The Dandelion

  Every one of my muscles, from hip to clavicle, bunches into a tight knot. The burst of grief and anxiety makes my breath short and my head light. “Oh sweet Lord.”

  A steady burn starts behind my eyes when I think of how I wasn’t there and why I shouldn’t have been there. It only increases when I think of how devastated Sam and Noelle must be and how I won’t be around to help if they need it.

  And I feel sure they will need help.

  They’ll need help and comfort, like everyone does when they’re grieving, but they won’t get it from me. My help and comfort comes at a price that neither of them should have to pay.

  I begin to rationalize, anything to keep this frantic feeling from overtaking me. Sara’s parents are there. And Sam’s, who Sara once told me moved to a retirement village in Florida, will likely come up when they get the news. They may already be there, too. Sam may have called them when Sara had her stroke. I can’t be sure because I wasn’t around beyond that first morning. Regardless, they are hardly all alone in this. They have family and they have this very supportive community. They won’t lack help.

  Those thoughts should bring me peace, but they don’t. They only serve to illuminate all the ways I’m failing Sam and Noelle, and even Sara, whom I let trust that I would be around to pick up the pieces her death would leave behind.

  I came to Molly’s Knob to live out my last days in such a way that I could help others, yet it seems I’ve done more harm than good. Lies and false promises, hurting those I care about—that’s all I’ve accomplished. Like everything else in my life, it seems this trip just went awry. Terribly, terribly awry.

  “You all right, honey?”

  I know I must be pale as a ghost. I feel pale as a ghost. Or maybe just ghostly, like a thin, fading wisp of the person I used to be. The person I wanted to be. Now I’m little more than the fragile seeds of a dying dandelion, one stiff breeze away from disappearing altogether.

  “I…I’m fine. I just…I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. For everyone who knew her. And for Sam. And for Noelle.” To my humiliation, my words wobble and a flow of tears I have no hope of stopping begins. I can’t control the river that pours down my face any more than I can control the way my chin trembles and my heart aches. “Will you excuse me please?”

  I spin away from Mrs. Tremaine and tell Bobby, the guy in charge of the stand, that I need a minute. He asks if I’m okay, but I just keep walking until I’m out the back door of the little stand and lunging into the night. I drag in lungful after lungful of crisp air, desperate for calm, but it doesn’t help me. It doesn’t even help me to breathe better. It’s as though my ribs are closing in, crushing everything within my chest cavity.

  As much as I try to fend it off, panic rises. And the need to flee grows.

  Anxiously, I glance around. My eyes fall on the ocean of trees that stretches out beside me. Right now, the woods are a sea of tranquility, beckoning. Summoning. Promising. So I do the only thing I can do. I do what I was taught to do. I do what I do best.

  I run.

  I run and I run and I run.

  I run until my toes are burning so badly I can hardly remember my own name, much less Sam’s. I run until the pain steals thoughts of Sara and Noelle from my mind. And when the flames spread up my leg, I keep running. I run until my thigh starts to tingle and my stomach swims with nausea. Only then do I stop, to vomit on the side of the road.

  When I look up, I see I’ve found my way home, back to where nothing can hurt me. Back to the lake that promises an escape from it all.

  The last thing I remember is dragging my useless right leg behind me as I cross the living room floor to collapse on the bed where the ever-present black hole of hollowness sucks me in with open, welcoming arms.

  ********

  I wake to both tingling and numbness, if that’s even a thing. I can’t feel temperature or air on my foot. It’s like it’s not even there, although I know that it is. I certainly didn’t drop it or cut it off on my trip home last night. At least not that I know of. But beneath that numbness is a bone-deep prickling sensation that I realize is, clinically, the protest of my insufficiently oxygenated tissues.

  I know before I even look down that I’ve pushed my ailing leg too far, and while I’m not necessarily surprised by what I see, I’m far from pleased.

