A Fallow Heart

by Kage, Linda

  B.J. set her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I still think you should be selfish for once in your life and just tell her what you want. Fight for her, goddamn it. Let her feel like she matters. Who knows, maybe she wouldn’t mind altering her fancy city schedule so much to be with you. Maybe…hell, maybe y’all could make it work. But you’ll never know if you don’t say anything.”

  Cooper closed his eyes, not daring to hope she might be right.

  “Besides, what’s the worst thing that could happen? She turns you down and you end up exactly where you are right now, eating ice cream with me at two in the morning while still mooning over her.”

  He studied her before conceding, “You have a point.”

  She grinned. “I know. I’m damn brilliant.”

  “I’m calling her,” he announced, his heart rate jerking out of control. Dear God, he was really going to do it. He tugged his phone from his pocket. Then paused. “Wait. What time is it? She’s got to be asleep by now.” Plus he was rip-roaring, slurring drunk.

  “Who cares?” B.J. grabbed his wrist to keep him from re-pocketing his phone. “Trust me, Gerhardt. If she loves you back, no woman is going to complain about the hour if a man calls her to proclaim his undying love. Call her.”

  He grinned, feeling free and lifted of all his burdens. “Okay.”

  But before he could set his thumb to the first number, his phone rang. With a frown, he watched the screen, waiting for the caller information to pop up. “I wonder who…” He glanced at B.J. with a cringe. “My mom,” he explained and immediately answered. “Hey, Mama.” He swallowed nervously, trying to sound as sober as possible. “Sorry I haven’t made it home yet but—”

  She cut him off, which wasn’t a habit in Loren Gerhardt’s repertoire.

  He listened to her, his ears buzzing as her words filled him, words he’d never heard his mother say before. He blinked rapidly and tried to swallow, but the effort was nearly impossible. After clearing his throat, he rasped. “I’ll be right there.”

  After closing the phone, he stared at it, waiting to wake up from this nightmare that must’ve taken hold of him. But then he glanced at the ice cream in his other hand, and the condensation on the side dripped down his thumb in a cold, wet stroke like an icy teardrop, confirming he was awake.

  Finally, he focused on B.J. who frowned at him in confusion.

  “I gotta go,” he managed to say. “My dad just died.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After B.J. drove Cooper home, she stuck around the rest of the night, which he appreciated. She wasn’t the drippy-eyed sort to bawl over the death of a neighbor. She was clinical, but supportive, making him sit with his mother while she brewed Loren hot tea and him a black cup of coffee to sober up. Then she called over his mother’s closest friends. By the time she left them, she’d already contacted Tommy Creek’s funeral home and set up a meeting between them and Cooper’s family.

  Though he lay down at about four that morning and rose at seven, sleep escaped him. He simply stared at the dark ceiling and watched the light slowly filter in through his window as the day dawned.

  It didn’t matter how he tried to repeat the facts through his head; they didn’t seem real. His father was gone. Forever. He was halfway to becoming an orphan. His mother was a widow. He’d never see Thaddeus Gerhardt alive again, never talk to him, never ask him a question about life. Never visit him at the—

  He shook his head, denying, and sat up, sliding his legs over the side of the bed before standing. It simply couldn’t be true. He refused to mourn because mourning would mean he was admitting it was true.

  So he hobbled to the bathroom and took a shower, all the while wondering how many times his father had walked inside this very room and stood under this very same faucet head. When he stepped out, he wrapped his waist with a towel and swiped his hand over the foggy mirror, almost expecting to see Thad’s image staring back. Instead, a hung over version of himself filled the glass, his eyes bloodshot and nose red. His head throbbed with a vengeance, but he didn’t open the cabinet door to hunt up any aspirin. In fact, he welcomed the pain.

  Once he dried off and put on some clothes, he shuffled down the stairs, remembering when his dad used to scold him when Coop was in a hurry and took more than two steps at a time. Cooper made sure to plant his boots on each level, even the two that creaked.

