Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Henry
January 10th, 1997
We lurch apart, Lucy and I, landing in our respective seats on opposite sides of the cab just as the officer raps his knuckles on my window. My hands tremble against the crank as I wind it down. A gust of cold air flows in through the gap I create. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lucy tighten her jacket around herself. She’s shivering. Whether from the cold or nerves, I’m not sure. Despite the fear violently twisting my gut, I wish I could comfort her. Make her warm.
“Good evening, Officer.” I keep my head down, avoiding eye contact. Hope beyond hope that he doesn’t see the beautiful blonde in my passenger seat who most definitely shouldn’t be out this late. In a town as small as Fly Hollow, and with her father being a well-known member of the community, this guy’s bound to recognize Lucy.
“Henry Ridgefield?”
I glance up, startled, and nod. The first thing I notice is the hat he’s wearing. One of those cold-weather things with the flaps that cover the ears. The second is his expression. I haven’t had a run- in with the cops before, but I’d never have guessed that they feel particularly bad about pulling people over. This man, however, has eyes pinched at the corners and lips flatlined. The lights from his cruiser reflect in a fresh coat of tears over his irises, hiding their color.
From the cold, I’m sure.
When he speaks, it brushes through a thick, white broom of a mustache and dissipates like fog in the air.
“Your mama’s looking for you.” He clears his throat. “You need to go to South Baldwin Regional. She’s waiting for you there.”
My gaze cuts to Lucy, still huddled in her corner of the cab. Our eyes meet, twin expressions of fear. I hear rustling behind me, and when I turn back, the officer is bent over and peering into my truck. He catches sight of Lucy, and his expression softens.
“Miss Barlow, I better take you on home.” He glances between the two of us. “I doubt the pastor knows you’re out this late, huh?”
Tears well in her eyes. They’re different from the ones the officer was fighting back a moment ago. She’s afraid. And in this moment, terror ripples through me. My mom is at the hospital. Lucy is about to get brought home by a policeman. I want to split myself in two and send each half in a different direction—one to take care of my mother; the other to protect Lucy from the consequences of my own terrible decisions.
The officer—Langston, according to the gold badge pinned to his pocket—shakes his head gently. “I’ll get her home safe. Your mama… Well, she needs you, son. Better go.”
He pats the roof of my truck and offers a solemn nod, then turns back toward his cruiser.
A hand, featherlight and impossibly soft, lands on my forearm. Lucy tilts her head toward the policeman’s retreating form. “This is going to be so bad. ”
“I’m sorry.” I grab that hand. Hold it tight. “I never should’ve gotten you into this.”
Her eyes are wide and glossy. “What do you think happened? With your mom?”
“I don’t know.” That fist around my heart tightens. Wrings me out. A thought reaches me, almost against my will. “My dad…”
“He didn’t mention your dad.”
We stare at each other, both realizing what that could mean. A laundry list of things I don’t want to inspect.
A quick blip sounds from the cruiser. I squint against the bright lights to see the officer nod.
“You have to go.”
“Henry,” she whispers.
When I look back at her, her teeth are buried in her bottom lip. The blue and red dance over her blonde hair, distorting its color. I reach out to touch it. To remind myself this was real, if only for a moment. Because deep in the cavern of my heart, I know that everything is about to change.
“My dad… he’ll be so upset.” A tear slips from the precipice of her lashes. I swipe it away with the back of my index finger. “He already doesn’t like you.” She sniffles. “He won’t be able to forget this.”
“I know.” And I do. The moment the officer laid eyes on Lucy, there was only one outcome for all of us. “I’m sorry, Lucy. But I have to go. I’ll find a way to apologize. I’ll make your dad understand it wasn’t your choice; it was mine.”
“Henry—”
I cover her mouth with mine. For long moments after I release her, the feel of her tearstained cheeks against my palms remains. Eventually her eyelids flutter open.
“Be safe.” She finds the handle and pulls.
“You too.”
