The What If Guy

by Moss, Brooke

  More than half the town showed up for the service. Holly delivered the eulogy, and Elliott and Henry played a duet of “Amazing Grace” on the violin and cello. Smartie Guire donated the cost of the cremation services, and Doris and Helen collected flowers from everyone’s gardens to make the arrangements. People shared their Billy Cole stories for over an hour.

  I’m sure some townspeople scoffed and said “good riddance” when word got out that he’d passed away. They didn’t know that he’d woken up in his chair with another bout of dementia, pulled his oxygen tubes off of his face, then shuffled to the kitchen, where he’d suffered a fatal heart attack. They didn’t know that Henry and I had sprinted up the hill, still sweaty from dancing, to find Elliott on the porch, hysterical. They didn’t know that Henry had gripped a sobbing Elliott in his arms, while I’d lain on the floor, holding my dad’s head in my arms until the EMTs arrived.

  All they knew was, the town drunk was dead.

  But for every rolled eye, there was a person who came to my doorstep bearing a casserole, salad, or picture of my dad from happier times, when he’d been the tall, strong farmer I remembered from my youth. They came into the house, sat on the ragged old couch, and shed a few tears while they told me stories about his teenage years—how in love with my mom he’d been, and how much he’d treasured me.

  I didn’t cry much during those four days. There was too much to do, and I needed to be strong for Elliott’s sake. I kept the house full of people as often as possible. My dad’s friends from the bar, his coworkers, Cody and Holly, Doris and Helen—it it didn’t matter. As long as someone was there to make noise and create clutter for me to clean up, I was able to push forward. I designed the funeral programs, called long-lost relatives, picked out photos to display in the church, and cleaned everything in sight.

  The funeral was my breaking point.

  People. So many people. Some I hadn’t seen in years, others I’d never met. My stomach rolled and churned like ocean waves as I stood in the church foyer after the service, shaking the hands of mourners offering condolences. A clammy sweat beaded between my shoulder blades.

  Henry stood next to me with his hand on Elliott’s shoulder. “You all right?”

  I lifted my long braid off of my neck and fanned myself. “No. It’s hot in here, isn’t it?”

  He frowned. “The air conditioner is on. It feels okay.”

  “Are you sick?” Elliott looked at me as if I might keel over. He was having nightmares, and acted more keyed-up than usual.

  “I’m fine, I just…” I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.

  “Did you eat this morning?” Henry asked.

  I shook my head. “There was no time. I had to cook potatoes for the potluck, and—”

  He cupped my cheek with his hand. “You’re exhausted.”

  People greeted me in a blur—some of my father’s old classmates, the guy who pumped fuel at the gas station, the waitresses at Smartie’s. I shook everyone’s hands, accepted their hugs, and ignored the wooziness in my stomach. Person after person passed, tears on their cheeks, tissues pressed to their noses. They choked on their words and avoided my eyes. They gripped me in hugs and dripped tears on my blouse.

  The scene was too intense, too raw. I missed my father so much, it rattled my insides and ached in my bones. I wondered how I’d lived so many years without him. I didn’t know how the sun would rise and set on an earth where he wasn’t anymore. It hurt too much to imagine getting through the next hour, let alone weeks, months, or years.

  “You doing all right?” Marshall’s mother asked. “You’re awfully pale.”

  I nodded, but my throat constricted.

  “I think she needs something to eat,” Henry said. “Elliott, why don’t you run downstairs and grab a roll for your mom?”

  Elliott looked relieved to be free from the receiving line and darted downstairs.

  I touched Henry’s arm. “Really, you guys, I’m…”

  I stared toward the back of the foyer at someone watching me intensely. Marshall’s mom followed my gaze, as did Henry, but I offered no explanation. I walked away, weaving around the people filtering toward the stairs to the kitchen, moving nearer to the woman I hadn’t seen in twenty-five years.

  She was my height and build, but had a few more years on her face. About twenty-five, to be exact. She wore her red hair shorter than it was in my memories, and had it cut in a simpler style that would be easier to manage than my long, unruly tangle of waves. I stopped a few feet away from her. Several people turned and stared. Whispers hissed from the crowd as I blinked at her in disbelief.