  When he found his mom awake and stirring around the kitchen, starting breakfast, he shook his head. “Mama, you don’t have to worry about breakfast.”

  She plopped down a plate full of fried eggs and hash browns in front of his seat. “We can’t get through the day without sustenance.”

  He sighed and sat. When he saw she’d served herself only a single piece of toast, he shifted two eggs off his plate and onto hers. She sent him a look, letting him see the weary creases lining her features, but said nothing and accepted them

  Neither of them had sat in his father’s chair at the end of the table since he’d moved to the nursing home, but Thad’s spot seemed particularly empty today.

  “B.J. said my appointment with the funeral director is this morning at ten. Do you want to come?”

  He lifted his face. “Of course, but don’t you want to wait until Brendel and Stacia arrive? I’m sure they’d like to—”

  His mother gave a vigorous shake of the head. “I want the business details done and over with.”

  When her voice wavered, he nodded, immediately acquiescing. “Okay, Mama. Whatever you want.”

  So they arrived at the funeral home by ten. He didn’t notice the file folder she brought in with her until they’d seated themselves and she flipped it open.

  Blinking a few times, he listened to her and the director discuss their contract agreement before he realized she’d pre-planned both hers and his father’s funeral four years before.

  “I’d like to keep the pallbearers the same, but there’s been one change in the surviving descendants. We had another great-granddaughter born two years ago.”

  Coop folded his hands in his lap and felt useless as Loren spelled out his great-niece’s name. He was glad she’d already taken care of everything and had the task well in hand, but he began to wonder why he’d needed to come with her at all. It was a relief he didn’t have to give his opinion about a casket design, but his mother didn’t even seem to need him for moral support. She was so well put together he felt like falling apart even more. What’s worse, he didn’t even have a new name to add to his father’s decedents list for his obituary, while his nephew, Chet, had three.

  At least his mother let him drive her back to the farm. Once there, the neighbors began to arrive. About as soon as one would leave, another would show up, sometimes two or three appeared at the same time. He finally found his purpose when he was told to eat. So he ate all the cherry pies, and Mexican lasagnas, and spinach and artichoke casseroles his mother put in front of him.

  He was never so happy to see his sisters and their families arrive by late afternoon. The house filled with noise and chaos, and more people for the neighbors to feed.

  His sisters hugged him as they would a favorite but long-distant nephew. Brendel had just turned fifty that year and Stacia was about to become forty-seven. When he was growing up, he’d only seen them on special occasions, and even then, he’d been pushed into playing with their children instead of getting to know them.

  Closest to him in age, Chet and Sonia—Brendel’s two—tried to talk to him now, but they were city dwellers and understood pretty much none of his farm talk, which was about as much as he understood of their corporate, computer-based techno jargon.

  By the time the sun dipped low in the sky, he sought solace outside. He stayed away from the barn because every time he looked at it, it reminded him of Jo Ellen. He ached for her. He’d been tempted more than once to call her and tell her what had happened. He knew if he asked, she’d come. But since he wanted her to come so bad, he refused to call. He didn’t want her out of sym
pathy; he wanted her freely out of love.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he strolled toward his mother’s vegetable garden, thinking his mother hadn’t had time today to check if anything was ripe enough to pick. But before he reached the tilled soil, the sound of squeaking swing hinges caught his attention.

  He glanced over to spot Chet’s oldest boy, Harry, sitting on the porch swing watching the sun set. Feeling a connection with another soul seeking solitude, he meandered that way. When he stepped onto the first stair, Harry glanced over.

  With a sad smile, Coop waved. “Bet it’s a lot quieter out here than where you’re from, huh?”

  Harry nodded and turned his gaze back to the dropping daylight. Just as Coop settled on the free end of the swing, Harry asked, “When do you think Poppa Thad will be back?”

  Cooper froze, not certain how to answer. Particularly fond of his Poppa Thad, Harry was probably six or seven years old, old enough to know once you were gone, you didn’t come back. At least he was old enough in Coop’s opinion.

