Bree, and set yourself free of her and your guilt. I can’t come second to her, and I can’t support you in taking care of her.” August’s throat rippled when he swallowed.
“What are you saying?”
The wavering of his voice had me pinching my eyes shut to hold in the tears that threatened to fall. “I’m saying,” I said locking my eyes back onto his and let the pools of tears that refused to subside flood out. “I can’t be with you like this.”
Chapter 28
August
Thud. Thud. Thud. I groaned and smashed my pillow onto my head. Thud. Thud. Thud. I chucked the pillow across my room and forced myself out of bed. When I got to the door, I swung it open and squinted into the sun at the ridiculous man in a fedora. “Dude, your spare key is broken.” Wes said shoving his way passed me into my house.
“It’s not broken,” I grumbled, “Bree still has the key.”
I hadn’t even bothered to ask her for it back. I hadn’t bothered with much of anything over the last few days since I saw Kensie. To say I was crushed, would be the understatement of the century. Crushed insinuated that although in pieces, I still existed. I would hardly call lying on my couch with my outrageously large case of beer existing.
“That’s why I’m here.” Wes said from halfway inside my fridge. “Dude, do you have anything besides beer in this place?” He peeked up at me from over the fridge door. I shrugged my shoulders. I had no idea. He shook his head and closed the door. “I guess we will buy you some groceries first. You can’t bring Kensie back here without any soda and chocolate around.”
“She left me, Wes. She’s not coming back.” I raised my arms up, gripping the back of my head and staggered back a step at the pungent odor that seeped out from under them.
Wes pointed at me and nodded, “You stink.” He turned to pull out a notepad and pen from one of the drawers and began taking inventory of my cabinets. “And she didn’t leave you.” He said opening up bare cabinet after bare cabinet. “She’s waiting for you to figure your shit out.”
“You think so?” I asked feeling a tinge of hope. I walked over to my secret drawer and pulled out a bag of gummy bears tossing them to Wes.
“Oh, thank God. Sustenance.” He said before tearing into it. “For sure, dude. She loves you.” He pointed at me chewing a mouthful of gummy bears. “She wouldn’t even make out with me when I offered.”
“You hit on my girl?” I took my bag of gummy bears out of his hands before he ate them all.
“It wasn’t even like that, dude.” He defended himself putting his hands up in front of him.
“Then what was it like?” I asked not really worried. Wes would never move in on someone I was serious about, but I was curious.
“I was just teasing her, but still, she didn’t take me up on the suggestion. Most girls would jump at it, joke or not.” I shook my head and laughed at him. He flashed his dimpled smile at me and waggled his eyebrows.
Maybe Wes was right. Kensie had been so incredibly supportive of my grief over Ella. In a way, she seemed to grieve for my daughter that she’d never get to meet. Keeping my loss of Ella from her wasn’t what led her to end our relationship. It was Bree. She said herself that she could never come second to Bree, which flabbergasted me. Kensie would never come second to Bree, or to anyone. She was in a place that was all her own deep within me. My actions over the last few weeks showed otherwise, and I knew now that if I had any chance at saving my relationship with her I’d have to make some changes.
“Okay, what do we need to do first?” I asked Wes.
“Atta boy.” He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “First, you’re taking a shower. You smell like an overused hooker.” I scrunched up my face. I wasn’t touching that.
* * *
She still lived in the apartment we had rented together. I actually still paid the rent. I was anxious about how this would all go, but I had to do it. Wes and I spent all afternoon devising my steps to get Kensie back. After stocking up the fridge with all of her favorites we changed the locks on my doors so Bree couldn’t use her key to get in again. I changed my phone number after that and sent out a group text with my new number, only to the people I really needed in my life, Kensie being one of them. I’d followed that with a call to my therapist and set up an appointment.
Yes I had one, or I’d seen him once at my mom’s urging right after I lost
Ella. I was too proud then to accept that I needed help. Screwing things up royally with Kensie knocked some sense into me. I needed to get myself straight if I had any chance and keeping her, if I got her back.
The final step was to cut Bree off, financially and emotionally. Kensie was right when she said I needed to stop enabling Bree. I had been doing it for so long that it sadly had become a part of my daily life. My guilt about the accident was the sole driving force in my enabling. I had felt indebted to Bree for taking our daughter the night that lead to her being stripped form our lives. Kensie was also right when she said it wasn’t my fault.
It wasn’t something I hadn’t heard before. Capri, my parents, and Wes have continuously encouraged me to let go of my guilt and responsibility towards Bree. It wasn’t until Kensie that I believed it though. Maybe because I finally saw a reason to set myself free and move forward, or maybe I was inspired by her own strength in getting the life she wanted. Either way, I was ready.
She opened the door before I even got up to it. “Well, look who it is.” She drawled out looking up at me with her big round sunglasses on her face.
“You expecting someone?” I asked her. Answering the door on the first knock, let alone before anyone got to the door wasn’t typical. She usually took more than fifteen minutes to hear the knocking and drag her up from wherever she was to answer the door.
“You, of course.” She said stepping aside to let me in. Of course, I thought. It was definitely time to end this.
I glanced around the apartment making my way to the couch. It looked cleaner than usual, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. She usually cleaned when she was on some sort of bender. “The rent’s overdue.” She told me sitting down in the old rocking chair we used to put Ella to sleep in. She looked so much different now than back then. She wasn’t even a shadow of the girl I used to know. That girl simply didn’t exist.
Truth In Wildflowers Page 27
