Chapter 12
lucas
The mood on the flight home is heavy, the kind of weighted silence that follows a tough loss.
We fought hard, but it just wasn’t enough this time.
I stare out the window, watching the clouds drift by the entire time.
Playing the game that Lettie and I used to play when we were just kids in a field of sunflowers.
We’d say what they looked like, then give them a story.
And man, do the clouds look different from up here.
Even with the loss, there are small things to look forward to. First, a stop at the flower shop. And while it used to be a habit because my dad did it, I’ve started to find joy in it again once I started bringing Lettie flowers, too. She deserves them. She deserves all the pretty things in life.
“Hey, Lucas.” Mrs. Seline, the owner of the flower shop, hollers as I step through the door. I smile, raising a hand to wave in her direction. She doesn’t bother asking what I want anymore. She just puts together the brightest flowers she has. “Need a second bouquet today?”
My hand squeezes the back of my neck, my hands suddenly a bit clammy. “That obvious?”
Her head shakes, and a soft, knowing laugh fills the small space between us. “To other people? Probably not, but your dad used to have that exact look on his face every time he came in here.”
My heart trips over itself at the mention of my dad. I miss him so damn much. She turns, plucking a Polaroid off her corkboard wall. “You remind me a lot of him, Lucas. He would be so proud of you.” Her words land, setting off a ripple effect of warmth in the most desolate parts of me.
My hand trembles as I reach for the picture she’s holding out. My first thought is he looks like someone, but I can’t quite place who. My second is damn, he looks so happy.
I run my finger over his face, pulling out my phone and taking a picture of it. “Keep it,” she says. My pleading eyes must ask the question I can’t get out. “It means more to you than it does to me. I found it the other day, kept it up here so I could give it to you next time you came in.”
“Thanks,” I say, as I tuck it into my back pocket. I’ll hang it on the fridge when I get home.
I can’t remember the last time someone talked about my dad like he was real, not just some ghost from the past. Seeing his face again, outside of the pictures that are hanging in my mom's house, threatens to suck the oxygen clean out of me.
His blonde hair is longer on the top than it was on the sides, clearly younger than he was when I was born.
But his beard, a darker salt and peppery color, is the same damn shape mine is.
It’s like seeing a whole new him. The pictures I see on a weekly basis feel like supporting characters in life at this point.
I’d sit at the table and talk to them, growing up like they could hear me.
I’m sure it drove my mom insane. I needed to feel connected to him, but this?
This is a whole new ball game, a side of him that doesn’t feel familiar and thousands of miles away.
The picture burns a hole in my pocket as I walk to the car.
His face lingers in my mind, brighter than any memory of him ever has.
It feels unfair that a single photograph can make me feel both fuller and emptier at the same time.
I carefully set the flowers in the passenger seat before pulling my door closed.
I set the picture on the dashboard right in front of my speedometer so I can see it anytime I stop.
Like maybe if I can keep this picture close, I can carry him with me in a way I was robbed of for so many years.
I let my head fall back against the headrest, smiling as I remember the melody of his laugh.
The closest I’ve ever heard to his rich, smoky laugh is the deep, raspy one I get from Miller.
The tone may be different, but the cadence of it is so similar.
They would have been best friends, I’m sure of it.
But even as I pull out of the parking lot, heading toward Mom’s, a thought hits like a freight train. If he hadn’t died, would I have ended up at the ranch? Would Lettie have ever been part of my life if he still had been?
Before long, I’m turning down the familiar street with more energy than I’ve had in a long time. I feel like he’s here with me. Like maybe he hasn’t been as far away as I’ve pushed him all these years. Maybe today, her silence won’t sting as badly because I got to see his smile again.
I jog up the drive, arms loaded with flowers and the Halloween decorations I put in my car before I left. The cute kind, not the scary kind. I don’t know that she’d be a fan of those. But then again, I wouldn’t know because she doesn’t talk to me.
The second my foot hits the porch, a chill runs through me.
Not from the weather, it’s still hot this time of year.
But there’s something here, something… not right, something that has the hair on my arms standing on end.
I put the key in the lock, only to realize that it’s already unlocked.
