Bonus Chapter
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year. Running over the same old ground, what have we found?
The same old fears, wish you were here
-Pink Floyd
Nadia
Perfect weather; it’s few and far between but sometimes you’re blessed with days like today.
Kace and I drove back to Michigan this week for nothing other than this—me laying here in the tall grass, flowers protruding high above my prone body, and the velvety rays of sun cast across my limbs.
The foliage is vibrant green, the sky is the clearest and most pure blue I’ve seen in weeks, and I’m cocooned in silence—in my own world devoid of life’s chaotic messes.
That’s pretty much all there is in a cemetery, as one would guess.
There are rows and rows of headstones, monuments, mausoleums, decorated by loved ones and the occasional sniffling sound of pain joined with the trees' rustling leaves. It’s calm and heartbreaking all at once; the most beautiful part of home, as morbid as that sounds.
While I’m not here for pain's sake, I’m here for him—Kaleb.
I haven’t come to visit since his casket was lowered into the ground and dirt was thrown over the top.
Feels like a lifetime ago and, if I’m honest, it almost is.
Sadie is about to graduate college and before I can give her the graduation gift of a lifetime, in my opinion, I had to get his blessing.
Rolling onto my side, I look into the deep green blades of grass covering Kaleb’s grave—where I like to believe he’s lying next to me.
Staring warmly into my now aged-silver eyes.
Matching the smile I have smeared across my face as we silently share what’s happened through our lives—since the day he was laid to rest. Truthfully, I haven’t said anything for the hour I’ve been laying here, too content in the blanket of warmth and love I still feel for him.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, we were meant to escape and live long boring lives: football practice, PTO meetings, barbecues on the weekends, and Christmas gatherings with torn wrapping paper to the ceiling.
What we had back then was young, wild, and free but the most painful part was that I didn’t know what I had until it was gone.
If you’re asking where Kace is, he’s giving me the time and space I need, standing by the car instead of hovering like he’s prone to doing nowadays.
This conversation is between Kaleb and I, my grand idea, to share news and hunt for some sort of sign he’s still with me.
I’m just too scared to have it, what if he thinks this is me saying goodbye forever?
What if I’m overthinking this shit and need to pull my panties out of my ass and get on with the show?
“Babygirl?” Kace’s rough voice picks up behind me. Carrying on the wind like some sort of weighted blanket ready to drape over me if my mind forms another small fissure and sends me into an emotional spiral.
I am so fucking in love with him it’s disgusting, then I confess, at times it’s unfathomably beautiful.
We’re broken, amazing, and infatuated with one another.
Our road was long and challenging but time won out and we learned that despite the absolute hell life put us through, nothing will break us.
The love I feel for him is incomparable to anything I’ve felt before, including the love I have for Kaleb—it’s just different.
Kace filled in the gaps I had cracking my heart into pieces, Kaleb taught me it was safe to let someone love me enough to fill them in.
Sighing through the weight of being at his gravesite, I draw in a deep lungful of wildflower and spring-time air.
Over my shoulder, wind ruffles his hair when I give him a rueful smile he stops in his track, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
He doesn’t move closer. Watching me from a few yards away still as dumbfounded as the first day he really saw me.
He remains where he’s at, watching me with those mismatched eyes of his.
He’s afraid I’ll fall apart sitting here, not metaphorically either, the man is practically waiting to see my seams unravel and for me to crumble but I’m alright.
His heart is so full for me and our children; protective, attentive, everything neither one of us had growing up.
He’s the best husband and father I could have ever begged for—for family.
The days he gets a hair up his ass, I promptly remind him that it’s us in this family, not just him and his fear; the better part of both of our lives may have dissolved into years of agony but tomorrow will be better.
“I’m alright,” I answer before he has the chance to ask.
Placing my hands on the firm ground, I push against it to lift myself up, small pebbles and bits of dust biting into my palms as I sit myself up.
Another slight gust of wind catches my hair right as I’m finding my footing and straightening up.
The way my heart lurches, looking directly at Kaleb’s slowly withering headstone, makes me nauseous years later.
He needs a new one but I don’t want to touch it without his mama’s permission.
Maybe, before we leave, I can stop by and see her for a moment and ask her about getting him one that will better withstand the elements and time.
It would be really good to catch up with her too, as long as I don’t have to run into her brother again.
I’ve not seen him since my ride from Darkwater to jail—Officer Reyes—and I would like to keep it that way.
He barely remembered me but that little bit was enough to sting in the back of the cop car.
I’ve also caught a few whispers about him over the years but chose to ignore them along with everything else I couldn’t change.
Running my fingertips through the lettering—Friend we’re too excited to do things right this time around.
We get the chance to do the things we missed with Sadie, then she also gets another person who will think she hung the moon, just like her father and I. Which is part of why I am here.