  But he didn’t try to explain. He leaned back in the seat, studied the colored sky and let out a sigh as he squinted for an answer in the pinks and purples and oranges among the clouds. “Well…Now that he’s in heaven, I reckon he’s already back with us and will stay for good, watching over us from above.”

  With a frown, Harry whirled to scowl at him. “Heaven?” he thundered out the words as if Coop had let a nasty expletive like the f-bomb slip. Cooper paused, wondering if Chet had even raised his boy to believe in heaven and hell. Great, he hadn’t meant to start some kind of religious debate with the kid.

  Before he could backtrack, however, Harry jumped off the swing, breathing hard. “My…my puppy went to heaven last… m-month.” So upset he could barely spit the words out, he clenched his fist and his face flooded with a panicked kind of red. Then he burst into tears. “D-does this m-mean Poppa Th-Thad’s…dead?”

  Cooper lurched to his feet, wide-eyed and feeling a bit panicked himself. But dear God, hadn’t Chet told him yet? He reached for the shaking child to comfort him, but Harry dodged away.

  “Daddy!” he screamed at the top of his lungs and dashed for the screen door leading back inside.

  Coop followed, worried. Thank God, Chet, then his wife met Harry at the door, immediately gathering him into their arms as he sobbed against them, demanding answers.

  Mouth falling open, Cooper could only gape as Harry’s parents seared him with matching scowls of accusation. As they rushed the boy inside to soothe him, Brendel caught the door before it could shut. Narrowing her eyes, she threw Coop a killer glare.

  “Way to break the news to him, Cooper. He’s been in grief counseling since his dog died, you know.”

  His face draining of color, Coop fumbled for an apology. “I…I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Why the hell hadn’t anyone warned him to keep quiet? Jesus. What did the kid think they were doing here to begin with?

  Appearing in no way forgiving, his sister—half-sister—whirled from the doorway and let the screen slam behind her as she went in search of her sobbing grandson. Exhaling, he fell back into the porch swing and scrubbed at his face with both hands. When no one came outside to console him and tell him they pardoned him for his slip-up, he left the house. This time, when he went walking, he headed straight for the barn.

  He needed comfort, and at the moment, even the achy, painful memories of Jo Ellen would do.

  After climbing up into the hayloft, he sat at the opening and watched the last bit of sun disappear behind the horizon. He wondered if she was cuddled up in some high-rise condo and watching the sunset from a huge, classy window. Did she think of him at all these days?

  He knew he shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t matter. But it did.

  He’d been stupid and too drunk the night before, thinking he could just call her and get her back. She didn’t belong in his kind of life any more than he did in hers.

  Sighing, he glanced toward the house. Other family members had claimed his room for the night, even the couch was already called for. He decided not to return; he didn’t feel welcome there anyway.

  An hour passed before he lay down on the warm floorboards of the loft and curled an arm under his head, pillowing it. Sleep finally took him deep in the night, but it wasn’t easy. When he dreamed, he dreamed of Jo Ellen and her smile, the feel of her hands as she touched him, the way she looked at him when she liked what he said.

  He woke earlier than the rooster, stiff and sore from lying so long on the hard wood. His joints ached, but his body throbbed for a woman he couldn’t have.

  Guilty for becoming aroused only two days after his father’s passing, he waited a while before returning to the house.

  His misery rose to a new level when his sister Stacia pounced on him as soon as he pushed inside the back door.

  “Where the hell have you been?” She grabbed his arm and yanked him through the kitchen toward the front room. “Mama’s been worried sick, asking where you were.”

  Shame slapped him in the face and he brushed past her to find Loren in the living room, surrounded by everyone in the family. But she didn’t look worried or sick. Instead, her eyes brightened with warmth when she saw him. “Cooper! I wondered where you went off to.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama. I went out to sleep in the barn.”

  As he bent to kiss her cheek, her face softened with sympathy. “In the hayloft?” she guessed.

