“Stay here?” The idea churned in my mind like clothes in a washing machine.
Keith shrugged. “Memaw gave you guys a house and land for a reason. I’m sure she wanted you to make peace with your soul—and with your family.”
I craved a fishing rod in my hand, like an alcoholic yearned for a drink.
“Would Sage consider staying?”
“And live near my mother?” I snorted. “Can I really ask her to do that?”
“No, I mean, would she give you time here—because she loves you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, meaning it. “It’s a lot to ask.”
“Would you do it for her?”
“Of course.”
“Ask her and find out.”
•••
I couldn’t stop the feeling of déjà vu as I watched my grandmother being lowered into the ground, and I wondered if my life would be defined by these moments—losing those closest to me. My existence was a series of gray milestones, and I was constantly tripping over them.
It smothered me, the somber faces and black clothes. I turned away, my hand dropping from Sage’s. I began to walk and didn’t stop until I reached a mausoleum, plopping down on the marble stone steps. Looking out the corner of my eye, I saw Sage’s dainty feet in black heels. She perched next to me and plucked a late blooming dandelion from underneath the steps.
“I don’t understand funerals. I mean, I do, but they’re for the living, not the dead. Closure and all that kind of bullshit, but do people really get closure—ever?” My voice was hushed, mindful of our location.
Sage blew the dandelion, and we watched the seeds travel. “Moments like these aren’t about closure.”
“What are they about then?”
“Reconciliation.”
I sighed. “I can’t go to my parents’ house after this and sit through another one of these things.”
“Don’t you think you should be there for your dad? He needs you.”
I pulled out a handful of grass, clutching it in my grip. The land was green, alive, in a place where the reminder of death was all around us. “Why didn’t you let Jules help you through your mother’s death? She’s your oldest friend.”
“Why do we push away those we love?” she asked instead. “You might never have the relationship with your family that you want, but it wouldn’t only be their fault. You’re in this, too.”
“Can we stay?”
“Stay?”
“In Monteagle. Not forever, but for now? There are things that I…”
“Have to reconcile—I know.”
“You’re not surprised I’m asking, are you?”
Sage knew me. Like words on a page, she read me.
She smiled and leaned her head against my shoulder. “If you need to stay, we’ll stay.” She took my hand.
“We’ll go back to France,” I vowed.
“I know. One day. I love that farmhouse. That turret, that fireplace in the living room.” She smiled. “But it looks like our kid will be Southern.”
“Wean him on bourbon and fishing,” I teased.
“Just like his father.”
•••
Tristan chews on a matchstick as he hands me the bottle of bourbon. Even in my dreams, I crave Gentleman Jack. I take a swig.
We are sitting on the edge of the mountain, watching the sun sink into earth. The colors are muted, like a memory that dims or turns gray.
“You say ‘I do’ out loud, once, but you make a choice, every day—it’s active, not passive.”
“Thanks for the advice,” I say with a grin, but Tristan doesn’t grin back.
“I know what I’m talking about.”
“You? I’m supposed to take marriage advice from the guy that never saw a girl after he got her into bed?”
“That’s why you should listen to me; I never played around on Lucy.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
Tristan finally smiles. “Yeah, right. It’s okay. I would’ve thought that about me, too.”
“How did you change?”
“I just did. I’d do anything to see her happy. And she wanted me, bad boy and all.”
“The heart wants what it wants, huh?”
Tristan laughs. “Man, the heart doesn’t even know what it wants. It latches onto something and won’t let go. It knows before the mind.”
“The heart can play tricks on you. I think it’s the ultimate creator of illusion.”
“You don’t think this is real?”
“What, talking to you? I know this isn’t real.”
“I meant you and Sage.”
“Oh, that. It’s terrifying, so I know it’s real,” I explain.
“Take this bottle of Jack. It feels real, tastes real, but it’s still a dream. How do you know you and Sage aren’t a dream in someone else’s mind?”
“Because in a dream, I can do this.” I throw the bottle of bourbon, and it hits the tree with enough force that it should shatter. It doesn’t because the tree moves and catches the bottle in its spindly branches.
“Neat little trick.” Tristan smiles.
“Our love is no trick.”
“Whatever you say, Kai. Only you know the truth. I’m just a ghost.”
Chapter 24
Sage
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” I grumbled, as I tied the laces of my tennis shoes.
“Oh come on, you’ll have fun, promise,” Kai said.
“I like the idea of fishing, but does it have to be so friggin’ early?”
“You love me, remember? Do this for me?”
“I do love you.” I sighed. “And I’ll prove it by holding a fishing rod. On the upside, this is the first morning I haven’t wanted to dry heave into the toilet.”
I threw on a light jacket, knowing I’d strip it off later after the sun rose, but it would be chilly in the predawn air. The days were still warm, but the nights were cool.
We drove into the mountains and parked on an incline. We hiked up the hill, taking a leisurely pace. When we arrived at the lake, I said, “Okay, the view alone was worth getting up at the crack of dawn.” Streaks of sun were bouncing off the water, making me think of silver fish scales.
