22. Bran
Chapter 22
Bran
“ J udy? It’s Judy, right? That’s your name?” The woman who stopped to help me with Heather is at the hospital seated in the waiting room, knitting when I walk in.
Her head snaps up and she smiles at me. “Yes, Bran. That’s right. I’m Judy. Can I give you a hug because you look like you could use one?” She holds her arms out to me like any mother or grandmother would and I fly into them desperate for someone to tell me this is all a bad dream and when I wake up from it, everything is going to be okay. She holds me in her arms as I cry like a fucking little baby because in the blink of an eye I think I may have just lost my sister.
I want my parents.
“My mom…dad…”
“Right. We need to contact them. Do you have your cell phone on you?”
“Yeah.” I pull it from my back pocket with shaky hands. “But what do I say? What do I tell them?” I ask, frantically trying to wipe the tears from my face. “God, they’re going to be so pissed. I’m going to be in so much trouble.”
Judy places her hand on my arm and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Okay, let’s take a deep breath and try not to panic. You need to tell your parents that you and your sister were in an accident and then we need to tell them where you are.”
“Where I am…right…okay. I can do that. I’m at the hospital…wait. What hospital? Where am I? Where are we? I don’t know where we are.”
“We’re at Hawkthorne County General Hospital just out of Tuft Swallow.”
Tuft Swallow.
We almost made it.
And then we didn’t.
“Okay. Thank you.” I hit the number for my parents and then grab onto Judy’s hand with all my might as it rings. Judy motions for us to sit and it’s a good thing she does because the minute I hear my mom’s voice my knees go weak and I nearly pass out.
“Mom?” My voice squeaks and she can immediately tell something is wrong.
“What’s wrong Bran? Are you alright?”
“Mom.” The tears slip down my face. “We didn’t make it to Tuft Swallow. Heather and I, we…” I take a shuddering breath.
“Bran? What’s going on? Oh God, I’m coming. What happened? Your father and I are coming.”
“It was an accident Mom,” I cry. “The tire came out of nowhere and ? —”
“Oh God! Heather? Is Heather okay?”
“She’s…umm, they have her in surgery. Mom, I’m so sorry. The tire hit us and I couldn’t ? —”
“Where are you? We’re in the car right now, Bran. We’re coming.” I can hear the fear in Mom’s voice. She’s every bit as freaked out as I am.
“Hawkthorne County General Hospital. That’s where we are.”
“Bran you stay there, okay? Don’t move. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
“Mom! I lov—” Silence falls over the other end of the line and then Mom is gone. I put my phone in my lap and mumble something to Judy about my parents being on their way and that’s the last thing I remember before being told there was nothing the doctors could do. Heather was dead.
I’m not sure I could grip this steering wheel any harder if I tried. Even in the middle of the day, driving away from Tuft Swallow knowing I’ll soon pass the spot where Heather last showed any real sign of life, makes my insides twist and my mouth dry.
“Heather Alice Finch. Lover of goats. Protector of pigeons. Nickel Creek super fan. The sunshine to anyone’s cloudy day.”
“Aww,” she sings. “That’s so sweet, Bran. See? You really do have a heart in that chest somewhere.”
“Nah. That’s going to be your obituary one day.” I pass her an ornery smirk and her jaw drops. She swats my arm and laughs.
“Oh, very funny, Ass.”
“I’m only kidding.”
“Fucking hell.”
“What is it?” I feel her hand rubbing my thigh before I allow myself to come back to reality. “Is something wrong?”
I shake my head. “Not really. I was just thinking of the last time Heather and I were together. On our way to see Nickel Creek perform in Tuft Swallow. God, she was so excited. So, fucking…” I twist my mouth before huffing a soft laugh. “Smiley. She was always so goddamn smiley. She had this zest for life I was always jealous of.”
“That’s sweet of you to say about her.”
“I was teasing her about it in the truck on the way down. Told her I knew what her obituary would say. Lover of goats. Protector of Pigeons.”
“Pigeons?” I can feel Paige’s eyes on me and know she’s waiting for me to explain.
