33. Brooke
Brooke
Beck left, and now it’s just me and Meemaw.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper.
“Brookie…” she trails off. “It’s not that bad. I just sometimes forget that doing things the way I decide to do them is unsafe.”
“But why didn’t you tell Mom? You knew ,” I accuse.
Meemaw sighs. Her lips curve into a deep frown, and the wrinkles on her face look as deep as the New River Gorge. My heart cracks. “I don’t think I really know anything until I see the specialist your doctor Beck wants me to see.”
“Fine,” I huff. “But why did you ignore it?”
“Because is it just me living my life and being eccentric, or is there something wrong with my brain?” She taps her forehead with her knuckles. “Some questions you just plumb don’t want answered.”
I accept her answer as a fair one, even if I’m still hurt and worried. I’m the human equivalent of a tangled yarn ball of emotions.
“Brookie…” Meemaw sighs. “I just want to see you happy.”
“Meemaw.” My eyes brim with tears as I cross the room to give her a hug. “I know you do.”
She squeezes me as best she can from her awkward position on the scooter. She sniffles in a breath and then, in a shaky voice, says, “I can’t find my phone.”
I pull back a little. “Is that why you were using the laptop?”
She nods.
“Then let’s go find it.”
I didn’t find Meemaw’s phone until early this morning before work.
One of my socks had a little pebble or something irritating in the toe seam, so I plopped on the couch to fix it.
Inadvertently, I sat on the crack between cushions.
With a huff, the worn couch spread apart, and I found myself sitting on Meemaw’s phone.
I had been nervous about leaving her without a phone while I went to work. Her specialist appointment is in two days, and despite Beck saying he’d take her, I know that’s why I’m here. I’m here to take Meemaw to doctor appointments, to be good company, and to help her with things around the house.
So far, Meemaw’s fiercely clung to her independence, and my job has been to keep a bemused eye on her. The weight of what we’re dealing with hangs heavy on my heart, but she insisted I go to work.
“How will you ever make friends if you’re stuck inside with an old lady all day?”
It was a valid question, and she assured me she was just fine, so off I went to work.
I pull out of the driveway and turn the behemoth vehicle through the mountain roads. When I arrive at work, I’m more than a little exhausted from holding all the fragments of my heart together by sheer will.
“Hey, Brooke!” Logan calls from a perch atop a stack of gear. He appears to be tying a rope knot around supplies for the big day trip he’s leading, but he stands in the direct light of the sun, and I can’t make it out entirely.
I throw my hand over my forehead to shield my eyes just as he hops down from the top.
Logan takes one look at me before he murmurs, “Whoa. What happened?”
Inexplicably, I, the woman known as ‘the general’ because I am always in control, lose the grip on my firmly tethered emotions. The feelings take off, and despite the fact that I’m standing in front of a man I hardly know, I start to cry. And not just cry— ugly cry.
Logan opens his arms, and I step into them for a hug. It’s strange, but I know that Logan, the serial dater of tourists, isn’t hitting on me. He’s doing nothing more than offering comfort to a friend.
I pull back after a minute and swipe my hands across my wet lashes. My hand comes away covered with mascara.
I blow out a breath and whisper, “Sorry.”
He gives the half smile that probably makes all the tourist women want to date him in the first place, but it has no effect on me. “You want to take a minute? We’ve got an hour before the group should start showing up, but I can handle anyone who’s early.”
“Thanks.” I meet his blue eyes as I walk behind the counter. I grab a key to the storage shed as I pass by since it’s one place where I can have a little privacy to compose myself. The last thing I hear as I slip through the door is Logan’s voice saying the words your girl .
Finally alone, I slump to the ground, pull my knees to my chest, and hug them tight.
I sit like that for a while, putting my hand just under the collar of my shirt so I’m touching my collarbone, and focus on breathing.
I had not anticipated that living with Meemaw would be so difficult for my emotional regulation.
When I had my own apartment and was upset, I had a place I felt safe to let it all out.
With Meemaw, I haven’t been able to do that because I’ve internalized my role as caretaker.
Just because I am helping her doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings too.
I’m sure my face is a fright, but I have a job to do, so now that I’ve let some of the emotional explosion out, I’m ready to face the task at hand. Maybe not as cheerfully as I would usually, but I can grit my teeth and get through this shift with some semblance of normalcy.
The grit stuck to my jean shorts plinks to the ground as I stand, so I sweep my backside with my hand before I pull on the door handle. I don’t get to the door because, as I’m still brushing the floor off my shorts, the door swings open.
A man stands in the middle of the doorway, squinting into the darkness of the storage shed.
“Brooke?” Beck’s voice is hoarse. “Are you in here?”
I step forward from the corner where I’d been slumped against the wall, and in the backlight of the sunshine, I can see his face.
His arched eyebrows, his lips turned down at the corners, the worry in his brown eyes, the backward hat on his head.
I have the advantage because my eyes have already adjusted to the light before his do to the dark.
As soon as he sees me, he steps forward with long, confident strides. “Brooke.” He reaches out a thumb and brushes some lingering wetness off my cheek. “Why are you crying?”
“Me–” I sniffle. “Meemaw.”
Beck opens his arms, and I step into them with no hesitation.
Unlike the hug with Logan earlier, this hug has meaning I can’t deny.
His gray T-shirt is soft against my cheek, and I let myself listen to the steady thump of his heartbeat.
His hand rubs patterns over the back of my pink New RAFT T-shirt as he holds me.
My own arms wrap around his waist and squeeze as tight as I can, knowing that he’s holding me. He’s with me.
Finally, I release my arms and step back. “How did you know I was crying in here?”
Beck rubs a hand down the side of his face. “Logan told me.”
“Oh.” I had hoped he was just coming to see me. Disappointment must flash across my face because Beck takes one step closer.
“I did want to come see you at work, though. I just didn’t want to distract you when you’re still getting the hang of it.”
I smile at the sincerity in his tone. “Thanks for coming to see me anyway,” I say as I slip my hand in his.
He pulls the door away from the rock wedge with his other hand, and we step out into the sunshine together. To the left, Logan’s clicking away on the computer as he talks on the phone, but there’s a strange woman staring at the door to the storage shed.
“Beckett,” she says sternly, her mouth turned into a frown that looks oddly familiar and her brown eyes snapping as she glances my way. “Is it true?”
Beck drops my hand as if he’s been scalded. I look from one to the other at least twice before Beckett provides the answer to the riddle.
“Mom.”