  My leg is propped on a pillow, but even with the elevation, it still looks angry. Or maybe not even angry. It looks like it’s trapped between fury and futility. It’s as though it’s fiercely fighting a losing battle, which, in the most basic of terms, it actually is.

  My foot is swollen so badly the skin is tight and shiny, and the whole thing a sick dusky bluish purple in color. My toes protrude from the top like five fat sausages. I try to wiggle them, but they struggle to obey my commands. I know I need to massage my leg, I know that I need to encourage blood flow as much as I can, but I also know, before I even touch my leg, that the process will be excruciating.

  I sit up and bend over my bent knee. I take a deep breath, hold it, and dig into my calf. Ruthlessly, I work my fingers into the muscles, massaging as relentlessly as I might if I couldn’t feel the pain of it.

  But I do feel the pain of it.

  I feel it. I welcome it. I even revel in it a bit. Because, as always, it’s nothing more than what I deserve.

  Now more than ever, it’s what I deserve.

  My condition doesn’t just remind me of what I did to my child now. It reminds me of the pain I brought into the lives of others. Innocent others. A good man who didn’t need my kind of trouble, and a little girl who just wanted a friend.

  I’m like a black widow of the heart. My kiss is deadly. My love is life threatening.

  I work my fingers into my flesh, sweat peppering my forehead and dotting my upper lip. I work it until I feel sick with the pain of it. I work it until tears are rolling down my face and I taste blood from the imprint of teeth on my bottom lip. I work it until my hands cramp and my nail beds throb.

  But still, nothing hurts worse than the pain in my soul.

  CHAPTER 28

  ABI

  No More Chances

  I can’t run.

  There’s nowhere to go.

  But I can hide.

  I can hide in my little cabin, as though it’s a bubble floating in the air, high above the trouble and strife of the world.

  Only it’s not.

  It’s not high above the trouble and strife. The trouble and strife are within me. A prison that I can’t escape no matter how far I run or how long I hide.

  The hours tick by like microcosms, like miniature lifetimes strolling slowly past. I use the never-ending minutes to stalk the town’s website like a woman obsessed. Because that’s what I am—obsessed. I search continually for any information on the arrangements of one specific resident, one Sara Forrester. I refresh and refresh and refresh, but never is there any news.

  Not until two days after movie night. That’s when I finally see something. It’s a listing very similar to an obituary, giving a few nice paragraphs about Sara’s life and a short single paragraph about her death. Those are followed by the how, the when, and the where she will be honored.

  The viewing is tonight, open to the public, a public that clearly adored Sara according to the writer of the article. The funeral and graveside will happen tomorrow morning. It gives the name of those who will officiate the services and where each will be held. I make note of them as though it matters.

  It doesn’t.

  I won’t be going.

  While I would love to pay my respects to Sara, I wouldn’t dream of bringing conflict to Sam and Noelle, or to Sara’s parents at a time such as this. The last thing any of them needs is a black widow of the heart making an already-awful day worse.

  No, as much as part of me wants and needs to go, I will keep my venom here, locked away where it can’t hurt anyone.

  Anyone but me.

  I stay put and do the one thing I can do better in private
than I could do in public at a funeral service anyway: I mourn. I could cry and grieve anywhere. But I can do it better here. I can mourn Sara and the loss of her short life. I can mourn the memories she won’t make and the milestones she won’t witness. I can mourn the marriage she had to leave and the child she had to abandon. I can mourn the woman who, if left here longer, would’ve been a good friend to me. And I’d have been a good friend to her.

  Or I would’ve tried.

  My mourning doesn’t stop there, though. In the quiet of my cabin and, later, in front of the placid waters of the lake, I mourn the loss of Sam, the love of my life. I mourn the Sam I knew and the Sam I won’t get to know. I mourn the love we have and the love that was ripped from us far too soon. I also mourn the love we could’ve had.