“She made me help her save a pigeon one day. She was like Fucking Snow White or…maybe Doctor Dolittle with the way she loved on animals. She had given some thought into becoming a veterinarian one day.”
“Sounds like she would’ve been great at it.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
Her smile fades a bit and she spends a few quiet moments peering out her window before finally glancing back at me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Does this accident you were in have anything to do with you walking around the square and checking the air in people’s tires?”
The corner of my mouth lifts as I huff a soft sigh. “It has everything to do with why I check their tires, Pidge.” When she doesn’t push it any further I try to do my best to let her a little further into my brain. Into my soul.
Into my heart.
“That tire blew on the vehicle in front of us and flew right off. It could’ve been prevented. Too much air or too little. The tread may have been non-existent or maybe whoever put the tire on didn’t make sure it was on correctly. Hell, I can’t even remember what happened to that driver. All I know is something on another moving vehicle malfunctioned and caused me to lose my sister. And I can’t live with that happening again on my watch. So, when I get the chance. At least once a week I walk through town with my air compressor and check the tires of all the cars in the square. At first there were just a couple. But now…”
“Now?” she urges, quietly listening.
An appreciative smile crosses my face. “Now it’s like the people of Tuft Swallow understand my reason for doing it and they park their cars in the square more often. I try to wait for the busiest day and go after all of them. I give free tune-ups when I can or service cars that desperately need fixed because I can’t bear the thought of one of my friends having to go through what I went through because of a faulty vehicle.”
“Do most of the Swallowers know about Heather? About the accident?”
I shake my head. “No. Probably not. I told you before, it was Judy who encouraged me to come here. I confided in her that my parents had blamed me for Heather’s death. They blamed me for everything and I knew I couldn’t live at home anymore. I told her I didn’t want anyone to know about my past because I needed a fresh start. I needed a place to go that wouldn’t remind me of her everywhere I looked. So, I came here and to my knowledge, she’s never told a soul.”
“So, you chose to become a mechanic after Heather passed away?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
She turns a little more toward me in her seat. “So, you moved to Tuft Swallow and didn’t tell anyone your name if you could help it.”
“Correct.”
“And nobody knew who the new guy was that had moved to town or what his story was?”
“Correct.”
“And to this day that’s how it’s been?”
“Well, when you say it out loud like that it sounds kind of crazy. But yeah, that’s pretty much how it’s been. I just wanted to be anonymous back then. To be honest I didn’t see myself actually sticking around Tuft Swallow but then the town sort of grew on me.”
“I can see why. Tuft Swallow is a beautiful place to live and a wonderful community to be a part of. They all seem to really like you.”
“I guess.” I pull up to the spot I’ve not wanted to come to for years, surprised I remembered exactly where it was. “We’re here.”
Climbing down from my truck, I help Paige out of her side and then grasp her hand in mine holding it tightly. She doesn’t pull away and doesn’t ask me to soften my grip. She squeezes back to let me know she’s right here with me and she never leaves my side.
We reach Heather’s gravestone and stand silently staring at it. When we were driving here I wasn’t sure what I was going to say but now that we’re standing right in front of my sister, I know exactly what I need to do.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but would you mind giving me a minute alone with my sister?”
She turns and kisses me. Her hand lovingly holding my arm before she steps away. “Of course.” I don’t even watch her walk away before I sit down on the ground and tell Heather what’s on my mind.
“Hey. It’s me. Yeah, I know. I’m an ass for not coming sooner, but I know you’ll forgive me. You were always the forgiving one. Listen, a lot has changed since you left but I need you to know I think about you every fucking day. Every time I look at Winston. Oh yeah, he’s still with me. Just when I think he’s going to kick the bucket and leave me to be with you, he rams me in the ass and demands more mints.” I smile, shaking my head back and forth. “Crazy fucking goat. You’re welcome, by the way. Mom and Dad were going to get rid of him. I think they were glad to see him leave when I left and you’ll be happy to learn, thanks to Winston, I’m now the owner of a small goat farm with several four-legged assholes running around the yard.”
