CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
This House Was Never Home
Numb.
That’s all I feel.
Not sadness. Not anger. Just… numb.
The hospital waiting room is too bright, too cold. The chairs are too stiff, the carpet too clean. Everything about this place feels indifferent, like it has no idea the world just stopped.
I’m sitting between Jasper—who hasn’t stopped crying since we got here—and Brooks, who hasn’t said a word. Not since we arrived. Not since it happened. His thigh presses against mine, warm and stabilizing, but he’s still. Frozen.
Dad is gone.
I keep telling myself I feel nothing, but that’s not true. There’s something under it. It’s just too big to name yet.
Gone.
I was just with him. I kissed his forehead. I said I’d see him tomorrow.
There is no tomorrow.
They said it was a stroke. Another one. Quick. Peaceful. He fell asleep and… didn’t wake up.
No goodbyes. No last words. Just… silence.
And Mom.
She’s still in the room. I can hear her sobs echoing down the sterile hallway, ragged and raw, the sound of something breaking apart.
She won’t leave him.
She might never leave the house again after this.
And me? I can’t feel anything. Not yet. I’m just… here. Sitting in this awful chair. Listening to Jasper cry. Watching the cracks form in all the places we thought were solid.
We shouldn’t have put his things back in the bedroom.
Like we believed he was coming home.
Like we dared to hope.
Hours pass in a blur.
We’re ushered into the room like ghosts—silent, stunned. Dad looks like he’s sleeping. Peaceful. Too peaceful.
I reach for his hand.
It’s cold.
Not just cool from the hospital air, but cold. Final. And that’s when it hits me. This isn’t a nap. There’s no soft snore or twitch of his mouth. He’s not waking up.
A single tear slips down my cheek. I blink once, twice, waiting for something in me to scream. To fall apart.
But all I can do is stare at him like if I look hard enough, he’ll start breathing again.
Dr. Kulkarni’s voice breaks through like static on a bad radio. "There was no way to know," she says. "His body... it was ready."
Ready?
I don’t know what else she says. Her lips keep moving, but the words slide right off me. All I can feel is Brooks’ hand wrapped around mine and the crushing guilt swelling in my chest.
Because we weren’t here.
We were... in each other’s arms. We turned our phones off. We shut the world out for one damn night and now… now…
I squeeze Brooks’ hand tighter. Like I can wring the memory out of it. Like I can undo what we did.
Dad was dying, and we were kissing. Touching. Laughing. His hands were on my skin. I was thinking about the way he said my name. And while I was memorizing that, my father was taking his last breath.
And now he’s gone.
We should have been there.
We should have…
But does it even matter?
No amount of should-have can bring him back.
The next part is a haze. I don’t know who drives home. Maybe Brooks. Maybe Jasper. I just know the ride is quiet, and Brooks never lets go of my hand.
When we walk inside, Mom doesn’t say a word. She floats down the hallway like a shadow, shuts her bedroom door, and we all hear it. That soft, metallic click of the lock.
It sounds like a gunshot.
Jasper sinks onto the couch, head in his hands, his shoulders silently shaking.
I look to Brooks, but he won’t meet my eyes.
That same guilt—mine—is etched across his face.
We both feel it. That we stole those last moments. That we weren’t where we were supposed to be.
And the worst part?
We can’t fix it.
We can’t go back.
Even if we wanted to.
***
The hours and days continue to blur. One bleeds into the next like watercolor on wet paper.
Funeral arrangements. Quiet phone calls. Muted voices in rooms that used to echo with laughter. Picking out a coffin. A gravestone. Signing forms I don’t remember reading. And trying to figure out where I belong in all of it. If I belong at all.
Mom hasn’t left her room.
Jasper’s the only one she opens the door for. The only one she responds to. She won’t eat. Barely speaks. She lies curled up on the bed in Dad’s old flannel, staring at the wall like she’s waiting for him to walk back in.
She drinks water, but only because Jasper begs her to.
And Brooks...
Brooks stays quiet.
Distant.
He doesn’t talk about the funeral. Doesn’t talk about Dad. Doesn’t talk at all unless someone asks him a direct question.
But I know why. He’s tired of people dying.
My father wasn’t just my father. He was his, too. At least, the closest thing he had left. And now that anchor is gone. I think he’s afraid to reach for anything else. Afraid it’ll disappear, too.
So, he pulls away.
And I let him.
Because I don’t know how to grieve with him. Not like this. Not when we were tangled in bedsheets the night Dad died. Not when the weight of that timing still knots in my throat.
He sleeps on the couch.
I sleep alone.
Our hands don’t find each other in the hallway. He doesn’t reach for my waist in the kitchen. He brews coffee silently in the mornings. I thank him silently with a nod.
It feels wrong that we’re being careful with each other, when two nights ago there was nothing careful about us at all.
And that's how we live now. Quiet. Careful. Separate.
Grief lives here. In the walls, in the ceilings, and in the pauses between our words. It clings to the house like dust we can’t wipe away.
And it’s everywhere Brooks turns.
Everywhere I turn.
Then, the day of the funeral arrives.
Mom won’t come. She locks herself in the bedroom and wails. They’re loud, guttural sobs that shake the walls. Jasper tries, but he can’t reach her. Wren wraps an arm around his shoulder as my brother paces the hall like a ghost in a suit.
Brooks doesn’t say a word. He sticks to the kitchen, rigid in a black suit and tie, staring into a cup of untouched coffee.