  A little girl died today, too. I mourn her as well. Some part of Noelle’s innocence will be buried today, a part she will never get back. I mourn how she will grow up without a mother, and I mourn how her life will always feel a little bit empty, even when she’s at her happiest.

  I mourn the could-haves and would-haves and if-onlys. I think I mourn those most of all. Those and all the second chances I’ll never have. For me, there are no more chances, first, second or otherwise. Like Sara, my time is coming to an end.

  I mourn my life, too—the loss of it, the consequence of it. I mourn the loss of what should’ve been a full and happy existence, and I mourn what now will never be.

  ********

  The funeral was two days ago. I don’t feel any better than I did on that day, or the two days before it. In fact, I may feel even worse.

  I’m sitting in what has become my favorite Adirondack chair, the one Sam knelt in front of. That day, the day he came to take me to his house and proceeded to cook my favorite dish, seems a lifetime ago.

  With each passing hour, I fall deeper into nothingness. Hopelessness. Despair. What’s left of my heart is dying, slowly, painfully. Like my foot. But it’s as that death occurs that I see the first evidence of life after death. It’s here, from the yard of a rented cabin that feels like home because it’s the only place I’ve ever really loved, that I witness the true resilience of the human spirit. I see it in the sun on blonde curls and I hear it through the laugh of a little girl.

  Noelle—she looks like life and she sounds like hope.

  I hear the high-pitched tinkle of Noelle’s laughter before I see her. When she comes darting from the left to streak across the yard near the lake’s edge, I can’t help smiling. To see her this way—as though she hasn’t just lost one of the most important people in her life—is like witnessing a miracle. But that’s the beauty of being a child. At this age, it’s easier to separate the bad from the good. It’s easier to reject the one and cling to the other, to leave the sad behind in favor of chasing a butterfly or building a sand castle. Or to race across the yard as your father, who’s pretending to be a bear, is chasing you. At least that’s what I’m guessing is going on, judging by his bungling walk, clawed fingers, and bared teeth.

  My breath hitches in my throat when Sam comes into view. I watch, rapt, as he speeds up and swoops in to capture his daughter, throwing her high into the air and catching her in his strong and capable arms. She links her tiny hands at the back of his neck and looks into his eyes. I see his lips move as he speaks to her, and I see her respond. I see her expression shift to one of excitement just before she nods enthusiastically. Whatever he’s offering must be irresistible.

  But that’s Sam in a nutshell.

  Irresistible.

  Sam sets Noelle down and she runs away, back to the left, back out of sight, and he turns to watch her go. I watch him watching her, and I know I could spend hours doing this—watching. Watching Sam. Observing him. Drinking him in. Tucking him away in the loneliest part of my soul.

  As though he can feel my eyes on him, Sam’s head swivels in my direction. Even across the calm waters of the lake, I feel the burning intensity of his stare. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t frown. He doesn’t move at all. Not a single muscle. He just stares me.

  I can’t look away. I can’t look away because somewhere in the back of my mind, I wonder if this is the last time I’ll see him, and I want to commit every detail of him to memory.

  As if I’d ever be able to forget.

  There will be two images swirling through my head as I take my last breath. One will be the cherubic features of the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen, with hair like mine and eyes like her father.

  My Sasha.

  The other will be the face I’m staring at now. The face of love. And of loss. And of all the things I can never have in this life.

  My Sam.

  His gaze holds me captive until Noelle returns. She’s dragging a net stocking filled with beachy toy equipment, all in bright, bold primary colors. She races by Sam, snatching his hand as she goes and, together, they make their way down to the sandy area that joins the lake.

  I should move. I should go inside and let them have this time together, in private, without the intrusion of prying eyes.

  But I don’t.

  Because I can’t.

  I can’t move and I can’t look away. It’s as though they’re the breath of life and I will suffocate without them.