“Think I could get your mom to change your headstone to ‘god father’? That’d be pretty bad ass. We could dress up like mafia families on Halloween for his birthday to come see you if you’d like.”
I chuckle at the absurd idea—Kaleb would love that though. Maybe I should tell Kace so he can start planning which family we will portray every year until our little boy grows out of it.
Reaching, I comb back a lock of hair and pin it behind my ear when I crouch down and press my forehead to the top of his headstone.
“For a few weeks I struggled with the perfect name but I finally found it and before I tell anyone else, I wanted to tell you. At first I thought Kace was going to fight me on it, but that son of a bitch really has the biggest damn heart I’ve ever seen.”
Kace starts up the car at that moment—Kaleb’s.
I bought it, correction…Kace did, and we’ve spent almost every day in the garage rebuilding it from the ground up.
I was surprised mama Reyes still had it; grateful too.
Had I been in her shoes, I may have blamed the car and scraped it.
I understand why she kept it though, after clearing out his dorm room, it’s all she had left of her little boy and now that I’m pregnant with one of my own? I get it.
We decided to drive it to see Kaleb’s grave, homage in a way. What better way to return to where it all began than in the one and only Delinquent. Hell, I can promise anyone that he’s smiled down from the sky when she rumbled through the gate to the cemetery.
“Kaleb Elijah Patton. Has a ring to it, don’t you think?” I finally squeeze out, because as happy as I am about redoing parenthood, it still hurts saying his name.
Hearing the sound of the car rev, I look back over my shoulder at Kace when he unfolds his big ass from the driver seat and shuts the door.
She’s beautiful—Delinquent–black on black, just like he had her back in the day.
I’ve added a few mods since, making sure she can drift and clear corners in no time flat, he’d want her that way.
Following Kace as he approaches, he slides his hand around my lower back, leans in to kiss my temple where a few silver-streaked strands catch in his five o’clock shadow.
“You ready to go? I don’t want to rush you but we have a few more stops to make before we get back. Sadie is also blowing your phone up asking when we are going to be home. Worried we are going to miss her graduation.”
“Yeah—I’m about ready. Not that I’d ever miss hers. I know how it feels.”
“Come on then. Let’s get going. You tell him?”
“Of course I did.”
“And? Did you get the reaction you were searching for?”
“Well…I was telling him right as you started the car. That’s good enough reaction for me. I know somewhere out there, he’s knuckle bumping Ken Brock and sliding into another, ready for one more ride.”
Kace
She doesn’t look for signs.
Bullshit.
Back in the day, Nadia didn’t look for signs from the universe but now she waits for them to appear like she can’t move on without something acknowledging her.
I know it comes from a place of abandonment—first her mom, father…
me. I still kick myself in the ass over it, years later, but this is who she is now. It’s in her bones.
Brushing my thumb along the soft skin of her mid back, I look at her before turning to peer at her friend’s headstone.
Sexy fucking thing’s wearing a crop top and high-rise shorts.
She likes to say it holds in her stomach—rounding with my kid—but I like to believe she wears get-ups like this because it drives me fucking insane.
Exactly how I envision her twenty years ago.
The girl Kaleb knew.
Chuckling at her, I nod to the car.
“Go on, I’m on your heels.”
The damn woman takes my breath away when she leans over and kisses the top of Kaleb's headstone—I hope the day I die…she worships me the same way. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel an ounce of jealousy but the devotion and love she has rivals anything I’ve ever experienced growing up.
Nadia moseys to the car, picks up her phone.
I assume she’s calling Sadie back as she sinks into the passenger seat.
I love my daughter, she’s as damaged as the rest of us and needs copious amounts of reassurance—which I’ve learned comes from her time with the Wilsons.
Hearing Nadia’s few words, promising we will be back in time for her graduation, I turn to Kaleb and touch where Nadia’s lips just pressed.
Not to wipe it clean, no. To make that sentiment permanent.
“I don’t know what you did to make her the way she is but thank you. I know deep in my bones, you were the one who carried her through all the shit she experienced. The other friends she had? Good riddance; fucking hate that she was the glue for that group, and the one with any sort of loyalty.”
Nadia’s voice carries over the field followed by a slow laugh, and I go quiet–the sound music to my soul.
I continue.
“I never was a spiritual man but once upon a time I begged the lord to let me stay on this Earth. To give me another chance at life so I could return to her and finish what you started.”
Snorting lowly, my hand falls back to my side and stuffs into my pockets again as I prepare my own goodbyes to the man who gave me my wife.
“Took me too fucking long, but I’m here now.
I promise I’ll keep her safe. Thank you for having her back when I didn’t, for carrying her through the worst years of her life, and never letting her give up on love.
Without you, I never would have met her nor would I have my family—their lives over ours. ”
The End
Be sure to check out the Lito Duet for Kace & Nadia’s story!