  “Mom?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lesson learned: passing out after your father’s funeral is a surefire way to gain unwanted attention.

  By the time Henry had charged through the crowd, I’d woken up to a rather large bump on the back of my head, and Holly fanning me with a baby wipe.

  “I hope that’s not used,” I joked feebly.

  Holly released a breath. “She’s okay. She’s fine, folks. Head on down to the potluck, nothing to see here.” She waved everyone away.

  Henry crouched next to me and took my hand, his mouth pulled into a tight line.

  “Relax,” Holly told him. “Just too much stress and not enough food.”

  I looked beyond them at my mother, who watched me from across the foyer, a worried expression on her face. “Guess I wasn’t dreaming,” I muttered to myself.

  Cody hunkered on the other side of me, taking my pulse.

  “I’m not dying,” I said. “Although that would be convenient, since we already have the flowers.”

  “Not funny.” Henry pressed a kiss to my knuckles.

  “Where’s Elliott?” I started to sit up. “I probably scared him to death.”

  “Lay down for a few minutes.” Holly straightened the collar of my blouse. “He’s downstairs. Don’t worry.”

  I thanked God that I’d put on slacks that morning instead of a skirt. “How embarrassing. I saw her, then everything went fuzzy.”

  “I take it she didn’t call you first?” Holly whispered.

  I shook my head.

  “Who?” Henry looked up, confused.

  “Has she spoken to you yet?” Cody glanced at my mother, who spoke with the pastor by the exit.

  “No,” I replied. “I was going to talk to her, but then I—”

  “Who?” Henry asked, an edge of panic in his tone. A sheen of sweat shone on his forehead, all color gone from his cheeks.

  “My mother is here.” I squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry I scared you. I haven’t been sleeping.”

  “I know.” He nodded tensely.

  “And I haven’t been eating much.”

  “I know that, too.” He ran his hand through his hair. “You need to slow down.”

  Sadness clogged my throat like a stopped-up drain. “I can’t,” I whimpered, my eyes welling. “If I slow down, then I think too much, and I can’t think about him.”

  Holly used the baby wipe on her own eyes.

  My stomach clenched painfully with a mixture of grief and hunger. “I miss him so much.”

  Cody pulled Holly close while she cried.

  Henry wiped his eyes. “We all do. This feels surreal.”

  He helped me into a sitting position, pulled me against him, and I sobbed against his chest. The foyer was quiet, except for the sounds of our sniffles, but none of us moved for a long while. I didn’t care that people waited for us downstairs, and I didn’t care that my mother waited across the room. I couldn’t deal with her just yet. I couldn’t deal with much of anything right now.

  I missed my dad. I wanted my dad to come back.

  Henry brushed stray hairs from my face and rocked me. Eventually, Holly scooted up next to me on the floor, and wrapped her arms around me as well, Cody on her other side. We looked like a row of hysterics, sitting on the floor in our nice clothes, crying. But it didn’t matter to me what we looked
like. These people were my family, and I needed them.

  After a good five minutes, my breathing started to even. I lifted my head off of Henry’s chest, my eyes swollen, nose red.

  The foyer was empty.

  “Where’s my mom?”

  Holly looked around and wiped her eyes. “She’s gone.”

  “I’ll check downstairs.” Cody charged down the steps.

  “You haven’t seen your mother in, what, twenty years?” Henry stood, pulling me with him. “You still feeling weak?”

  I nodded. “I’m fine. Starving, but fine. And it’s been twenty-five years.”

  “Did she say anything to you?” Holly wiped my smudged mascara.

  “No.” I shook my head. “We just caught each other’s eye, then I woke up on the floor.”

  “Why now? Why here?” Henry scowled. “Did she really think today was a good day for a reunion?”

  Cody came back upstairs. “The pastor saw her leave. She told him that it had been a bad idea to come.”

  The air rushed out of my lungs. I leaned against Henry, weak. As quickly as I found my mother, she’d disappeared again.

