“I’m sorry, Ronnie,” she whispers to him. “I’m okay now. Everything’s going to be okay now.”
He opens his eyes and slowly meets my gaze. They’re filled with fear.
He’s never seen her like this. The last time I did was the day after my father was murdered in our old home. She’s always held it together for me—for us—since. If never speaking of that night keeps her together, it’s a price I can pay.
As Ron’s gaze falls to the floor, his arms move up around her back and he squeezes her. I step toward them and wrap my arms around her, too, and Ron.
“We’re here for you,” I whisper, resting my forehead against the wet hair at the back of her head until she nods.
As I pull away, a dampness lingers on my blouse from her towel. Another chill sinks in, deeper still, as a realization potentially akin to my mother’s washes over me.
It doesn’t matter if she never talks about the night of Dad’s murder.
She thinks about it.
Death is only a physical end. We’ll never truly be rid of him as long as our memories of that night remain.
Chapter 2
I lie in bed,
twisted fantasies, realities,
come crashing down on me.
Dark grey cotton ball puffs roll across the sky toward us at a ginger pace, giving me just enough time to roll up the patio umbrella, grab my glass of iced tea, slick with condensation, and call Stevie over from the freshly cut grass where she lies on her side.
She stands at once, trotting across the lawn to the patio stones with her long black tail wagging, crossing the threshold of the back door into the kitchen as drops of rain dabble across the light grey stones. As I hold the door open, the dark clouds loom over the house, threatening me if I don’t get inside. Large drops of rain smatter against the patio and glass table, and deep within the late autumn chaos, the trill of a notification turns my attention back to the table where my phone sits, getting an impromptu shower.
“Hold on, Stevie!” I laugh, dashing out with my glass still in hand, grabbing my phone with the other as the drops tap at my head and against my face.
I scurry back to the door where Stevie stands, waiting for me with a big smile on her face and a bit of her big pink tongue hanging out as I close it behind us. “We made it.”
Blinking away the droplets from my eyes, I wipe the phone against my jeans and press the front button, expecting another message from my mom, like she promised she would on our last call after she got settled at the resort with Ron.
The screen lights up. Saved it just in time.
A Facebook message notification message stands out in contrast to the glare of the screen with a name I haven’t seen in a long time.
Carson Stokes.
I hover my finger over the icon and pull it away just as fast. If I open it, he’ll see I’ve seen, and he’ll be waiting for a response.
Why would he be messaging me?
The splish-splashing in the kitchen draws my attention from my phone to Stevie, lapping from her water dish, her long lab legs holding her high above her bowl and her ears hanging close to her eyes.
“What does he want, girl?” I sip from my glass and the cool tea coats my tongue in sweetness and the tang of lemon.
Because he must want something. That’s the only reason he messages me anymore since high school. Things like: Are you in town? Come to our show! And last time: Know anybody at Rosalie’s Musical Instruments anymore who could get me a discount on a new guitar? If you’re free, we could grab lunch. Catch up.
That one stung.
I hadn’t thought about the store in a while, and hadn’t been back since my dad’s death, but the real reason it hurt was the fact Stokes hadn’t offered any personal condolences after my dad’s murder. Just a generic comment on a post I made on social media of a photo of Mom, Dad, and I together: I’m sorry for your loss.
He’d hung out with my dad and me at Rosalie’s on so many Sunday afternoons, we’d each learned the basics of a new instrument each time, always from my dad. He gave Stokes pointers for his band from his life-time experience as a one-man show.
Receiving that post comment after all the time we spent together, regardless of the difficult circumstances around my dad’s death, ended whatever friendship I thought we still had in my mind.
The next time he messaged me, I told him I was living in Montreal with my husband, and I’d let him know when I was back in town.
I didn’t.
After my divorce, I moved back to my mom’s new hometown of Auburn Hills, less than an hour outside of Toronto, and resumed life as it had been before my marriage, living in the craftsman style house she’d moved into with Ron right before I got married.
I got a job with my mom as a receptionist at her dental office, just like I had while saving for college, and told myself I didn’t care if I ever saw Stokes again.
I thought about reaching out sometimes but promised myself I wouldn’t because I can take a hint. He didn’t much care to continue our friendship, only reaching out when he needed something. After all the years I’d expressed interest in joining his band, Haddonboro, since high school, he never once made it seem like a possibility.
After I moved back to Ontario, I saw a poster for an upcoming show for Haddonboro on Facebook. Instead of contacting Stokes about it like I used to, or reaching out at all, I went to see it with no intentions of him ever knowing.
I don’t know why I went. I enjoy their music, sure, and it’s gotten better over the years, but I