  He glanced away and nodded, uncomfortable because she might suspect he’d thought of Jo Ellen most of the night. After clearing his throat, he searched for a spot to sit, but Stacia slid into the last seat in the room beside their mother. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he found an empty patch of wall to lean against.

  Brendel continued to shove daggered glares his way. Chet, his wife, and Harry were absent, but their two daughters toddled around the room while Stacia’s teenage boys regaled Loren with all the athletics they were involved in at their school.

  Another tense day passed. Coop didn’t dare try to escape out of the house this time in fear his mother would need him, though his sisters smothered her so much he couldn’t manage to get within ten feet of her.

  He attended the visitation that night, and found more kinship and sympathy from his neighbors than he did his own family. Though the night seemed to pass in a blur, it dragged on. Exhaustion consumed him, but when he tucked down in his sleeping bag on a free spot of floor in the parlor that night, sleep continued to elude him.

  He was never so grateful for the day of the funeral to arrive. Like his Mama had said, he just wanted everything over and done. A part of him realized nothing could return to normal once it was over and done, but at least he could get started with the rest of his new, altered life.

  The funeral home attendants kept his family in a back room of the church before the service started. He didn’t get to see who had come to pay their respects until the ceremony began. And even then, they paraded his family in to their reserved pews like cattle; he didn’t feel easy about gawking around to look for Jo Ellen.

  A part of him wondered if anyone had told her what happened. What would she do if she knew? She hadn’t come to the visitation, which pretty much meant she likely wouldn’t make it today either. But he ached to see her. He wanted her beside him so he could have a hand to hold.

  No one else in his family would certainly hold his.

  He’d become the black sheep overnight it seemed. Harry burst into tears every time he saw Coop. Chet had cussed him out more than once. His sisters gave him the cold shoulder and seemed to guard their mother from him. The rest of his nieces and nephews and great-nieces seemed leery of him on principle alone.

  His surreal existence continued all the way through the service and off to the cemetery. He sat under the canopied tent in front of his father’s closed casket three spaces down from his mother and next to his brother-in-law as the last prayer chanted through the warm summer air.

  And another line
of mourners began. He managed the obligatory smile and nod, hugged all the ladies who bent down to console him, shook all the hands thrust in his face.

  By the time B.J. Gilmore appeared in front of him, he wanted to grab her and drag her off to Rio’s Bar to play pool or throw darts. If he’d known his night with her would be the last piece of normal he ever saw, he wouldn’t have stopped at taking her shirt off. He would’ve—

  “Hey, bud.” She squeezed his shoulder. “This just isn’t your week, is it?”

  He laughed softly. “Doesn’t seem to be.”

  The growing crowd behind her forced her to move along. An urge overcame him to snake out his arm and grab her wrist, yanking her back to his side—grabbing the only sense of reality he’d felt in two days—but he controlled himself and turned to the next couple in line with a polite, distant smile.

  When he focused on the woman, he didn’t recognize her at first. He had to blink twice before Emma Leigh, and then her husband, focused in his brain.

  “Em?” He whispered. Holy hell, she’d come all the way back from Reno for his father’s funeral; for him.

  Immediately, his gaze moved past her and past Branson. When he paused at the woman in line behind them, the breath shuddered from his lungs.

  Oh, God. She was here.

  His body stirred, a powerful jolt of life and love roaring through him. He was so busy staring at Jo Ellen, meeting her tearstained gaze, he didn’t hear what Em said to him or that she even spoke until she leaned down to hug him.

  “I’m so sorry for you loss, Coop. He was a good man.”

  He murmured something, agreeing with her, but his attention return to her twin. She wore another skirt, a straight black thing that fell down to her knees. Her top was prim and short-sleeved, and she’d never looked so beautiful.

  She held her shoulders stiffly and her hands folded tight at her waist.

  He wanted to lurch to his feet so fast his chair fell over backward. Then he wanted to toss her over his shoulder and carry her far away from here. Jesus. His body actually vibrated the urge was so strong.