  §

  “El, this is where you’ll sleep,” Henry said cheerfully.

  I looked at the air mattress he’d set up on the living room floor. Elliott hung his head and grunted a barely audible, “Okay.”

  The day had been agonizingly long. Once I’d made an appearance at the potluck, it had become abundantly clear that Elliott was spent. His eyes had dark circles around them, and he appeared to have dropped a few pounds over the last four days. His already thin frame looked gaunt.

  He hadn’t been sleeping well. Seeing his grandfather in those last few moments before his death had rocked El’s comfortable little world. He was scared, confused, and above everything else, deeply, horribly sad.

  When we’d returned to my dad’s house on the hill, Elliott had immediately burst into tears. Henry had pulled him into a fierce hug, kissed the top of his head, and announced, “You two will stay at my house tonight.”

  I touched my son’s messy hair as we stood in the middle of Henry’s living room. “Want me to sleep with you?”

  He shrugged, then wordlessly crawled under the blankets. I looked at Henry tearfully, then scooted in next to Elliott, pulling him close to me. “It’s okay, babe,” I whispered.

  Henry turned out the lights.

  “It’ll get better,” I said.

  After an hour or so, Elliott started crying for what felt like the seventeenth time. I closed my eyes and prayed. Please, God, don’t let it hurt like this forever. I can’t bear this. My tears spilled into Elliott’s hair. I begged for sleep to take us both.

  §

  El and I slept late the next morning. The rest proved beneficial. The circles around El’s eyes had faded, and I actually got him to smile when we woke up to the sound of Henry singing in the shower.

  “Is that Willie Nelson I hear?” El asked, his voice muffled by the blankets.

  I rolled onto my stomach and snorted. “I guess Fairfield is rubbing off on Henry.”

  El turned his head and looked at me.

  “Will you and Henry get married?”

  I’d been wondering that myself. I didn’t know when—or even if—Henry planned on proposing to me. The only thing I knew for sure was that if he asked, my answer would undoubtedly be yes. Of course, none of my fantasizing really mattered yet, because his divorce wasn’t final.

  “I hope so,” I confessed.

  I pulled him close and hugged him.

  Henry cleared his throat, and I looked up to see him standing in the doorway.

  “Get up, you two,” he said. “I’ll make you some French toast. Cody called. They’re taking their kids to a rodeo this afternoon. They wanted to know if you want to tag along, Elliott.”

  Elliott looked at me nervously. “You sure you don’t want me to stick around?”

  My heart warmed. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  “You sure? What are you gonna do all day?”

  I dragged myself off of the air mattress. “I’m going to shower, put on some sweats, maybe watch some movies—basically do nothing.”

  Elliott shifted his focus to Henry. “Don’t let her sit around being sad all day.”

  “Of course not.” Henry shook his head and ruffled El’s curls. “I don’t want you to be sad all day, either, kiddo.”

  “It sneaks up on me.”

  Henry grasped Elliott’s shoulders. “It’s okay to feel sad, even though I wish you didn’t have to. Just tell Holly or Cody, and they’ll help you. It’s normal to feel sad for a while after you lose someone, son.”

  At the word son, Elliott’s eyes rose to meet Henry’s, and he smiled the tiniest bit. “’Kay.”

  “Okay.” Henry nodded. “Now let’s go make some French toast. I even bought some veggie bacon for you.”

  “Where’d you get that?” Elliott followed him into the kitchen. “Fisk’s doesn’t carry it.”

  “I special ordered it.” Henry snapped him with a kitchen towel.

  I hugged myself, listening to the sounds of my two men cooking in the kitchen. I wandered into the bathroom and started the bath. The muffled sound of them laughing and talking made me smile. I sank into the tub up to my ears, my hair making slow-motion streamers on the water.

  There was a knock at the door.

  I sat up and wiped my face with a soapy hand. “Yeah?”

  “Holly and Cody are here. I have to go,” Elliott called through the door.

  I stood, put on Henry’s bathrobe, then wound a towel around my head. “Okay.” I opened the door and hugged Elliott. “You okay? Do you have your phone? You can call me anytime, and I’ll come pick you up, if you feel like you need to come home.”

