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“It’s okay,” I replied abruptly. “Really, there’s no need to apologize. It’s not your fault I haven’t read the will. I’m just…not really emotionally prepared for that yet.”
“Of course. I understand completely,” Zelda said, her voice softening while still maintaining a note of urgency.
“What is it you need from me?”
She let out a loud sigh of relief. “I think your father finished the manuscript. It’s a story called Amber Sky. I think it’s—“
“What did you say?”
She was silent for a moment, caught off guard by the interruption. “About what?”
“The name of the story,” I said. “What’s the name?”
“Oh, I believe it’s called Amber Sky. I think it’s supposed to be about all the different colors of the sky and how amber is his favorite. Anyway, it was due to Dial last month, but we’d been avoiding the press and all requests for charity work, so this project just kind of slipped through the cracks. Unfortunately, your mother doesn’t know the password to his computer to search for the manuscript. And then I remembered your father’s instructions, leaving you in charge of the books. I thought maybe you could try looking for it. Do you know your dad’s password, honey?”
A heavy silence lingered between us for a long while as I imagined what my father was thinking when he named the story Amber Sky, the same name as the poem he recited at my wedding. Did he forget about the poem? Or was the title purposeful?
“Cassie? Are you okay, hun?”
I cleared my throat and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I’ll look for the manuscript. Just give me a few days.”
“Of course. Take your time,” Zelda replied. “And Cassie?”
“Yeah?”
“Your father adored you, you know. You’re all he ever talked about. Even in his final days. He’d be really proud to see you taking over this project for him.”
I drew in a long, stuttered breath. “Thanks, Zelda. I’ll get back to you soon,” I said, hanging up the phone before she could reply.
I rested my elbows on the desk and held my head in my hands as I allowed myself a moment to feel the overwhelming grief. It hit me at random times, like a tsunami most days.
But today had been better. Buoyed by the knowledge I was carrying another baby girl, the grief only lapped at my ankles. Now, it drowned me as I imagined how alone and helpless my father felt in his final days. One of the most uplifting writers of our time, reduced to a blank stare.
I opened the silver laptop on his desk and wasn’t surprised to find it was dead. I didn’t know where he kept the charger. Without drawers, the only other place it could be was on top of the desk, but it wasn’t there.
Maybe it was in one of the many decorative baskets my mother placed on the bookshelves that lined the study. I rose from the chair and began searching the basket on the bottom shelf immediately to my right. Finding only decorative painted eggs, I moved on to the next shelf. This basket contained a collection of palm-sized booklets of poetry, which looked to be more than a hundred years old.
As I moved onto the next shelf, the next woven basket, the smell of coffee that seemed to permeate the office grew stronger. As I pulled the basket off the shelf, I shook my head as I saw it filled to the brim with coffee beans.
Part of me thought it comical to imagine my father pouring coffee beans in this basket. It seemed I was right that my father had hidden a stash in here. But another part of me found it tragic to think that he was losing his mind, and this was proof.
I took a deep breath to withstand the impact of another wave of grief. But as I was about to put the basket of coffee beans back on the shelf, something caught my eye. A small piece of white sticking out of the sea of brown.
I grabbed it and pulled a folded piece of white paper out of the coffee beans. Written on the outside was just two words: Bunny Rabbit.
Follow Me
Walker’s words echo in my mind. I wasn’t gentle when I shot him. The image of the shotguns in the shed flashes in my mind’s eye. He said the weapons were for hunting. Hunting what? Or whom?
I stand up and pat the empty mattress to coax him back onto the bed. “Do you want me to stay?” I ask once he’s lying comfortably.
He nods as he scoots over to make room for me next to him. I consider telling him I want to sleep alone, making an excuse that my shoulder is sore, or something. But I don’t want to be alone tonight, either.
I lie my topless body down next to Walker’s. His skin is smooth and warm against mine, and I quickly find myself relaxing into him as he wraps his arms around me. I wonder if he learned to cuddle like this from his mother. Was she a good mother?
Pondering this question seems unfair, considering I’ve never met the woman who raised him. Is the man Walker claims to have shot his father? If not, what happened to his father? I have so many questions, but I’m beginning to wonder if I even want to know the answers.