  For over an hour, I watch Sam play with his child. I wonder a thousand things, like does he cry and does she, are his in-laws still there, did his parents ever show up. I wonder if he’s tired and if he’s hungry, I wonder if Mrs. Sturgill is cooking their meals. I wonder if he’s lonely and if he’s hurting, even though I have no doubt that he is both.

  When they pack up, dusting off sand and stuffing shovels and buckets and rakes back into the stocking, I miss them already. I mourn them like another tiny death. Like my lungs will soon mourn air.

  Sam takes the toys in one hand and his daughter’s fingers in his other, and they begin the trek back to the house. He looks back over his shoulder as they walk away. His eyes hold mine until he’s out of sight. I hold them right back.

  And, when he’s gone, I sink deeper and deeper into darkness.

  CHAPTER 29

  SAM

  Stuck

  Now

  It’s been almost two weeks since Sara died. I’ve started going back to work for just a few hours in the mornings and spending the rest of my time with Noelle. I’m keeping things as normal for her as I possibly can. Aside from the fact that her mother is gone, that is. There’s nothing I can do to change that. I can only explain it as honestly and gently as I can, over and over and over, when she asks questions.

  She’s doing well, though. Or as well as can be expected. She’s a smart little girl and I consulted some of the best psychologists I could find to give me advice on how to help her through this. I’m doing everything they suggested and it seems to be working. It would help if she hadn’t lost Abi at the same time, but… There’s nothing I can do about that.

  I’m mourning the loss of her, too.

  I expected to lose Sara. I’ve known it was coming for months. Years, in fact. A big part of me is just relieved that she’s not suffering. That was the hardest part—watching someone you love suffer.

  I guess that’s why I can’t seem to bring myself to write Abi off for what she did. Or, really, what she didn’t do. That she would plan to kill herself and not tell me is… Well, it’s crazy. Unthinkable.

  But then when I think about losing Sara, I can understand what Abi was thinking, both for her own comfort as well as Noelle’s and mine. The problem is, can I live with it?

  Can I live with the loss of her already, this way, knowing so much has been left unsaid and undone?

  Or would I be better off to try to change things, try to change her mind, and hope for a better outcome than the one Sara got?

  Honestly, I don’t know.

  If it were only me, I wouldn’t hesitate. But it’s not just me. I have a child to consider, and she just lost her mother. What kind of father would I be to subject her to another imminent loss? r />
  A shitty one.

  But doing the right thing almost never feels good. And this feels the very opposite of good. It feels like getting my guts put through a meat grinder.

  I love Abi. Always have. Always will. Nothing will change that, not even her disregard for her own life.

  The part that can’t let her go seems to think that if I could just get her to see, if I could just help her to understand that there’s hope for her, that there’s healing and love in her future, she’d make a different choice. But how do I do that without risking my daughter?

  Hell if I know.

  Hell if I know.

  So, every day, I take Noelle outside and we play in front of Abi, partly so she can see us, but mostly so I can see her. Knowing she’s there, that she hasn’t left me yet, gives me hope. And right now, that’s the only thing keeping me afloat.

  Noelle asks about her every day, at least once. She wants to go visit her or have Abi over for dinner and to watch Finding Dory with her again. She’s clinging to her almost as staunchly as I am, like neither of us can bear the thought of a future without her in it. Maybe my daughter inherited my predisposition for loving Abi. Or maybe she’s drawn to something in her, as I am. Or maybe Abi is just that loveable.

  Most likely, it’s a combination of all three. It feels like Abi’s in my blood some days, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my love for her is transmissible, like a beautiful disease. But one that’s killing me right now. And one that could kill my daughter as well.

  And that’s where I get hung up. My love for Noelle, and therefore my desire to protect her, runs deep. Too deep to rush forward into this without thinking it through.

  I just need to figure out if I can keep both of them safe, if all the delicate pieces of this puzzle can ever fit peacefully together. And I need to figure it out quickly. Time has never been an infinite thing, but for some of us, it seems shorter. The now seems more urgent.