Prologue
Lyric
One Month Earlier
Please take care of your father, Lyric. He’ll need you when I’m gone, and don’t forget I’ll carry you with me always. I love you, sweet girl.
Those are my mom's last words before she left this side of the earth. I never thought in a million years at the age of twenty-one I’d be called home from college to hear the news of mom having cancer. My parents told me I could go back, visit more throughout the semester, and then change universities when the year came to a close. I’d squashed that idea like a bug beneath my shoe, I transferred in the middle of spring semester and never looked back. My then boyfriend at the time, said we could make it work, insisting that long-distance doesn’t mean we’d lose touch.
Life happens, disappointment happens, and when a random phone number sent me a text message with an image of my then boyfriend in bed with another girl. I knew everything he said didn’t mean anything. We were young, and I had more responsibility than most people my age. I didn’t blame him. He’d call me, I’d call him, and the conversations would last a minute or two here and there. I’d undoubtedly be needed by my mom or dad, and well, he’d be heading to class, football practice, or a party, and we drifted apart. He was my first and ultimately my last when mom passed away after a long and drawn-out battle, trying her hardest to keep going. She tried every chemotherapy and radiation therapy she could, as well as any trial research she had been a candidate for, but nothing helped. Two years later, we said our goodbyes reluctantly, and I’ve kept my promise that I would take care of my father, the love of her life, ever since.
Of course, I had no idea what that would all entail until I started really noticing he’d forget a few things here and there. Mainly his keys when walking out the door to work on the base, or I’d notice a couple of things here and there. His uniform would be messed up when he’d never once allowed himself or anyone else under his command to look slightly disheveled. Then, his doctor’s office called to confirm an appointment. I mentioned it to my father, and he said he had forgotten. I understood the sentiment entirely. We’d been through a lot at the end with mom, hospice coming and going until those final days. Both of us stayed by her side until I heard Mom say something to Dad. They needed their time together. I excused myself, swallowing back the lump in the back of my throat, blinking the tears away, only allowing myself to fall to pieces once I cleared the room. I ran to the bathroom, closed the door as quietly as possible, my back sliding down the wall, my hand covering my mouth, and let the emotions take over.
We’d buried her three days later, my dad in his dress blues, sitting beside me, holding my hand, and while he maintained a brave face, I couldn’t help the tears falling down my face unable to keep up with them. There weren’t enough tissues to combat the tears from losing my mother. My mind went into overdrive, thinking about all the moments that had been stolen from her and selfishly myself.
Now, here I am, standing next to my mother’s grave alongside my father's. After the doctor’s appoint with his general physician where he brought up my mother’s concerns which had me at a loss for words yet again.
My father showed signs of early-onset dementia. My big, strong father, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, would need to see a neurologist, where he’d then see doctor after doctor. Test after test would be ran and we’d eventually receive the diagnosis mom had been trying to find before she became so sick that she couldn’t keep up. The downfall of everything is being kept in the dark, I know they were trying to overcome obstacles and thinking that everything would be okay. You know, like mom going into remission, dad not being diagnosed with Frontotemporal dementia.
Any thought of me going back to school went out the window. Instead, I double downed, and became a caretaker again because Dad did what he could with mom. He still had a job at the end of the day, but he’d have to let the Marine Corps know. I’d already read enough in public forums about how things could and would potentially go. He’d been honorably discharged with full medical benefits. As if the blows weren’t enough from losing mom, I’d have to watch my dad slowly decline too. He’d been confused at first, wondering why he no longer had to be out the door after drinking his coffee at four o’clock in the morning, and I’d remind him.
For ten years, I watched this disease ravage my father, and before that, I watched my mom do the same for two years. Over a decade now, I’d been there for them, and I’d do it for ten more decades if it meant getting to spend as much time as I could with them.
The only problem I have now is how to go on. How do I live for myself after living and breathing for them? Now I’m thirty-four years old and have to learn to live for myself. The only problem with that is I have minimal work experience and a college degree that luckily, I was able to finish up online.
I’m numb inside, the rain falling like sheets of ice all the way around the burial service. It didn’t matter that there were tents set up on the lawn The cold had settled deep in my bones and the pain in my heart is splintering in two. Unlike Mom’s service, where the sun shone, the trees swayed, and a bird chirped here and there. Dad’s is cold and desolate, exactly how I’m feeling.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Skye.” I’m standing off to the side, receiving condolence after condolence. In true Marine Corps style, he had the military sendoff of all sendoffs.
“Thank you.” I take his offered hand and place mine on top of theirs as they pay the side of my arm or whatever.
“Call if you need anything.” A broken promise here another there, I heard the same song and dance at my mother’s funeral. They’ll be here for the first week, maybe two, before they fade away in the background.
“I will,” the only person who’s truly been around during every moment in the past twelve years has been my parents’ neighbor. They’d finally quit moving around when dad received the higher rank. Mom found a cute three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in a quiet neighborhood, remodeled what needed updating, mainly the kitchen and bathroom, and they were both content to live their life for the rest of their years there. Nobody knew they’d succumb to cancer and dementia.
