24. Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
Cassidy
Sitting alone on the floor of the farmhouse, I push the crochet hook into the next stitch. Every loop works toward an ending so incomplete, it carves out a hole in my chest.
Tears fall until I drop the blanket into my lap. It’s too blurry anyway.
My head rests on the couch, and I take deep breaths. I haven’t had the guts to look at my phone since last night. There’s no doubt it’s filled with whatever my mom thought I should do differently, her sorrowful musings, and well-thought-out plans.
I can’t bear any of it.
When Gus first got sick, I knew that there was a good probability that he wouldn’t live to see old age. What I didn’t know was just how soon his presence would be ripped from my life. The worst part is that I feel like we’d just gotten to a good place—unburdened by the worries of our childhoods.
Or maybe Gus has always worried; he was just better at hiding it than most.
I question if he knew—how he felt right before. Did he see things the same way I do? Did he feel the shift in our relationship when he passed? Was he in pain?
I cling to his words.
Those are things you wanted, Cass.
You made decisions for yourself, this time.
I wipe the sleeve of Wes’s jacket over my chin, catching the moisture before it falls any further.
It’s just made you extra happy. You’re like… happy, happy.
I pull my knees to my chest, burying my sorrow there as the tears fall faster. My shoulders shake, and I can’t stop the heaving sobs.
Loneliness. I feel so alone. I’m not, but something about losing the one person who was raised the same way you were—the one who experienced the same childhood memories, makes me feel like a piece is missing.
We all need some happy, Cass. It gives us something to cling to when the inevitable black cloud reappears—makes us less sad when storms come.
Dragging my face across the sleeve, I sit back up, picking up the crochet hook again to finish off the last row.
I’m being realistic.
When I pull the last loop and snip the yarn, the screen door opens. Wes must be taking lunch early—or he’s worried about me.
“Hey,” his voice is so soft as he glides across the living room, crouching next to me. My face is in his hands, thumbs gently running over my cheeks. “Hey,” he says. “I’m here.”
When he presses a soft kiss to the tip of my nose, I take a deep breath and don’t feel so alone. I’m drawn into the scent of hay and freshly cut grass. Wes holds me there, keeping me safely tucked in the warmth of his arms.
“I’m alright,” I reassure him. “I finished Gus’s blanket.”
I should have done it sooner—should have done all of it sooner. I hadn’t felt the urgency when Gus was alive—not knowing what waited at the end of the road.
While I could go on regretting every decision I made, I’m not sure it would have led me here. Maybe things needed to happen exactly the way they did.
I look up at Wes, whiskey-colored eyes filled with sorrow—as if my pain has become his.
I hate to see it mirrored there, but I cling to him all the same.
He’s a steady anchor—rooted in the soil beneath Miller Run like the Willow by the pond.
Unflappable—unmoving. It’s the kind of steadiness that I didn’t have growing up.
Where my family was filled with uncertainty and anxiety, I found myself drowning in the pressures my mother put on me.
Here, Wes is something different. There’s no expectation for me to be anything but what I am—to feel anything but what I feel.
It makes me want to dig my own roots down and mingle them with his—hold on to the home he’s created. Miller Run has been my place to heal, and Wes?
He’s the soft place in which I can land.
He looks at the stripes of brown and tan. “I see that,” he says, offering a wan smile. He sits next to me, our backs against the base of the couch.
His boots are still caked with mud, and I see the tracks he added all the way through the house. “You didn’t even take your shoes off,” I comment.
Wes lifts the blanket, analyzing it. “I have not thought about shoes in a long while,” he says before pulling the blanket over our laps. “He’d love this, you know.” When he swallows, I rest my head on his shoulder.
“It took too long,” I say, closing my eyes.
“That’s okay, Cass,” he says. “It really is okay.”
“I’ll be fine, you know,” I whisper. As my head rests on Wes, I know it to be true. Grief is a universal experience—at some point, it touches us all. It still doesn’t take away the pain. “I just need to feel it for a minute.”
Wes presses a kiss to the top of my head, and I settle into him. “Take a minute then,” he whispers. “Take an hour. Take a day. Just don’t stop talking to me.”
I smile then, softly. I love you, I think.
