TEN
CHAPTER
We got my truck out of McCarran’s long-term parking and drove to the hotel so Kacey could drop off her bags. She’d reserved a room at a little budget place off the Strip, not too far from my parents’ house.
“They know I'm coming, right?” she asked, chewing her lip as we drove to the Belvedere neighborhood.
“I told them we’d head over after you got settled.”
“But they don’t know I was drunk for nearly six months.”
“I didn’t tell them anything,” I said. “That’s up to you.”
Her hands twisted nervously in her lap, as she watched Vegas go by outside the window.
“It’s going to be okay, Kace. I promise.”
Kacey nodded. “Funny. Here, in the truck, with the windows rolled up? I feel secure. Barricaded. But when we step outside, when I breathe in Vegas… It’ll be like breathing in Jonah.
The memories. They’re in the air, you know?
Like I’ll feel them in my chest when I inhale.
” She put her hand over her heart and rubbed as if it pained her.
I had no fucking clue what to say to that. Just as it had been with her withdrawals, there was nothing I could say to make the pain any easier to take. I just had to be there for her, if that helped at all.
As I turned onto my parents’ street, Kacey sucked in a breath. By the time I parked, tears flooded her eyes.
“We’re not even out of the car, yet.” She stared out the car window. “I’m home,” she whispered. “It’s Jonah's home, but it felt like mine, too. Your parents made me feel welcome and loved. In a way my parents never did. And I left. I just…left.”
I turned in my seat toward her. “Hey. Look at me.”
She turned her head.
“You’re here now.”
She nodded, smiling weakly and then wiped her eyes. “Let’s do this.”
We climbed out of the car and walked side by side to the house.
The front door opened before I could knock.
My mother walked straight by me and engulfed Kacey in a hug.
They hugged and cried on the front stoop, then cried and hugged on the living room couch.
Over and over, Kacey told her how sorry she was.
Over and over, my mother hushed her, brushed back her hair and smudged away tears.
“I understand,” she said. “You did the hardest thing. You stayed with Jonah to the end. For that, you’ll always have a place in this family.”
I rummaged in the fridge, trying not to listen until finally my mother clapped her hands and declared the crying was over. It was time to eat.
“Everyone out on the patio.” She called to the back of the house, “Henry? Theo’s back. With Kacey. Let’s get the nice steaks, yes? Kacey, you like steak?”
Kacey nodded her head, and I got the impression she’d have eaten them raw if it made my mother happy.
“Wonderful. Theo, dear, will you start the grill? Oscar and Dena will be here any minute.”
My father emerged from the den and gave Kacey a hug and a peck on the cheek, and then we got down to the business of Sunday dinner.
I worked the grill, flipping six porterhouses over the fire while Kacey and my parents made small talk.
I didn’t listen but through the smoke of the grill, my eyes focused on the empty chair next to Kacey and to my dad’s right from where he sat at the end of the table.
Kacey’s hand rested on the armrest, her fingers running along the wooden slat.
My dad put his hand on the back of it as he leaned in to tell Kacey something.
Jonah was sitting in the chair. I could see him, plain as day, in the drape of our father’s arm, holding Kacey’s hand. He was right there, taking up that seat. It was forever his.
I brought the platter of steaks to the table and hesitated. Where was my place? My parents were on either end, two empty chairs on one side for Oscar and Dena, Kacey and Jonah’s chairs on the other.
I busied myself using silver tongs to plate the steaks.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” my mother said, cupping Kacey’s cheek.
“It's all thanks to him.” Kacey looked at me. “I was in a bad way. Trying to stay numb.” She smiled at me, shaking her head. “Teddy dropped everything and came to the rescue.”
“He did, indeed.” Dad turned to me. “Did you speak with your professors about the exams you missed?”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly, although the emails I’d received from my professors weren’t fine in the slightest. Kacey gaped at me, alarm and regret twisting her features. I hated my dad a little just then.
“And your job is still waiting for you?”
“Henry,” my mother said. “I'm sure he sorted everything out beforehand.”
“Everything's fine,” I said, the heat rising up in my face. I dumped my dad’s steak on his plate harder than I meant to.
“I'm merely stating my concern for your responsibilities here,” Dad said. “I'd hate to see you jeopardize your standing with the university. Tuition is expensive, and Jonah's contribution can only—”
“ Nothing is in jeopardy, Dad,” I said. “So just drop it.”
“Drop it like it's hot?” asked a cheerful voice from the patio gate. “I see it’s business as usual Chez Fletcher.”