Kai grinned and handed me a pole. He took me through the motions, but I was clumsy. Never losing his patience, he continued to teach. “No, like this.” He adjusted my arm when I cast incorrectly. I watched him and marveled at his skill.
“You’ll get better,” he vowed, “but it’s going to take lots and lots of practice.”
“You’re going to drag me up here day after day, aren’t you?”
“Year after year,” he went on.
I shook my head. “Hate to break it to you, sport, but I’m not a fisherwoman.”
Kai pretended to be shocked. “Not in front of the kid!”
I laughed, the sound of it ringing through the trees. We fished in silence for a quarter of an hour, and then I spoke. “Should we move into your grandmother’s house? Is it too soon?” It had only been a week since Memaw had died—it might always be too soon. If we lived there, would a lingering ghost haunt us? There were so many of them in Monteagle.
“I wanted to talk to you about that. I was thinking about building a house on her property.”
“You mean tear hers down? I don’t understand.”
“No, leave it. Memaw put her money into the land, but her house is too small for a family. We’ll use it as a guesthouse, but I want to build us our dream home. A home for our family.”
“We might stay forever if you do that.” My voice trembled with fear and hope.
“Forever is wherever we want it to be. France, here, New York.”
“I hate New York—I never want to go back.”
His eyes sought mine. “Could you be happy in Monteagle? Long term?”
“Could you?”
“I’m not sure anymore,” he admitted. “Just when I think things won’t change on me, they do.”
&nbs
p; He set his pole down and came to me. Taking mine from my hands, he set it along the bank and hugged me to him. “I can’t imagine a life without you, Sage, and I don’t even want to try. We’ll change, but we’ll do it together. That I can promise you.”
Pulling back, I shook off the somberness of our conversation. “Now, take pity on me. Can we be done with fishing for today? I’m hungry.” It was a few hours past sunrise, and I was ready for food.
Sighing in defeat, Kai packed up our gear and handed me the rods. “Can you take these back to the car? I’ll grab everything else.”
I started my descent, taking it slow. Though I was showing, I knew I wasn’t as large as I felt. Still, I had bruises on my arms and legs because I kept bumping into things—corners of doorways, coffee tables. My mind hadn’t caught up with my blundering body, or maybe it was the other way around.
After breakfast, maybe I’d get a nice soak in the tub, wash away the dirt and steep my muscles. Perhaps Kai would like to…
Momentarily lost in thoughts about steaming water and my naked husband, one of my shoes caught the root of a tree, and I tripped. I dropped the poles and tried to put my hands out in front of me, but I went down hard, landing on my stomach.
“Sage!” Kai cried, crouching down to help me. I was dazed, my vision speckled. Gently, he hauled me up, his arms steadying me.
I was wobbly and scared, and I felt stupid.
“Lean into me,” he commanded as he guided me back to the car.
My heart galloped in my chest. I rested my hands protectively over my stomach, but something told me my efforts were in vain.
We were driving down the mountain when I felt the cramps start low in my belly. I moaned in pain.
“Kai? I need to go the hospital—and hurry.”
•••
We were alone in the hospital room, so no one was there to witness our version of rock bottom. Rock bottom had layers, and every time we peeled back another one, there were more waiting for us. It was deep and gritty–a sharp descent into nightmare.
“My fault,” Kai mumbled. His arms were around me, and I felt tremors pulse through him.
“No, it’s not like you pushed me. How is this your fault?”
“You wouldn’t have been on that mountain if it weren’t for me.”
I held him, my tears soaking his shirt as I tried to soothe him with my hands and crooning noises.
“I’m so sorry, Sage.” He said the words into my hair.
“Not your fault.”
“Do you still want me?”
“More than life.”
He gripped me. “Don’t say that.”
“Hold me, Kai, don’t let me go.”
“Never.”
“How do we get through this?” I wondered. My voice sounded very far away, as though it belonged to someone else.
“I—I don’t know.”
The man I loved didn’t have an answer.
“But, we have each other, don’t we?” he whispered, the thread of a lifeline in his voice.
I clung to his words, a tiny raft in a vast sea of sorrow.
Chapter 25
Kai
When Sage was released from the hospital, I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to take her, so I went to the Chelsers, knowing she needed a mother’s care. My own was ill-equipped to handle Sage’s anguish—or anyone’s, for that matter. Tucking my wife into bed, I rubbed her back until she fell asleep.
Then I left.
Guilt blended with bile, and it threatened to swallow me—it was a familiar feeling.
I parked in an oily lot next to an old beat up truck and went into the shadowy dive. Approaching the bar, I ordered a shot of cheap bourbon and threw it back. It gave me no respite as it burned my insides.
Sitting down on the stool, I ordered another, attempting to drown myself.
I had taken Sage fishing—I had cajoled and pleaded because I wanted to share what I loved.
My fault.
Always my fault.
