41. Angie

Chapter 41

Angie

S wiping at my eyes, I tore open my front door. Dagnabbit. I thought I’d cried all my tears the night before.

“Mama!” I hollered down the hall. “Is Papa awake?” Still wearing my scrubs from almost two days ago and my hair a webbed mess, I beelined it to Papa’s room.

“He just ate lunch.” Mama stood at the sink and dropped a couple of dishes in the dishwasher.

I pushed open Papa’s door. The curtains had been pulled open, brightening the typically dim room. Papa must not have a migraine today.

He laid on the propped-up bed, wearing his favorite red flannel jacket, his stare boring into me. Usually, we were so in tune with our opinions, Papa could read my thoughts. Ever so slightly his eyes flinched and shifted from me to the floor. I had no doubt he knew that I knew.

“Where’s Jared?”

Mama came up behind me. “He’s in bed. He spent all night with Tony.”

“Told my boy—not to waste his one chance to achieve his dreams on me,” Papa said, his voice even weaker than before I’d left for Lili’s delivery. “He’s going back on tour. He can join that Zoom thing … for the funeral.”

“Oh, so now you know what’s best for Jared too?” I stomped up next to his bed.

“I won’t have you ruining your lives because of me.” Each breath he took labored in and out of him.

I slumped into the chair. “Papa. Why did you sell our land? Our home? It’s not enough I have to say goodbye to you. I have to lose my home. My land. Mae …” Without a place to put her, I’d have to sell my one friend who’d always been there for me, the only living thing who understood me. Words weren’t needed to communicate with her. She sensed my every need. Without this farm, I was a boat without water, a cheese grater without any cheese. Useless.

I looked to Mama. Her cheeks shined in wet tears. “Did you know?”

She nodded. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I don’t know how to tell you this.” She placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Mama, I—”

“Remington works for Cockrell Development Company.”

“I know. I’ve known for a long time. What do you think I was doing this whole summer?” I glanced over my shoulder at her. “I was trying to chase him off.”

Papa’s body started shaking. My heart pounded in my throat. Was he having a seizure? I relaxed as the first of his wispy laughs became audible. “Some job you did. You made the boy fall in love with you.”

I shook my head. If Remi loved me, he wouldn’t have done this. “What did he tell you?”

“He loves you. Asked for my permission. To marry you.” Papa coughed, his voice growing weaker, each phrase proceeded by a rattling breath. “You going to tell him—yes?”

“Hell no. He’s taking everything from me.” I gripped the sides of my head. “I spent the entire summer trying to get Dan to propose so you could be at my wedding. He did. And I turned him down. I want to make you happy, but I just don’t think I can marry either of them.” I threw my hands in the air then let them fall to the mattress.

Papa pressed his lips together and ran his tongue over their cracked surface. “Nora? Would you mind. Give us time alone?”

“I’ll be right outside the door if you need anything.” Mama rubbed his legs which were draped in blankets.

“Oh, and Nora?”

“Yes?” Mama paused mid-step.

“I love you … Always and forever.”

Life sucked. It was so unfair. Love didn’t prevent tragedy. It enhanced it. My parents had just celebrated their thirty-ninth wedding anniversary. They’d made such plans for forty, but Papa wouldn’t make it.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. My tears turned back on like a switch had been flipped.

Mama’s chin quivered. “Always and forever,” she repeated and left the room.

“I didn’t mean to put so much pressure on you. About being at your wedding.” Papa took a raspy breath. “My greatest wish is for you to find happiness. With or without a man in your life.”

“I want what you and Mama have—”

“You will.” Patting my hand, Papa lifted his head from his pillow, his neck barely able to support it. “Don’t rush it. A wedding isn’t all that important. My greatest dream was for you to find a love like your Mama and I have. And you did that. We both know you’re in love with Remi.”

“I do not love him.” If I said it loudly and with enough authority, it became truth.

“Now you’re lying to me on my deathbed,” Papa quipped and laughed softly.

“I’m so afraid. What if it all goes bad?”

“Don’t be. Afraid.” He rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb. “Remi’s a good guy. His better qualities came out this growing season. He’s your other half, and it’ll work out.” He fell back into his pillow. “But if not, focus on making your dreams come true, not mine. You can’t keep pushing yourself like you have. Nursing and farming. Too much. You’re killing yourself off.” He took a rattling breath and briefly closed his eyes. “The farm was my adventure. It’s time you go and find yours. We both know your calling is to save babies.”