I watch her walk toward the cruiser like she’s approaching the gallows. In a way, she is. After the warning I’ve already received from the pastor, this night will not be easily forgiven. But I meant what I told her. I’ll make it up to her father somehow. I can’t lose her. Not now that I’ve finally had her.
I wait until the cop pulls away, then I flip a U-turn and head toward the hospital.
January 13th, 1997
“It was a massive heart attack.” My mom’s lips warble over the words. “A widow-maker, they called it. I suppose that’s apt.”
She folds in on herself, arms wrapped over her center, as sobs send shock waves through her body. A woman I’ve never seen as anything but invincible is slowly fracturing in front of me, and I’m useless to stop it. Pastor Timothy, face arranged in some hollow semblance of empathy, clicks his tongue. He reaches over the back of the pew he’s sitting in and settles his hand on my mother’s bouncing knee.
“Loretta, I know it hurts.”
Does he? Does he know that it feels like the entire world has been remade around us? That in the course of a night, our reality was completely distorted, no longer recognizable to either of us? Does he know that I held my mother in the sterile hallway of South Baldwin Regional as she wailed so loud the nurses even shed a few tears? Does he know that I had to be the one to hold my father’s hand as they removed him from life support, because my mother couldn’t force herself into that room?
Does he know what a body feels like when the life goes out of it? How that person takes a piece of you with them, rips out a section of your soul and drags it from your flesh when they go.
Because I do. I do, and I wish so badly I didn’t .
“But David has gone on to Glory and is resting in Heaven alongside Jesus. He is in no pain. He is laughing and rejoicing with those he loves, and you will see him again someday.”
“I want to see him now, ” she wails. It echoes around the sanctuary. Reverberates in my ears. For as long as I live, I’ll never forget it. The specific note of losing the love of your life. The saddest song ever written.
A member of the choir, Odette, steps through the door by the stage, hands folded at her waist. Her hair frames her face in a shock of curls, the darkest shade of velvet. She approaches us slowly, steps light on the green carpet, like we’re animals she might spook with any sudden movement. She’s a bit younger than my parents, but she and my mother have always bonded over a shared love of pearl jewelry and the dessert table at any church potluck.
“Loretta, do you wanna come with me for a bit? I’m sure the funeral plans can wait.”
Mom glances between myself and the pastor. Her features are twisted around the agony she feels inside. I feel it, too, along with a roiling ocean of rage and disbelief and absolute helplessness. But for my mother, I push that all away. Lock it up in a corner of my heart to come back to later, alone in my room where she cannot see. My mother, who has always wanted to fix things for me, cannot fix this. But I can make the burden easier, and so I will.
“Go, Mom.” I pat her shoulder. “I can handle this.”
Her face crumples as another sob ripples through her. Her palm, clammy and trembling, cups my cheek. “You’re just a child, Henry. You shouldn’t have to handle this.”
I let the words roll off me. If I dwell on the unfairness of it all for too long, I’ll find myself in a pit I can’t dig myself out of. Later, I reason. When I’m alone.
I force a smile onto my face. It’s a lopsided, incomplete thing. But it’s the best I’ve got. I’m not sure if my mother is blinded by grief or simply desperate, but she takes the expression at surface value. She rises from her seat, nods to Pastor Timothy, and then shimmies her way around my knees and out of the pew. Taking Odette’s outstretched hand, she allows herself to be escorted away. Even after they retreat through the door Odette first appeared from, I swear I can hear the echo of my mother’s cry. That impossibly somber melody.
“Now, son.”
I turn to Pastor Timothy, truly focusing on him for the first time this morning. The whole world feels like it’s held at a distance, though it’s not me who’s holding it up anymore. Not even God. Something else. Something that doesn’t care if two good people like my parents love each other enough to grow old together. Doesn’t give a rip that now a son will miss out on a lifetime of knowing his father. Making him proud. Giving him grandchildren. Caring for him in his old age.
The pastor’s gaze is hard and pointed. It pierces through that fog and grounds me, though the motion is nausea-inducing.