It was my burden to suffer, and no amount of absolution would make me feel otherwise.
Our baby…
But I still had Sage. She wasn’t lost to me, thank fate, but the fist around my heart clenched. Why didn’t it just squeeze until there was nothing left? Pulverize it already.
I couldn’t swallow more guilt, so I washed it down with another drink.
Later, maybe hours, Lucy strolled into the bar and plopped down on a stool next to me. When I reached for a shot, she knocked it out of my hand. The glass clattered across the bar, spraying the old scarred wood with alcohol.
Her eyes were blue, electric, angry. “Your wife woke up to find you gone. Why aren’t you at home, holding her?”
My gaze slipped away, unable to face her, too.
But Lucy would not be denied. She grabbed my chin and made me look at her, made me peer into the mirror.
I did not like the reflection.
“You didn’t do this.” She searched my face for understanding.
“I’m a fucking tragedy. My two best friends die in a plane crash. My grandmother dies at my wedding celebration. My baby…”
“You’ll come through this—you both will.” Her voice was hard, unyielding. “You need to be there for her. Drinking in a shitty dive is not being there for her.”
I shook my head. “I—”
“Do you want me to split your lip? Tristan and Reece aren’t here to talk sense into you, and I know you won’t listen to Wyatt, so it’s fallen to me. Get. Up.”
Somehow, I did as I was told and let Lucy lead me out into the dark.
When had it become night?
“I’m about to break,” I whispered.
“Hasn’t happened yet,” Lucy said, opening the passenger door of her car. “You can come back from this.”
“How can you be so cold?” I lashed out. I settled into the seat, and she slammed the door shut behind me. I wanted to hit something.
She walked to her side, got in and started the engine. “How can you? You snuck off after Sage fell asleep. How like the Kai-of-old,” she taunted.
“I’m a shit—you don’t think I know that?”
“Did drinking in a bar help?”
“You know it didn’t.”
“Then why did you do it? You need to be there for her, and you should let her be there for you.”
“I know, God, I know.” I rubbed my hand across my eyes. “I hate myself. So much I want to die.”
“You don’t get to die. Too many of us already have.”
It was another reminder that I was unworthy, and that I screwed up every time things got hard. I wondered if my mother was right—I wondered if I’d changed at all.
The sharp anger in Lucy’s voice dulled. “This is awful—terrible, but is it any worse than Alice and Keith losing Reece? They knew Reece. They watched him grow from boy to man.”
I was silent as Lucy drove.
She went on, “Tragedy is tragedy, any way you slice it, but you can let this rip you apart, or you can cling fiercely to everything that matters. There will be more children for you and Sage.”
“You sound so sure.”
When Lucy dropped me off in the Chelsers’ driveway, I didn’t wait for her to cut the engine before I was out the door. I stalked into the house and went upstairs. Alice sat by the bed, her gaze accusatory. I didn’t pay attention as I crawled in next to Sage and held her while we cried for all we’d lost.
•••
“It’s not your fault,” Tristan says.
“So people keep telling me.” I keep my eyes closed. I feel like someone split me open down the middle, the void within me as deep as the Grand Canyon.
“What’s it like?”
“What?”
“Feeling your child kick?”
“Dream Tristan is strangely maudlin and soft-hearted. What happened to the guy that raced motorcycles?”
“I change as you change, your hopes are my hopes. I’m a reflection of you.�
�
“I never got to feel it kick,” I murmur. So many dreams lost. “Sage felt it though. She described it like a flutter, but not. All wonder and hope.”
“Your teenage self would be embarrassed to be seen with you. You know that, right?”
We have a good laugh, and I feel lighter. The darkness around the corners of my vision ebbs a little. I shake my head. “It’s weird; you look at yourself every day in the mirror and see the same face. And, then you start to notice the faint wrinkles around your eyes that were never there before, the laugh lines around your mouth don’t fade as quickly, your dreams have become different, but you don’t remember how you got there.”
“Life is kind of like driving on autopilot, hmmm?” Tristan comments.
“Do we wake up at the end of the road and think, ‘Is this as far as I can go?’”
“There’s not one way, y’know. There are detours, forks, cattle crossings that make you stop, take pause.”
“I’m looking around now,” I note.
“Do you like who you’ve become?”
“Very rarely.”
“Sounds about right,” Tristan remarks with a bland smile.
“I don’t think I handle things all that well.”
“You come back, though. Every time. It might take you a while, but you do. A fucking boomerang.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“You tell me. This is your dream.”
Chapter 26
Sage
Sometime the next afternoon, I woke in bed alone. I inhaled, trying to place the smell; it was the scent of comfort, relief—it was chicken soup.
Kai had come home late the previous night—Lucy had seen to it. He’d held me as we fell asleep.
Was he gone already?
I rose, testing my body, feeling sore, used, and battered. Pulling on a pair of slippers and a sweatshirt, I padded downstairs. I was cold.
Dandelion Dreams Page 17