“Oscar,” Kacey said, rising to her feet. “Dena.”
She threw herself between them and they squashed her tight. The three friends embraced, the women holding on to each other the longest.
“Girl, you skipped town like the mob was after you,” Oscar said.
Over the six months Kacey was gone, he hardly mentioned her, or asked about her, and then usually only if Dena did first. He smiled his broad smile at her and I didn’t doubt that he was happy she was back, but once the reunion it was over, it was business as usual.
My mother clapped her hands together. “Everyone sit. Eat before it gets cold.”
I took the only seat available, the one that had been Jonah’s and sat down, feeling like an imposter, despite Kacey’s warm smile for me.
She filled everyone in on where she was living and working, and my mother crowed about how she’d always wanted to go to New Orleans.
Kacey asked about Oscar and Dena's respective jobs—Oscar doing computer programming for the MGM Grand; Dena working as an adjunct literature professor at UNLV.
The women fawned over Dena's engagement ring. Oscar and I made small talk about the Runnin’ Rebels basketball chances this year.
But underneath it all, was a sad truth: We were a bunch of people sitting around propping up the conversation with false smiles and high-pitched voices, trying to ignore the gaping black hole in our lives.
“I have a ticket to next week’s game,” Oscar said. “That is, if you don’t already have a date lined up.”
I felt Kacey’s sideways glance at the same time Mom asked, “Are you seeing someone special, dear?”
“No,” I said. “I’m too busy with work and school.”
“Yeah, right.” Oscar laughed while Dena regarded me with those dark brown eyes of hers—eyes that had a way of looking through you. I glanced away before she saw too much.
“So, listen,” Kacey said. She tapped her fork against her water glass and threw a look around the table. “I need to say something. I owe you all an explanation.”
“You don’t owe us anything, dear,” my mom said.
Kacey shook her head. “No, I do. For you and for myself.” She huffed a breath, and the entire table went still. I wanted to take her hand, let her know she had my support, but didn’t dare. Not while sitting in Jonah’s chair. I nudged her foot under the table instead.
She shot me a grateful smile.
“I told you I’ve been in New Orleans for the last six months.
I headed east and kept driving until I landed there.
Or maybe I just ran out of steam. I left Vegas because losing Jonah was harder than I could’ve imagined.
I thought I was ready. Or at least a little bit prepared. I wasn't. Not even close.”
I glanced around the table, all of them unmoving, unblinking but all of them—all of us—connected by our own memories of those fucking horrible days after Jonah left us.
“I tried,” Kacey said. “I wrote a bunch of music really fast, as if I could outrun the grief and get it all out on paper.
But it didn't work. The words weren’t enough, and I was too scared to face the enormity of the grief.
I thought it would destroy me. So I fled to a different city, hoping to outrun the memories.
And when that didn't work, I started drinking.”
The table shifted now, leaning forward or back, tucking hair and scratching at chins. I pressed my foot to hers harder. Kacey sucked in a breath, and I knew what she was going to say next. The hardest thing.
“I’ve been drunk for the last six months. Literally. Every day, all day.” She looked at me, her eyes brimming. “Theo saved my life. I was slowly killing myself, and if Teddy hadn't found me…”
“Kace,” I murmured. It wasn’t a big deal and yet it was. I wanted to brush it aside and I wanted to be proud I helped her. I wanted to earn my seat, and yet I already belonged here.
God, when will everything stop feeling so fucked up?
Kacey smiled down at me. “He’ll never tell you what he went through to help me sober up, but I’ll tell you: it was hell. He never left, no matter how hard it got. I’ll never be able to repay him for saving my life.”
She heaved another sigh and wiped her eyes. “So I’m here now, thanks to him, but also because I missed all of you. And I wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving. I’m sorry I made you worry or made you angry or hurt you. I’m sorry and… I’m sorry.”
Mom took Kacey’s hands. Dena’s chair scraped on the stones as she stood up and came around the table to join the embrace.
Oscar, his expression subdued, was slowly nodding at me.
Dad shifted in his seat. “I had no idea her situation was so dire.”
I braced myself for the “But…” The addendum that diminished what I’d done, or the rest of the lecture. But my dad stared past me, turning tonight over in his mind.
Do you see now, Dad? I thought. I had to go. I made a promise. I went to her now, and I’ll go to her again if I have to. I’ll fail a hundred classes and be fired from a hundred jobs before I let anything happen to her again.