He was right. Remi had actually shown it to me. He’d gotten so excited about the emerging corn, but I hadn’t. Not like I used to. Each plant bogged my spirits down with more work. In the NICU, I couldn’t describe the feeling of saving a baby’s life. It. Was. Magic. Even with the few tragic losses, my work there fulfilled me. And Papa knew it. He’d always understood me better than myself.

“I don’t understand,” I began, my voice cracking.

“What don’t you … understand?”

“Why do you have to die? And now you’re taking all our memories away from me too. I can’t. I can’t do this without you. Without my safe place.” I wiped my eyes and nose with my sleeve, too angry and hurt to look at the man I’d idolized my entire life.

“Muffin.”

Muffin, my lifelong, terrible nickname. What I wouldn’t give to have Papa around to make up awful nicknames for my children. I looked into his eyes, memorized the flecks of green in their hazel depths, wishing I could reverse time and keep everything the same.

“You ever wonder why I call you Muffin?” His voice weakened to a whisper.

I shook my head, unable to form an audible response.

“You’re the smell of your Mama’s baking. You’re mornings sitting around the breakfast table. You. Are. My happiness.”

My sobs came out in uncontrolled spasms. Maybe my nickname wasn’t so bad after all. “I can’t. I can’t—” I can’t stop time. I can’t cure cancer. I can’t make money appear out of thin air. Can’ts piled on top of me, threatening to suffocate me.

“I’m not leaving you. Not really. I’ll be there. Right by your side. You just won’t be able to see me.”

Or be enfolded into a big Papa hug. Or talk to him about the crops or the stresses at work. Or celebrate all the things. He was leaving and he wasn’t being given a choice.

The withered skin on his arm trembled in time with his muscles as he lifted his hand and pointed to my temple. “Memories live here,” he then pointed to my heart, “and here. That’s where I’ll be. With you. Forever.”

I kissed the back of his hand and pressed it to my cheek. “I’ll miss you so much.”

“I’ll get a plot for us in heaven.” He smiled and rubbed his thumb over one of my tears. “Land paved in gold.”

A laugh escaped through my soft sobs. “That wouldn’t grow potatoes very well.”

His cheeks shook against his smile as he nodded. He closed his eyes and relaxed further against his pillow. “You’re right,” he whispered.

I laid his hand on his sheets, letting him doze for as long as his pain would let him. Resting my forehead next to him, I let my cries continue. At some point, Mama walked in, wrapped her arms around me, and bawled right along with me.

Days later, I still sat next to his bed. Mama and I had both taken to sleeping in this room. Jared had left to meet up with his tour. We FaceTimed Lili so she could show Papa Tony her boys. They’d made it out of the danger zone and were able to keep their sats up with only a low level of oxygen.

I took over his hospice care while Mama busied herself with making all of Papa’s favorite things even though he wasn’t able to eat any of them. Remi still managed the farm, ignoring my request that he leave. I refused to acknowledge the hurt I saw on his face. The grief he felt at losing the friend he’d found in my Papa.

Mama worked side by side with Remi, setting up the farm auction, while my heart continued to grow hard against him. No matter what Papa said, I had no desire to forgive him.

A week after the sale of the farm was finalized, I held Papa’s hand as his breaths grew further and further apart, telling him stories of our adventures in farming. His hands, once strong enough to plow thousands upon thousands of acres, carry a mountain worth of boulders, move endless rows of irrigation pipe, grow enough food to feed the entire state of Idaho—strong enough to carry me through my life—now hung limp in my own.

Sapped of their strength.

Stripped by cancer down to nothing but veins, skin, and bone.

I told him of the first time I’d helped him deliver a baby calf. About the time he’d rescued me when I’d gotten stuck upside down from a bin of baby chicks.

About the day he brought home my beautiful Mae. The first time I drove Oscar, the tractor he’d first taught me to drive, into the ditch. The time I’d won my first beauty pageant, and the trophies from rodeo.

He’d been at every competition.

I talked about when I’d helped with planting and crouched next to him, feeling the excitement of the tiny plants emerging, and the time he comforted me in high school after Brock Cooper broke my heart.

He fell asleep listening to our stories with Mama lying beside him, holding him in her arms. A smile on his face.

Never to wake up again.