And I know it to be true.
I smooth the black blouse down as I stare in the mirror.
For the last two weeks, I’ve stayed in the farmhouse. Rosemary hasn’t been back to her parents, but neither of us has minded, and I’ve tried to return to working on the farm. The manual labor feels good. Even in my grief, the sunshine feeds my soul.
I get a lot of time to think out there, recall the memories and lessons I’ve learned from my time growing up with August. It’s been healing.
“You ready?” Wes asks, and I turn to see him standing in a black dress shirt and black slacks.
“As ready as I can be.” I offer a wan smile, and we descend the stairs to find Rosemary with a cup of coffee in hand. She pushes it toward me, and I gladly accept.
“I hope I can get through this,” I say before taking a sip. “The speaking part,” I clarify. “I don’t want to end up crying, so you guys can’t cry.”
“You got it, Boss,” Wes says, the corner of his mouth turning up.
Rosemary’s eyes already look glassy as she stares at me. “No promises,” she says.
When we get to the church, I’m greeted by people I haven’t seen in years. Family members we’ve lost touch with, friends from high school who’d messaged me following August’s passing.
It’s overwhelming.
When I see Ellis and Lennon, some of the overwhelm ceases. “You didn’t have to come,” I say as Ellis pulls me into a hug. “You’re getting married next week. This is hardly an appropriate pre-wedding activity.”
“I know you’re supposed to say that,” Ellis says, “But it really is a stupid thing to say.”
Lennon chuckles softly.
We take our seats toward the front, where Wes clutches my hand the entire time. I can see him look in my direction periodically, checking in to make sure I’m still breathing, most likely.
And I am.
There is an undercurrent of sadness, but I haven’t completely lost myself to it. I’m sure there will be more to come, but for now, I am just grateful.
Where my sadness flows like the water, Wes’s presence has kept me from being swept up by the current. He holds firm. He’s the break in the clouds where the sun can leak through—a bright star in a never-ending night.
“Next, we offer remembrances.”
The wooden pew creaks when I stand and make my way to the podium, my stomach a flurry of nerves. I’ve practiced this speech—I’m proud of it, but I don’t know if I can deliver what needs to be said without emotion clogging my throat.
With shaking hands, I clutch the paper and begin to read.
“In times like these, we often focus on the positive,” I begin. “And for my introduction, I will not be doing that. I ask, however, that you trust me in this.
“My brother struggled with his health for what feels like his entire life. It was a heavy weight on our family—a burden none of us truly wished to carry. I remember all through my childhood, how the stress of Gus’s illness seemed to tear us at the seams. And I still bear the scars of that.
“But in my memories of the difficulty, I have spent the last two weeks reflecting on all the things that brought Gus tremendous joy—the things, big and small, that seemed to pull him up out of the pit.”
When I look up, I catch Wesley’s encouraging gaze, the gaze of a man who helped carry me through, who is still carrying me in more ways than he realizes.
There is peace in sharing pain with others.
It’s difficult to feel alone when he cares so damn much.
He’s checked on me constantly—been there.
And even as I stand on the stage, he still looks at me as if it were the most natural thing—as if there was nothing else he’d rather do.
My voice shakes as I spill memories and facts about my brother, emotion so thick, I keep thinking I won’t make it to the end of my speech.
But I do.
“As I look back on my brother’s life, an important lesson stood out to me. Sadness, even the kind my brother grappled with so wholly, cannot exist without joy.
“As the moon does not exist without the sun, nor do valleys exist without mountains, nor spring without the autumn. We would not know such deep sadness at his loss without the equally joyous gift of what it was to know him.
“It is a reflection of our universe—a divine right that we should go on with grief. We should mourn the loss of my brother, while also finding joy and laughter in the past, and yes…” I find Wes in the crowd again, anchoring myself to his presence.
“Even in the days to come. For two, those two things, happiness and sadness, only hold such value because they both exist.”
I close my eyes, gathering my strength before finishing my speech.
When I step away from the podium, I make my way back to my seat, and it is there that I find that sadness again, welling up until I can’t hold it any longer.
“You did great,” Roe whispers, her hand reaching across Wes to grip mine. “You really did.”