I slip into a simple black dress with capped sleeves and leave my face bare. What’s the point of mascara when the grief’s written so clearly in my eyes?
I drive myself.
Brooks drives Jasper and Wren.
I park. I get out.
There’s a small crowd gathered near the cemetery plot. A preacher from a nearby church stands quietly at the front. I recognize a few faces from town. Even Holden is here, standing off to the side like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
The words are brief.
Someone sings a hymn off-key.
Flowers are placed on the coffin like offerings to a life we didn’t expect to lose so soon. Then it’s lowered into the ground with a quiet finality that steals the breath from my lungs.
I don’t cry.
I just stand there.
Alone.
Apart.
I feel like the tether that held me here—this town, this house, this life—is gone. Without Dad, this place doesn’t feel like home. It feels like evidence.
And that can only mean one thing: it’s time to go back to California.
I’ll leave the day after tomorrow.
We gather at a small pub on Main Street afterward. The guys from the lumber yard pass around pitchers of beer and recount stories about Dad. How he used to prank the new hires. How he could fix anything with duct tape and stubbornness.
Then, it’s my turn.
Someone hands me the microphone. I stand, glass in hand, and fidget with the rim of it, the cold condensation clinging to my skin.
I don’t have a speech.
I barely have a voice.
But I do have memories. And love. And grief all balled up behind my ribs.
I clear my throat. "As far as dads go... mine was the best."
A hush falls over the room.
"You could always find him watching football in that same old recliner. The one he’s had since before I was born.
He’d fill his red cup with coffee before work every morning and drink it all day, even when it was cold.
He took us on road trips. Sang off-key to the radio.
Some oldie while he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
Laughed at his own jokes. He taught me how to fix a leaky sink, drive a stick shift, and never settle for a boy who doesn’t deserve me. "
I pause, blinking back the sting in my eyes.
"I always thought we had more time. But we didn’t. And still... I’m grateful for every second I got with him."
I raise my glass. "To Dad. The best man I ever knew."
The room lifts their glasses in quiet unison.
I drink.
But the ache in my chest doesn’t fade.
Eventually, Brooks makes his way over to the small table I’ve claimed in the back corner. His jaw is shadowed with stubble, his eyes rimmed in exhaustion and something deeper. Grief, maybe. Or regret.
"Hey," I say softly.
He exhales like the word hurts. "Hi."
I search his face, trying to read the quiet between us. "You’ve been... quiet."
"I know." He nods once, but it’s heavy. "I keep thinking about that night. About how you didn’t get to say goodbye. And how that’s... my fault."
My heart stumbles. "Brooks—"
"If you’d answered your phone," he says, the words breaking just slightly, "maybe you would’ve made it in time."
I push back from the table and rise, not out of frustration but to be near him. To stop the spiral. I reach for his hand and wrap my fingers around his. He doesn’t pull away. Not yet.
I wait a moment, choosing the right words. Not to comfort him, but to free him.
"He was already gone," I whisper. "There was nothing we could do. Not you. Not me."
For a brief moment, the guilt subsides. Because there was nothing we could have done. By the time we would have gotten the phone call, Dad had already passed.
Brooks stares at the floor, jaw clenched. "Still feels like I stole something from you."
"No," I say, firmly now. "What you gave me that night wasn’t stolen time. It was comfort. It was something I needed. Don’t let grief rewrite it into guilt. If you walk away from me with that story in your head," I whisper, "I’ll lose you twice."
His eyes flicker to mine. I see how badly he wants to believe me. But pain clouds the space between us.
Then, he clears his throat. "I take it you’re leaving."
"The day after tomorrow."
A beat passes. His fingers slip from mine.
He tries for a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. "If you need a ride to the airport..."
"I have to return the rental car," I remind him, managing a smile of my own. "But thank you."
He nods.
But neither of us moves.
And neither of us says the thing we’re both thinking. That maybe this is the last time we’ll stand like this. Close. Still tethered to something we don’t have the words to name.
When I finally get home, the house is dark. Still.
It feels like something’s been scooped out of it. Like all the air, all the warmth, left with him. With Dad.
The recliner’s still angled toward the TV, the red cup in the cabinet like he just stepped away.
I walk down the hallway, each step heavier than the last, my chest tight with grief I don’t know how to carry.
I stop outside the master bedroom door and knock, just once. Lightly.
"Mom?" My voice catches. "Please?"
Silence.
I press my palm flat against the wood, desperate for something—anything. I used to do this when I was little. After the fights. After the slammed doors. I used to wait and wait and wait for her to open up and choose me.
"I need you right now," I whisper as tears slide down my cheeks. "I don’t have anyone else."
Still, nothing.
She won’t answer. Won’t come out. She’s locked in whatever place her pain has trapped her in. And maybe she’s been there longer than I ever realized.
Dad is gone. And so is she, in her own way.
And whatever family we once were, it died with him.
I slide to the floor, back against the door, and let myself cry. For the man who held us together. For the home we never truly had. For everything I thought we could be, but never were.
I cry until I’m not sure there’s anything left to grieve.
Eventually, I pull myself up and cross the hall to my room.
I kick off my shoes. Climb into bed. Pull the blanket up like it might protect me from what’s already broken.
Tomorrow, I’ll pack. And then I’ll go back to California.
Because the truth is, we’ve all lived separate lives for a long time now. We just stopped pretending otherwise.
This house—this echo of what Dad tried so hard to make feel like home—was never enough.
And it never will be.