I stand, waiting for the line to die down, attempting not to snort at my use of the word die. A morbid sense of humor probably isn’t the best to have at this point in time. I look around, seeing the soldiers standing at attention; they’ll stay here until I’m done hearing their condolences and will stay until I say my goodbyes. As much as I want to stay and stare at their headstones and the pile of dirt when they lay my dad to rest. I won’t, no I can’t. I’m broken inside. A piece of me is missing and will always be gone. I’m the last living relative on the Skye side as well as my mom’s side. They were only children. Their parents have been long gone, and as much as my parents tried for a second child, it never happened. Now, I’m here alone and feeling like an orphan while in my thirties.
“Naomi,” I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m able to let my guard down when she pulls me into her arms. Truth be told, this woman right here helped me through all of the travesties we’ve been through. My mother’s best friend, she traveled around the globe to be here with me.
“Lyric, my girl. I’m sorry I couldn’t come until now,” she says with a Parisian accent. My mother and Naomi grew up together, and they kept in touch when my parents met. They fell in love, got married, had a child, and moved more than most people ever have. Still, they managed to talk once a week at least, if not more. When Mom got worse, Naomi flew in and stayed with us until she passed, or really until after the funeral. She made me promise to keep in touch, and we have. Our phone calls helped keep me sane, and she insisted I take the help provided by my father’s insurance. I’d gone to work part-time, and finding a flexible job as a receptionist at a dentist’s office really helped my mental health. I told them what had been happening in my home life, the office manager told me in no uncertain circumstances that I am not to come in when dad has a rough day. True to their word the first time I called them two months into my employment, they understood and said my job would be there the next day. I’d finally turned my notice in when I wouldn’t be there for days on end when things got worse. I could have put Dad in an assisted living facility. Naomi even encouraged it, and it wasn’t until I spilled the beans about Mom’s last request that she finally understood why I wouldn’t.
“Stop, there would have been nothing for you to do,” I tell her, much like what we went through with Mom, similar happened with Dad. They both passed peacefully with hospice sitting outside the room and it happened at their home.
“Still, I am sorry.” I swallow the clogging of emotion trying to take me under. After a couple more hours, I can be done holding it all in.
“Don’t be, please. Tell me something good?” I ask her, playing a game, we’ve been doing for years now. Whenever one of us are having a rough day, we’ll ask one another this question.
“Well, there’s a hot man coming your way ma chérie,” Naomi says, side steps, and moves to where my mother’s headstone is located. I watch from my peripheral vision as she squats down, being careful with her heels and her skirt, she places a kiss from the tips of her fingers to my mother’s name. Naomi stands up, nods my way and moves to a seat near the back of the tent the cemetery has set up.
“Hello, Miss. Skye,” he places his hand out to take mine. I’m unsure who he is, then again, I didn’t know most of the others.
“Hi, I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.” He’s an older gentleman judging by the salt and pepper hair, the crinkles around his eyes, and the way he carries himself. I’d peg him somewhere around his late fifties or early sixties.
“That’s because we’ve never met, I’m your parent’s estate attorney, Scott Bennet. I would usually wait until a day or two later except your mom made me keep a promise,” I let out a light laugh, that is so classically Melody Skye.
“I’d like to say I’m surprised, except I’m not,” I look around noticing everyone is gone, minus the Marine’s, and now I’m feeling guilty for keeping them here as long as I have.
“Then it’ll come as no surprise to you that she wants you to restart your life. She’s asked that you donate the contents you don’t want, take what you want, and I believe her words were not everything either and sell the house. There’s a home in Whispering Oaks. They’ve rented it to a long-term tenant, it’s currently sitting empty. Mrs. Skye mentioned you loved that place more than anything, and your father wouldn’t sell it when you moved away because of her.” I close my eyes, remembering the years we spent in the small town, being next door to my then-best friend, and making that pact of ours. God, back then, life was so much simpler. Memories assault me, one right after the other, and I’m lost in another time.
“Ma chérie, we must go. Mr. Bennet said he’d follow up with you in a few days, but we really must let these fine men go,” it isn’t until I feel Naomi’s hand on the back of my elbow that I realize I’ve completely zoned out.
“Oh, right. Thank you,” I offer my hand to him again. He shakes it and then takes off.
The home we stayed in the longest growing up, one where I made friends, and life seemed to be going amazing. Then Dad came home, a look on his face I knew all too well. He shook his head, telling me everything without any words, and I did the one thing I probably shouldn’t have. I ran to the boy next door, my best friend, Jagger Steele, and I sometimes wonder where Jagger is now, especially seeing how he quit writing to me all those years ago. Maybe he thought I was some silly girl, Jagger is years older than me, and when I brought it up to my mom, she mentioned boys get busy. Now, looking back I’m pretty sure she’d been trying to make me feel better. Back then, I felt like my teenage heart was being torn in two. Jagger was my first real heartbreak, and those are the ones you never let go of.