Chapter 49 - Dean
Dean
Iwiped the snow off his head and shoulders. The amount suggested he’d been outside throughout last night’s snowstorm. Enough to cover him, and not enough to bury him.
I squatted in front of my grandfather, pressing my hand to his frozen leg. “His name was Jeremiah. Jeremiah Murray. I don’t know his middle name.”
His empty, dark eyes stared past me and into the forest. I wondered what he saw.
Lily sat beside me, wobbling before planting a hand on the ground to steady herself. She took in the volume of snow covering him and said, “He was out here last night. I didn’t think to look for him. I’m so sorry, Dean. We could have saved him.”
I appreciated the grief in her voice for a man she never knew or met. I shared some of it.
“After our escape, you took care of me. I’m grateful you did.
Besides, it didn’t matter.” I gestured to my grandfather’s arm and chest. “See the way he holds himself? He died of natural causes. He’s hugging his left side.
Maybe a heart attack. He came outside to check on the chickens, sat down to rest, and never got up again. We couldn’t have saved him.”
“We could’ve been there for his last moments. I’d want that for you if nothing else.”
“I think it happened before we got here. He died alone, and honestly, he’d prefer that.” I winced at the effort required to close his eyes. I’d seen death plenty of times and caused it almost as often. This was the first time I’d seen a dead man who shared my eyes. “We found him, and that’s…”
“Will you tell me about him?” Lily adjusted herself, putting her knees on the ground, uncaring of the snow touching her. She touched my thigh, grasping it to provide comfort.
“There isn’t much to say. My grandfather was a hermit who spent a couple of summers with me, and nothing else.
I don’t have any family left now.” Our weak familial bond never mattered over the years.
He displayed no interest in me after those summers.
He never visited, not once, though in fairness, neither did I.
“That’s not true,” Lily protested. “You have me.”
A familiar emotion, one not experienced since before I took Lily from her apartment, struck. The loneliness I grew up with, that I thought I’d left behind forever, when she returned to me. “Do I?”
“Do you what?”
My voice choked. My eyes pleaded. “Have you? Do I have you, or is it too late? I thought we had talked through last year and all the rest, but we hadn’t. We never addressed any of it. All I did was hurt you.”
“I couldn’t hear whatever you’d say, not then,” she said with genuine contrition. “There was so much in the beginning, all at once, all coming right at me. I couldn’t take it. There wasn’t enough of me to process or talk about it. I took everything and buried it deep. It worked until it didn’t.”
“And now?”
“Now I can. I’m sorry I blew up at you the way I did.”
“Don’t apologize for any of that, not to me. Never to me. I wish I’d noticed, that’s all. If I had, you’d hurt less.”
We clung to each other where we sat on the ground, with the cold snow and hard ground beneath us, and only my grandfather for company. The loneliness faded.
“You couldn’t have, because I told myself none of it mattered. In my head, I insisted my pain didn’t matter because we were together, when the truth is I let it gnaw at me while pretending not to notice. Why did you leave me the way you did?”
I wrote two short sentences on a sheet of hotel stationery, kissed her goodbye, and snuck out, telling myself it was for her benefit, not mine. “It was to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
“From me.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Lily grasped my chin, inspecting me for insight or trickery. I took her hands, planting them on my face, desperate for the contact. “Think about it. You’re the one person I don’t need protecting from. That makes no sense, and I refuse to accept it.”
“Yet I’m the one who hurt you.”
“You’re the one who followed me. I just refused to recognize that until now.” She took my right hand with her left, though I couldn’t feel her wedding ring through the glove she wore. “Let’s figure out your grandfather before we finish this.”
“We bury him before the ground hardens. I don’t know if last night’s storm was enough or if it’ll wait until spring.
Either way, not today. Not now.” Like Lily, who struggled after the comet hit, conducting a funeral was too much.
I didn’t mourn him, while also not recognizing what I felt. Obligation and reverence?
“It’s more than we’re ready to do. I understand.” Lily rose and patted my shoulder. “Wait here.”
I wiped the remaining snow off his pants and arms once she left.
We’d bury him in a shallow grave, if necessary, and a deeper one in the spring. My limited digging skills could manage the deed with the shovels he kept in a small shed. The winter storm and our pursuers combined to trap us here; there was time.
“I poked inside that chest while you went into the basement first.” Lily shook an old sheet and set it over my grandfather. “Privacy and protection until we can take care of him. Give him a ceremony, for both your sakes. You may not believe it, but you’ll appreciate it afterward.”
My grandfather, a hermit and recluse, hoping for some kind of funeral experience, struck me as hilarious.
He spent years building his cabin and surroundings, certain it’d protect him from our coming doomsday.
In a way, he’d saved our lives and made it possible for me to save Lily.
No matter his feelings, I owed him a funeral and a proper goodbye.
I owed him a thank you he’d never hear. “I like that idea.”
“Let’s go inside.”
Lily yanked me to my feet, and we went inside, both of us silent.
The fire crackled, spreading its warmth through our new home as we removed our outer layers and settled at the small table.
I didn’t hesitate, preferring to get it over with. Shove my ugly into the open for her judgment. “You want to know why I did what I did.”
“Protection is a poor excuse. First.” Lily removed her wedding band and set it on the table between us. “It’s your turn to do the same. If we’re starting again, it begins with this.”
I eyed the ring, and my lip curled. “I’ll give you honesty, but not that. It stays on my finger. I made a vow to you, and nothing changed, not for me. It stays on.”
Lily crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair. “We’re here all winter. I can be patient.”
I smiled at her. “You win every battle between us. You will not win this one. I can’t take it off. Do you understand why I can’t?”
“Because you’d have come for me, no matter what.
My brother’s phone call only caused you to appear two hours earlier.
” She wiped her eyes as I nodded in agreement.
“For the other part, not as many battles as you seem to think. Fine.” Her lips formed a cute pout.
She shoved the ring back on. “My first demand. You don’t leave me again. If you go, I go.”
If Lily’s demands reflected this first one, I’d agree to each one. Joyfully and without hesitation. “Fair. It’s what kept us alive, after all.”
“It’s your turn now. Protect me from what?”
“From me, like I said.” I gave her the truth, as she demanded. There was no easy way to explain, and a lifetime of experience guided me. “Have you looked at yourself?”
Ryan understood this part of me. Her father accused me of influencing him, and looking back, he wasn’t wrong. I followed Ryan’s lead, a lead created based on my needs. I missed him.
“That’s rude.” Lily smoothed back her messy hair and stroked her bruised cheek. “That’s also not the reason. Do I look that awful?”
Bruising emerged around both eyes, and her left cheek swelled.
My voice softened. “Not in the slightest. You look like strength. Like a survivor.”
“Oh. Then tell me why.”
“It’s not the way you understood me.” I leaned back in my chair, needing the extra support to continue.
My truth made me the opposite of a hero.
I often told her everything I did was for her, and she still didn’t listen.
“It’s not looks I refer to, though you are beautiful.
You’re stunning, Lily. You are kindness itself.
Your sense of justice outshines mine, and always will.
You are brave in a way I never will be.” I swallowed to stop my throat from closing up.
“I still don’t understand.”
“You were meant for a great life. You went to college and were on your way to a dream career. You’d have married a perfect husband who’d give you everything you dreamed of. That was your future. You deserved all those things. You still do.”
Lily’s stubborn jaw asserted itself. “That’s not true.”
They were the truest words I’d ever spoken.
“Deny it if that makes you feel better. It doesn’t change the truth.
You inspire me to be better. You make me wish I were.
You made me try. For the first time in my life, I want to try, and that’s because of you.
That’s what I see in you. Now, look at me. ”