Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Heat blankets my face,and I open my eyes to a blinding flare of light that forces me to shield my eyes from the sun peeking in through the curtain. A fuzzy, garbled noise captures my attention, but more than that, memories from the night before slam into me. I lift my head from the floor of Papa’s office, where I fell asleep the night before, and flip over to check on him.

A red splotch of blood stains the cushion of the now-empty couch he fell asleep on.

I jolt to my feet, ears piqued, listening for any movement as I search the house. All the rooms on the upper level stand empty. The kitchen. The bathrooms.

The truck sits in the driveway where I’d parked it the night before.

I slam through the back door, racing across the dry dirt toward the pole barn, and search inside.

Not there.

Exiting the barn, I look around for any other place he might’ve ventured off to, and I glance down to a dark splotch at the corner of the concrete. It trails over the grass in dribbles of red, which I follow to a row of three trees at the back of the property. A body sits propped against the trunk of it, and I blow a sigh of relief as I approach.

“Papa, you can’t just take off like that.”

I round the tree, catching sight of a deep red halo of blood mostly wicked by the dry sand.

My hands fly to my mouth when I finally catch sight of him.

My blood turns ice cold.

I can’t breathe.

Slouched against the tree, he carries the gaping hole of a bullet wound at his head that glistens where the flesh has torn away, and in his hands, the cold steel culprit. I kneel in front of him and reach out a trembling hand to lift his chin.

His body slides to the side, and I recoil at the pale, stony expression on his face.

Clutching my stomach, I bend forward, tucking my head against my bent knees. And I weep.

* * *

Sweat coats my body,as I shovel the last bit of dirt onto the mound, alongside the Juniper tree, where I already set the cross. I slip the bracelet he gave me years ago over the erect piece of wood, and twist it so LOVE faces outward.

As I sit there a moment, rubbing my hand over the scar left bare on my wrist, my mind slips into suppressed memories.

I open my eyes to glow of white walls and the soft flutter of a curtain, through which the moon lends a dim light. Something tells me it’s all wrong, a dream, or the place people go just before they’re judged. I lift my hand up, catching sight of the bright red stain in my palm and along my forearm. In my other hand is a scalpel.

“Now deeper.” The voice reaches me from across the room, and I lift my gaze to see Raymond standing in the shadows. “For Wren.”

Realization filters in, like waking from a dream. I stare down at the shallow cut along my forearm. Blade to my skin, I press down. Tears gather in my eyes, distorting the gash, as the metal tears into my flesh and flames trail behind. “For Wren.” A cool numbness chases after, and I drop the scalpel onto my stark white nightgown.

The room spins around me. Faster and faster. Sickness churns in my stomach as I try to hold onto something, to stop the swirling before my eyes. Everything is blurry, spinning, until my sense of direction is skewed, and I don’t know where I am anymore.

The world flicks to blackness. I reach out.

Everything stills.

When I open my eyes, a man is staring down at me. Dark hair. Sunken eyes. His lips are moving, but I can’t hear him. There’s a familiarity about him that I can’t pinpoint, but I’m certain I’ve seen him before.

He lifts me from the bed and holds me to his chest. A distant sound hammers over the pulse of blood in my ears. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.

His heart beat drums a steady rhythm.

I lift my gaze to see tears in his eyes, as he carries me across the room. His movements are frantic. Mine are slow.

“Who are you?” The sound of my voice is frail and dry.

“Josef,” he says, and looks down at me. “Your Papa.”

He wasn’t my true father, but a father just the same.

And this is the place where I came to understand how much he was willing to sacrifice for me.

Setting my hand atop his grave, I bow my head, allowing one more tear to slip down my cheek. So many have fallen in the last few hours, I’m surprised there’s anything left.

“I’ll catch you on the other side,” I whisper and straighten to a stand.

* * *

Staringthrough the window of my bedroom, I lie with Papa’s journal beside me, not daring to open it. Someday, I’ll read it, but for now, it’s a small piece of him that I can take with me. His voice, trapped behind the rubber-bands that secure it closed. I roll over in the bed and open the drawer of the nightstand, my hand hovering over the notebook tucked inside.

It’s been years since I opened it, but the heart can only stand so much pain at once, and at the moment, it’s brimming with the loss of Papa. So I slide the notebook out, exchanging it for the journal. Cracking it open reveals the pages of lessons with Six. Scribbles that, at one time, were so agonizing to look at, I had to tuck the notebook away, where it sat forgotten for years.

Flipping through the pages, I read over the random letters and words scrawled in pencil, noticing their progression from one to the next. On the last page, I find full sentences that describe a feeling, or thought, and below them, my name.

What does love mean to you?

I’m convinced the heart is a masochist. Some call it an organ of fire, but I have to believe mine has turned to ash, as many times as it’s been burned and broken throughout the years.

I’ve also come to realize that pain doesn’t strike at once, as one might think. It’s organic. From the moment you fall in love with someone, your pain begins. You just don’t feel it yet, but it’s there. The silence beneath your laughter. The shadows behind an embrace. Tranquility before the storm. The deeper you fall in love, pain follows like a ghost, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Could take an entire lifetime, or just a couple of short months. Pain has no concept of time, and when it arrives, you’re never ready for it. But it’s always been there, hiding behind a mask of denial, deceiving you into thinking there’s such a thing as eternal happiness.

I know better now.

Falling in love means you have to be brave enough to accept the pain when it comes to stake its claim. Whether it’s the love of a father, or the love of your life, pain is inevitable.

And the heart is forever drawn to it. Or maybe that’s just mine.

I trace the letters across the paper and smile at the memory of that day.

The page comes to life as I tear it away from the notebook, folding it up into a small square that I tuck inside Papa’s journal.

As I lie in bed, staring up at the sky through the window, I search for the brightest star, reminiscent of Six’s striking blue eyes. So many nights, I talked to those stars and sang myself to sleep, with tears in my eyes for him. “Goodnight, Six.”