“I know you are going through it right now, but don’t think we’re gonna gloss over the fact that you snuck my daughter out. Gave her alcohol. Don’t lie to me, either, because I smelled it on her breath.” A wrinkle forms between his thick brows as he narrows his eyes. “You’re lucky Joe Langston talked me out of pressing charges in light of the circumstances, because I most certainly would’ve.”
I shake my head, though not at him in particular. At this situation. At my life. Losing my father, the magnitude of my mother’s grief, putting Lucy in such an impossible position… It’s all too much. And I’m only one person.
One task. I can focus on exactly one task, and then another. Step by step until I make it through. It’s the only way.
My eyes drift closed, head tilted back. A sigh escapes my lips, releasing some of the tightness in my chest. When I inhale again, my lungs are full of pins and needles, but I drink down the oxygen as a lifeline.
“Everyone has to wear jerseys.”
“Excuse me?”
I open my eyes. The chandeliers sway in the flow of air from the heating vents. Back and forth, their golden light shimmering.
“We’ll need a few days for my grandparents to get here. They live in South Florida. He wouldn’t care about flowers, but Mom likes lilies, so we’ll do those.” The thousands of times I sat beside my dad in Sunday service, watching these very lights cast an angelic glow around Lucy’s head, flit through my mind. “And magnolia blooms, from the tree on our street.”
Never mind that they aren’t in season and likely won’t bloom for months. I’m mostly musing aloud at this point. None of this is Pastor Timothy’s concern anyway, but I continue as if it is.
“You can tell the choir to sing whatever they like. Write the sermon however you please.”
None of it matters. All of it does. Somehow, both these things are true.
“But everyone has to wear jerseys. Even if they’re an Auburn fan.” At this, a tear streaks down my face. I ignore it. Along with the expression of barely contained contempt on the pastor’s face. “It’s what Dad would have wanted. He hated wearing suits. I won’t make him wear one forever.”
I rise from the pew. Pastor Timothy echoes the movement, meeting me in the aisle when I step out. He buttons his suit jacket over his protruding stomach and smiles. A look only meant to placate, never to convey any real joy.
He offers his hand, and I take it. His other claps against my forearm, pinning my hand in his iron grasp. “You take good care of your mama, Henry.” An eyebrow lifts. “And remember, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. ”
That fog is taking over my brain. I shake my head, hoping the words will shift into some kind of sense, but no luck. “What?”
My question falls on deaf ears. Instead of explaining, he uses my arm to yank me closer, until his spearmint- and tobacco-scented breath wafts over my face. “If you let that temptation bring you near my daughter again, I will not be so forgiving.”
He releases me with one final shake. When he turns to stride toward the exit, I see Waylon waiting in the foyer of the church, silhouetted against the glass doors. Outside, a winter rainstorm has rolled in, painting the sky a slate gray. The two men clap each other’s backs by way of greeting. Waylon lifts an umbrella from the bucket by the door, expands it through an open door, then leads the way for Pastor Timothy. They disappear in the driving rain, turning left toward the parsonage.
I watch them go, all the while wondering if I’m the first person to ever feel this hopeless in a house of worship. And so impossibly alone.
January 17th, 1997
The day we bury my father, a freak snowstorm coats Fly Hollow in a thin dusting of white. The ground is hard beneath my feet. An impossible cold penetrates the layers of my jacket, jersey, and undershirt. It’s one of Dad’s, so it fits loosely over my slim frame. It smells like his aftershave. As I walk away from the casket—which sits poised over a gaping hole that feels impossibly small to hold such a large piece of my life—I dodge headstone after headstone. Each a testament to someone loved and lost.
It still feels inconceivable that my dad is among them .
My mother stays behind to talk to the pastor. Odette and my grandmother support each of Mom’s elbows, like she may collapse if not held up. And perhaps she would. It’s been a week since I held her in that hospital hallway, but the scent of antiseptic still burns my nose. Each night when I close my eyes, I feel the weight of my father’s hand in mine. Then the absence of it. It’s almost more than I can bear.
