28. Daphne
Chapter Twenty-Eight
DAPHNE
I saved my visit to Brandon’s grave until the morning before my flight to leave. Maybe it wasn’t the best plan, but I didn’t want to dally in Atlanta after that. As it was, everywhere I went, it felt as if memories were hitting me like rocks in an avalanche. I was dodging them constantly so I didn’t get emotionally flattened.
As I was loading my suitcase into my rental car, my phone vibrated. Although I had deleted Pete’s number from my phone, I still knew it by heart. I felt the vibration in my palm as I stared at the screen and then decided I might as well get this over with. Avoidance wasn’t something that helped.
Sliding my thumb across the screen, I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Daphne, it’s Pete. I heard you were in the office the other day.”
“I was.”
That was three days ago, and he was just now calling. I waited to see what prompted his call.
“I need you to talk to your father.”
I almost started laughing hysterically. When the veil had been lifted from my eyes about just how shallow the affection in my marriage had been, Pete had stopped trying to put on a show. I knew he deeply loved our son, but I had no illusions that he ever loved me. I think he saw our marriage as a beneficial business alliance.
“About what?”
“Apparently, he’s making my departure from my position in the company conditional on not dividing the company. Did you put him up to this?”
“Absolutely not. I don’t intend to return to my position there. My father made that decision on his own and was simply waiting to talk to me about it. I’ll leave it to you to figure out how to handle it. Is that all you wanted to discuss?”
I was kind of shocked at how calm I was. I suppose it was because I had truly moved on from Pete and the illusion of what I thought we had.
Pete was quiet. I sensed he didn’t know how to deal with me like this. When I found out about his affair, I was crushed and hysterical. I shifted from that to cold anger, and then my entire focus shifted to dealing with Brandon being sick and dying. Through all of that, Pete assumed a somewhat polite stance. When I filed for divorce, he’d put up a small fight and then backed down quickly when I hired a well-known ruthless attorney.
Apparently, his attorney had enough sense to know how bad it looked in court for him. After several quiet beats, Pete spoke. “I know it’s been a shitty year. For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry. I miss Brandon.”
Grief struck me so hard that I lost my breath. Although I didn’t miss Pete and now had a clear-eyed view of what our relationship had never actually been, we’d shared a terrible loss. I knew no one else could understand my pain the way he did.
When I could catch my breath, I said, “I know you do. You were the best father to him. Even though I obviously don’t like how you treated me, that doesn’t change the fact that I know how much you loved him.”
Pete was really quiet, to the point I thought maybe he wasn’t on the phone anymore. When he spoke again, I could hear the tears in his voice. “You’re absolutely right. I was a shitty husband, but I loved Brandon, and I’ll never stop missing him.”
We sat in silence on that phone line, and a strange sense of peace gusted through me. “You can call me if you ever need to,” I finally said. “I do wish you the best, Pete.”
I didn’t remember how we said goodbye, but we hung up. That was one of the paradoxes I had learned. Everybody had different facets to who they were—some good, some neutral, some clumsy, some bad. Pete was shallow and superficial in many ways, yet he was also a good father to Brandon. He’d never been a hands-off kind of dad. He changed diapers, he fed him bottles during the night, and he never hesitated to take him to do things.
I could appreciate and honestly love that about him and for the gift it gave to our son. I could also see him for the man he was as a husband, which was hurtful to me and nothing I wanted to repeat.
I gathered my strength back together, almost like wrapping a coat around my shoulders, and finished packing my suitcase. A short drive later, I walked to the small plaque. Brandon Lind. 2014 - 2018. He was light, love, laughter, and joy. May his memory live for eternity.
For mostly the first month after Brandon died, I almost couldn’t cry. I felt tied tight like a knot, the kind where you try to pick it out with your fingers and you can never get purchase to loosen it. When I finally loosened the knot, the tears came in noisy bursts, and it almost hurt to even talk to anyone. It was as if my skin itself was carrying the wounds of my grief, sensitive to air, to light, and to the mere presence of anyone who knew what had happened.
During those months, it was easier to be around strangers because they didn’t know. I could pretend I was okay. Strangely, it wasn’t denial. It was more like practice for keeping my shit together. Because I couldn’t do it around anyone who knew what happened. Just their knowledge was enough of a reminder that I would fall apart.
Then came the next stage—the anger. I swung between anger and denial and a sort of crazy wishful thinking. Even now, I still knew exactly where I had one outfit for Brandon should he mysteriously re-appear. I even brought that outfit in my luggage to Alaska. It was during the height of my anger that I finally saw a therapist.
Among many things, she’d assured me I wasn’t absolutely insane to keep an outfit of Brandon’s. Apparently, that was a thing people did. It was a type of magical thinking when someone died. When death was unexpected, she told me people had all kinds of weird thoughts, and that hope—no matter how wildly irrational at times—helped to carry us through the pain.
I learned that the winding path of grief had no logical order. It was different for everyone, and my process was exactly the way it needed to be for me. It was odd to consider it now, but I realized in hindsight that my anger toward Pete and Nat had actually given me some strength during the worst times.
I knelt in the grass and traced my fingers over his name. I fingered the locket that held one of his auburn curls. Aside from the random advertisement that popped up on my screen when I saw the name of Flynn’s resort, I’d started looking for travel in Alaska because Brandon always wanted to go. I didn’t even remember what started that wish for him. I thought it was perhaps an episode from one of the nature shows he loved to watch. We limited his screen time, but he often selected those shows when he got his half hour. He got sick so fast. We didn’t even have time to take a trip.
So I made that trip for him and for me. Now, I didn’t know if I would stay there or go somewhere else. Maybe I would come back here someday. I just didn’t know.
“I love you, bear,” I whispered. We ended up calling him Brandon-bear, which shortened to bear when he was still a baby. The nickname stuck.
I lingered for a few minutes before standing. As I drove to the airport, Flynn circled through my thoughts. He was always there, always feathering along the edges. Although I still felt uncertain about where my life might take me, I would go back and see what happened next.
Pulling my phone out, I used voice to text to send a message to Flynn. I’ll be landing in Anchorage tomorrow.
I wanted to say more, but it didn’t feel right.