I bow my head and pick at a blade of grass. “Things got worse when you left. Mom and Dad blamed me for losing you. They didn’t want me around because looking at me reminded them too much of you. And at the time I couldn’t say that I blamed them. If I had just dodged the tire better maybe you would still be with us. Everything is a damn coulda-shoulda-woulda, you know? Anyway, the grief just got to be too much. Don’t be mad at Mom and Dad. They were grieving too and they weren’t there to understand how everything happened. As much as it hurts, I get it. Maybe in a few more years I’ll consider reaching out to them.
“In case you’re wondering, I turned out alright. So, I moved to Tuft Swallow and get this, since I moved here all those years ago, I’ve been known in that town as either Crankshaft, because I don’t say much and I fix cars for a living now, or Winton’s Hot Dad.”
“Yeah, yeah. Keep it down, alright? I can hear you laughing all the way down here.” I sit in my amused feelings for a minute not saying much before opening my mouth to continue.
“Maybe moving away was the best thing for me. I just knew I couldn’t stay in Willow Hills. I missed you too much. I needed a new life.” I pause for a minute, taking in the beautiful cemetery around me. Flowers adorn many of the surrounding graves including Heather’s. Mom and Dad must have been here relatively recently. From my pocket, I pull out this small pigeon figurine I found at the Whippoorwill and set it against the gravestone. “Brought this for you. Saw it at the store and thought of you. Figured you might like it.”
I take a deep breath and steal a glance across the way to where Paige is walking through the cemetery reading gravestones. She stops at some of them and places her hand on them. I can tell her lips are moving but can’t hear what she’s saying. Whatever it is I’m certain it’s some sort of friendly blessing or loving remark.
“I think I found her, Sis,” I say, watching Paige. The way her light yellow dress billows behind her in the breeze. The way her hair catches the sunlight. “My pigeon. Remember when you told me one day I would find my pigeon? My one true mate? Yeah.” I nod. “I think I found her. Her name is Paige and fuck, Heather, you would love her.” Tears begin to slide down my cheek but I give myself the grace to sit in my feelings with my sister because she was always good at supporting me through my rough times. “I love her. I’m fucking crazy about her. She moved to Tuft Swallow for the summer and somehow in just the few short months we’ve gotten to know each other, she brought me out of my shell. She’s allowed me to live through my grief and she’s helped me see there’s still a light at the end of the very dark tunnel I had been hiding in.
“God, I wish you could be here to meet her.” I laugh, wiping my tears away. “Christ, I can only imagine the shenanigans you two would get into. Her zest for life matches yours. Her smile makes me think of you often and her laugh. Hell, her laugh. It’s my sunshine on a rainy day. The way it feels when I can hold her hand or when she sleeps against me…when I can breathe her in. I know, I know, TMI, but you’re not here to tell me to shut the fuck up and I want to tell you everything because she’s the love of my life and she makes me so damn happy I want to spend forever with her.
“It’s taken me a long, long, time, but I can finally tell myself you would want that for me. You would want me to live on and be happy instead of waking up every day hating the world and everyone in it. And so that’s what I’m going to do.” I steal one more glance at Paige. “I’m going to marry my pigeon and have all kinds of pigeon babies…and of course we’ll have all the goats because thanks to Winston I apparently can’t live without goats in my life either.”
After several long and quiet minutes, I take a deep breath and release it with a freeing sigh. “I should probably go. I could sit here forever and just shoot the shit with you, but I can feel you shoving me out of here.” I smile at her name etched across her gravestone. “I love you, Heather. I feel you when you’re with me. I see you when you visit the bird houses at Judy’s house. I promise when I get home, I’ll put up a few birdhouses outside the barn so you can keep an eye on Winston too. Don’t be a stranger, alright?” I finally stand up, my hands in my pockets. I’m about to turn away when I remember one more thing I wanted to tell her.
“And just for the record, Sis, you were always the better driver.”
I turn and begin to make my way out of the cemetery. Paige meets me at the end of one of the pathways, her hand outstretched waiting for mine to fold around hers.
“You okay?” she asks, her other hand covering our two clasped hands.
“Yeah.” I give her my best reassuring smile and nod. “I’m…I’m good.”