Just as I begin to regret telling Mr. Beacham to turn the truck around, Walker places a tender, lingering kiss on the top of my head. And just like that, my worries about Walker and his mysterious past are allayed by his instinct to protect and comfort me.
I lay my head on his bare shoulder, being as still as possible so I can feel his heartbeat on my fingertips. Pressing my nose against the crook of his neck, I inhale deeply, committing the sharp, spicy scent to memory. He is real.
I wake with a small puddle of saliva collecting under the corner of my mouth, just above Walker’s clavicle. I peel my face away from his damp skin, and my cheek scrapes against his beard as I push myself up. His eyelids flutter, and he smacks his lips, but he doesn’t wake. Heavy sleeper.
A pang of longing in the pit of my stomach takes me by surprise. My father was a heavy sleeper. He’d often take naps on the sofa in his study, and my siblings and I would sneak in while he slept to see what he was working on. Nine times out of ten, he’d keep snoring as we giggled fiendishly just a few feet away.
I grab a T-shirt out of Walker’s closet and go downstairs to pull on the same pair of jeans I’ve repeatedly been using and hand-washing since the accident. As I’m buttoning the waistband, I hear footsteps in the downstairs hallway.
“Good morning!” I call out to Walker, but he doesn’t answer.
I slide my feet into my sneakers and head out into the hallway, making my way toward the kitchen to help make breakfast. But as I pass through the swinging door into the kitchen, my heart skids to a stop.
Pushing the back door open and stepping out onto the back steps is my father.
His back is to me, but I’d recognize that brown cardigan and the bald spot at the crown of his head anywhere.
“Dad?” I call out softly, hardly able to push the wind out of my lungs.
He doesn’t stop. The wooden screen door slams shut behind him as he continues down the steps. I race toward the door, and for a moment, I’m frozen as I watch him crossing the backyard toward the woods. Finally, I get my wits about me and call out to him again, much louder this time.
“Dad! Wait!”
As he reaches the tree line, he looks back at me over his shoulder and smiles. I push the screen door open and nearly tumble down the steps in my haste. Racing across the grass, the sore on my foot—which has gotten worse instead of better—burns from the friction of my sneaker. I ignore the pain and explode through the tree line into the woods at full speed, but my father is nowhere to be seen.
“Dad! Wait for me!” I shout, turning in all possible directions and still not finding him.
I set off in the direction of the meadow I found on my first exploration of the forest. I don’t want to believe my instinct, but I have a strong feeling I’ll find my father there. With each step I take, the burning in my heel grows more unbearable, until I finally take off my sneakers and leave them behind as I continue forward.
It isn’t long before the woods open up onto that beautiful meadow I found not so long ago. The lavender blooms have been repl
aced with yellow flowers, which sway in the breeze that ripples through Walker’s oversized T-shirt. And there, in the middle of the meadow, is my father.
He’s waving at me and smiling as he carries a small child in his arms. He whispers something to the girl, and she giggles. My heart aches as I recognize the sound I heard the first time I visited this meadow.
My father waves one more time before he turns around and begins to walk away from me. I take a few steps forward, but the pain in my heel becomes unbearable.
“Wait!” I call out to my father, but he doesn’t stop or turn around.
I lift my foot to get a better look at the injury and see the dressing has fallen off, and the open wound is covered in spiny nettles. I try continuing on, walking on my one good foot and the tip-toe of my bad foot. But with each step I take, I fall farther behind.
How can this be possible? My father is dead. I must really be losing my mind. I need to go back to the house and get back to the city as fast as I can, or I may very well die out here.
I limp back through the woods, picking up my abandoned shoes on the way. As I emerge from the tree line into Walker’s backyard, I glance at the lean-to where Walker keeps his guns. The morning light glints off the small window in the side of the shed. I don’t remember the shed having a window.
I limp across the yard and use my hand to wipe away some dust from the windowpane. As I peer inside, I see the same shotguns — about a dozen — lining the pegboard walls of the shed. But when I look at the workbench, something catches my eye.
Right there, lying between a handsaw and a rubber mallet, is my cellphone.
Teddy O.