The door is never unlocked. My stomach drops as I push the door open.
Suddenly, I wish I had come armed with scarier decorations, something that has a knife attached to it, or something. “Ma?” I call as I step inside.
My foot knocks against something on the floor, and when my eyes meet the empty orange canister, bile creeps up my throat. One after another, then another, a trail of empty medicine bottles pulls my line of sight to the living room, where the chair my mom’s usually in, sits empty.
“Ma?” I call, voice shaking as I take a step toward the living room.
No…
No.
No no no no no–
“MOM!” The bags hit the ground, spilling out decorations like it’s my own personal haunted house.
I rush to her side. She's face down. Unmoving. Her skin is grey and cold to the touch. My knees hit the ground with so much force they crack, turning her over with shaking hands. I already know it’s too late, but I can’t leave her this way.
Her eyes, identical in color to mine, are wide and focused on nothing.
Dead, just like they have been for twenty years.
Except this time, there’s no coming back.
I pull out my phone, my fingers move like they’re on autopilot. Scroll, find contact, press, wait. Two rings before, “Hey, Monroe.” Abby’s voice pulls every ounce of air from my lungs.
“She’s gone, Abby.” My voice cracks. “I wasn’t enough. Why am I never enough? She…” I heave, vision blurring as the air seems to thin. “She didn’t even say goodbye.”
I rock back and forth from my spot next to her on the floor, but the shaking won’t stop. I feel like I’m on a tilt-a-whirl, spinning wildly out of control, and can’t catch my breath while also trying not to toss everything in my stomach onto the floor.
“Whoa, hey. What’s going on? Do I need to drive down to the ranch and have a little chat with someone?” she snaps.
I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but it’s no use.
It’s stuck there like a swallowed piece of shattered glass.
“My mom, Abby,” I choke out, almost dropping my phone as the words spill from me.
“She’s gone. There are empty pill bottles everywhere.
It doesn’t make sense. She never took pills.
She didn’t even keep Advil in the house, not even when I was a kid. ”
Silence comes from the other end of the line, my skin becoming more clammy by the second, cold sweat beads on my forehead.
“Shit. Hold on,” she mutters. There’s rustling on the other end of the line, then her voice rings through loud and clear.
“Hannah, call Collin, tell him to meet us at Monroe’s mom's house,” she yells.
“We’re on the way. Stay on the phone, though, okay? ”
I don’t have a chance to answer before she asks. “Can you take some pictures of the scene before anyone moves anything?” She’s being gentle, too gentle.
I run a hand over my face, feeling it stretch with the pressure. I nod, even though I know they can’t see me. “Yeah.” It’s all I can manage right now.
I take the photos, bottle after bottle, the carpet. The body. Her. My mom. The woman who should have loved me but never did. Dead without a single word. Imaginary rope tightens around my neck with every click of the camera, numbness seeps through my bones until eventually, my legs give out.
My mom won’t be getting back up. She’s not going to explain. She’s not going to love me. Not now, not ever. I lean against the far wall and stare at her. My chest is scarily tight as I wait for the grief, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, I feel anger. Hot and loud and so freaking wrong, guilt cuddles up behind it. What kind of jacked-up person gets mad at a dead woman? Me. Apparently. Because she just left. Like I never even mattered. There was no, “Hey, Son. I’m sorry I wasn’t what you needed.”
She gets to be at peace while I’m still here carrying the weight of it all. The nights I listened outside her door just to make sure she was still breathing, even when I so desperately didn’t want to be. The birthdays she never acknowledged. The “I love you,” she never said back.
I would have taken anything, table scraps, a glance. Anything to prove she saw me, that she knew I was here and trying for her. Now there’s nothing left to fix. There are no more chances. Just me, sitting in a room that was always chilly, now twice as cold without her.
I don’t hear the front door open. I don’t even know if they were trying to talk to me on the phone. I heard nothing. I see nothing until Abby’s in front of me, yelling my name.
“Monroe!” Her arms wrap around my neck, her cheek soft against the scruff of my beard, her tears wetting my still dry face. “Damn it, Monroe. I’m so sorry.”