Page 57 of A Lifetime of Afters
Tears sprung to my eyes, and I impatiently wiped them away. “Friggity-frack! I’ve barely cried in ten years and now I can’t seem to stop.”
Setting my coffee on the nightstand, a small, sad smile on his face, he said, “Lou’s right. It’s been a long time coming.”
“Dad,” I whispered, thinking of the drama that unfolded the night before. “What have I done?”
“Nothing,” he shook his head firmly. “Our family has been broken for a long time. First, we lost Hunter, then Hawk disappeared inside his head. Not that long afterwards Mom got sick and we lost her, too. Then you stopped coming home, Max does nothing but work, and Harley’s temper goes off at the slightest provocation.”
“And what about you, Lou, and Dan?”
“You can’t weather those kinds of losses and not change. But where you kids withdrew into yourselves, we turned to each other.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “Do you know I moved in with Lou and Dan for six months after mom passed? I couldn’t stay here without her.”
“I’m so sorry, Dad,” I murmured, stricken. “I should have been here. I should have been home.”
“No, Noelle. What I needed, I got from Dan and Lou. But I don’t think you got what you needed to heal.”
Ignoring his last statement, I asked, “Do you want to sell this place? Start over?”
This time when he smiled, humor glinted in his eyes. “You couldn’t get me out of here with a crowbar.” He looked around my room. “Every crack and crevice carries a memory. Most of them, good. All of them, precious. My happiness, the proof of a love well lived, permeates these walls and lives with me still.” He cocked his head as he looked at me. “It’s that connection to Mom, to Max, to you, that keeps me going.”
Connection.
The very thing I’d run from ten years ago. Shutting down to block out the pain.
“Connection,” I repeated.
“It’s everywhere. You just need to let it in when it finds you.” He looked at the floor for a moment, absentmindedly tapping his fingers on his knee. “You’re like me, you know. You and Max both.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mom,” he smiled, “Mom loved with abandon. She chased me relentlessly. Courageously,” he corrected. “I was scared of what she made me feel. It got worse after we had you and Max. I remember asking her about it once. How she could love so freely without worrying about losing one of us.”
Yes.
God, I wish she was here.
“What did she say?” I asked, my attention rapt.
He smiled wistfully. “She was surprised. Said the fact that she could lose one of us at any time was the precise reason she loved us the way she did.” His eyes, softened by time and memories, looked far away. “I intend to leave every piece of my heart here on earth. Not taking any of it with me. Going to spend it all. Spend it all on you…” When he came back to the present, his eyes glittered with unspent tears.
My father and I had never talked about feelings before. That was my mother’s forte. I’d never once asked him how he felt about Mom’s passing. And he’d never asked me. I ventured one more question. One that terrified me. “You still miss her the same way, Dad?” I whispered.
“No, darlin’. I miss her more.”
I miss her more.
Some losses produce an ache that never fades.
The cost of the connection we crave?
His words stayed with me, replacing the awful loop from the past twelve hours. They stayed with me while I showered and dressed and ate breakfast.
They stayed with me when I drove through the gates of the Sage Ridge Resort later that afternoon and parked outside my temporary home.
Hunter was everywhere here.
So was my mom.
We all were.