I round the old oak tree at the edge of the church cemetery, prepared to wait for my mom in the truck, and walk right into Lucy.
“ Oof, ” I grunt, stepping back with hands braced on her shoulders.
Her gray eyes mirror the snowy sky. They sweep over me as though checking me for injuries. Satisfied, she returns her gaze to mine. I blink against the shock of it. The difference from that night in my truck, the hopeful spark in her eyes when she gifted me her very first kiss, to the slicing sympathy that spills from them now. I want to erase it. Go back to that memory. Redo it all again and get a different result.
“Are you okay?” She touches her hand to my heart. “Who am I kidding? Of course you’re not okay. That was so stupid.” She steps closer till our exhales mingle in a cloud of condensation. “I’ve been so worried. Daddy was so angry, but I thought about what you said and you’re right. You can talk to him. We can talk to him, together. He’ll snap out of it. He has to. When the dust has settled a little bit, we can explain?—”
I throw my arms around her and pull her to me, crushing her small frame against my own larger one. She melts into me, safe in the knowledge that the large oak shields us from view of the funeral goers. And, more importantly, her father.
For the first time since this all happened, I allow myself to weep. Wholeheartedly, with total abandon. Sobs wrench through my chest, crack open my ribs. My stomach turns over like I’m going to be sick. Tears freeze on my cheeks. Through it all, Lucy holds me tightly. Strokes her hand over my back. Up and down, up and down. The way my mother did when I was small.
I don’t know how long we remain like that. But eventually the tears dry up and I right myself. I step away from Lucy, using my father’s jersey to clear my face. It’s only a matter of time till her father and my mother make their way out of the cemetery. I may not be able to help myself, but I can do this one thing for her. I won’t be the reason for any more pain in Lucy’s life.
“You have to go,” I whisper. “Your dad can’t see us together.”
She nods, casting a glance behind me. “We can talk at school. By summertime he’ll soften up. I’ll tell him this is what I want?—”
“We can’t.”
The crease between her eyebrows deepens. “What?”
How do I explain what’s happened in the past week? What’s changed within me? I’ve taken over for my mother. Grown up in the blink of an eye. I have to get a job, help pay the bills. I couldn’t give Lucy what she deserves even in the best of circumstances, but now? And with her father’s hatred weighing on top of it all? It will only hurt her in the end, and I’m not willing to let that happen.
I shake my head. “The two of us… It won’t work. It’ll never work.” Your dad will never accept me. I’m an absolute wreck. I have to take care of my mom when I’m not even sure how to take care of myself. Help me. Please. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”
All those unspoken words turn and tumble in my gut. They eat me alive. But I won’t let them out. Won’t make my problems hers to deal with. I can’t.
“I don’t understand.” She reaches for my hand, which hangs limply where she holds it. “I know you’re upset. I’m sorry for what happened. For getting you in trouble. For your dad…” Her voice trails off as she sucks in a wavering breath. “But you said we’d get through this. That you’d make Dad understand?— ”
“That was before.” It rushes out of me unbidden. And from the way she flinches, I know it causes damage that I’ll never be able to repair.
She blinks back a fresh pool of tears. “I can be there for you. You just have to let me.”
Snow has gathered in her golden hair. A few flakes are caught in her lashes. I let my gaze sweep over her face. I gather the details—her flushed cheeks, her silken skin, those rosebud lips and the memory of their warmth against mine—and I stow them away for safekeeping. It’s the closest I’ll ever get again. For her sake, even if it kills me inside.
“I have to go.” I place a kiss on her forehead. And perhaps it’s a mistake, but it’s the only weakness I’ll allow myself in all of this. I swear it on my father’s grave. The proximity of which presses in on my lungs, making it hard to take my next breath. Next step. Each of which takes me farther away from Lucy and the life I wish I could have if circumstances were different.
“Henry?” Lucy cries.
I don’t turn back. I don’t let myself react. I just keep moving, head down, toward the truck.