  “I know.” He wriggled out of my arms. “I’m okay. Are you okay?”

  I smiled. “Yup. Right as rain.”

  Henry and I waved at the Judds as they drove off then stood silently in front of the window for a moment. He wrapped his arms around me, warm and strong, and pulled me against his chest. “Your eyes are red,” he said.

  “Yes.” I sniffled. “I was thinking in the tub.”

  “Ah,” he sighed. “Thinking.”

  Henry gently tugged at the towel on my head, unfurling it. My hair cascaded down my back. “I think you may need a break from thinking for a few days.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible. My mother was there. I haven’t seen her in twenty-five years. We didn’t even speak.”

  “But she came. She came and she saw you. Now you know she cares. Who knows what the future will bring?” Henry laced his fingers with mine. “Maybe this is just the beginning and she’ll come back into your life.”

  “Henry, she abandoned me.” A tear slipped down my face. “She abandoned us. I wouldn’t even know what to say to her.”

  He squeezed my hands. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll know when the opportunity arises.”

  I wanted to take comfort in that fact.

  Comfort.

  Five days since my father died and comfort seemed so far-fetched—like a dream I’d awakened in the middle of and couldn’t remember. I felt like I was underwater, screaming, but no sound came out, water filling my lungs, drowning me. The loss weighed so heavily on my heart, I would have given anything to be free from it, if only for a moment.

  I pulled frantically at Henry’s shirt, yanking it down his arms and discarding it on the floor. My mouth searched for his, and I leaned into him, mentally begging him to tear the bathrobe from my body. My head buzzed like a radio set between stations. I longed to feel something other than pain.

  I clawed Henry’s shoulders and he gasped. “Stop.”

  I withdrew my hands. Our foreheads were pressed together, both of us out of breath. “Why? Please, just indulge me.”

  “Not like that.” He took my hand gently and led me to his bedroom. The windows were open and the late June breeze rustled the curtains that I’d bo
ught for him. He let go of my hand, untied the robe, and slowly eased it off my shoulders. In what felt like slow motion, he lowered me to the bed, and placed a feather-light row of kisses down my stomach.

  My eyes closed and my head went fuzzy. This was what I needed. Something to make me forget the past five days. Something to cling to. I grasped his hair in my fists, and released his name in a sigh.

  The doorbell rang.

  Too caught up in the moment, too crippled by ignorant bliss, we ignored it.

  Then it rang again. And again.

  “I am literally going to kill whoever is at the door.” Henry peeled himself off of me. “Stay there. And for mercy’s sake, don’t get dressed.”

  I moaned into the rumpled blankets and covered myself while I waited. And waited. Muffled voices came from the living room, but I didn’t recognize them. I stared out the window at the back of the firehouse, picturing the night we’d danced to country music until late. Before everything had changed.

  A lump formed in my throat. I cleared it viciously. I was not going to cry right now.

  “Who was that?” A woman’s voice rang out.

  There was a woman in Henry’s house? And I was lying naked in his bed? I stood and grabbed one of Henry’s shirts from his closet. If Ramona Fisk had come over to get the scoop on why my car had been parked in Henry’s driveway all night, I was going to die. I opened the bedroom door a few inches and peeked out, my damp hair tumbling over my shoulders, the cuffs of Henry’s shirt reaching beyond my fingers.

  “I asked you a question, Henry.” The voice came from the same woman who sounded clearly agitated. “Who is here?”

  Geez. Ramona had gotten really demanding for her gossip.

  “That’s none of your business.” Henry said, his tone brittle.

  Ah- ha. Take that, gossip queen. I snickered to myself and opened the door another inch or so, crouching forward to get a glimpse of her reaction. The wind from the open windows caught the door. It creaked loudly and blew wide open. I froze in place—mid-crouch in the open doorway, wearing nothing but Henry’s shirt, my mouth hanging open in a giant “O.”

  “I understand now,” the woman said coolly.

  She wasn’t Ramona Fisk.