Page 146 of The Cheerleader

“Did you know?” I ask her.

“I dragged the truth out of him just before we signed the papers to sell the farm, or I swore to him I wasn’t going to sign. He wanted to spare me the burden of taking care of him.” Her words border on bitter, but mostly I hear the sad pain, the raw grief of loss.

Papers to sell the farm?

A strangled chortle escapes from me.

“He sold the farm?” The words scrape from my throat.

“We had to. We… needed the money. It’s all we had left and… the farm is useless with no one to work it.”

I’m trying to wrangle a confusing mix of unsettled emotions, to keep them in check as they chase each other around in my head. But my gut knows where I am as nausea threatens to erupt, and my chest tightens so hard around my ravaged heart that I think it cracks.

I take some deep breaths to regain some semblance of control.

I need to talk to Susie.

Hope bursts with her name into my thoughts, allowing me to breathe easier. The new urgency to talk to her, to see her, to touch her, and hold her in my arms has me about to hang up on my mother.

Except Mom has no one to console her but me now. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll get a ride home tomorrow⁠—”

“Don’t. Stay where you are. Be with that pretty girl of yours. Let her console you. Let her make you happy. I need to think of you that way.”

“What about you?”

“I have Wally and my sister and her family. I have my memories. And I have you in my heart.” She pauses, sniffles with agony. “To tell you the truth, Bryan, seeing you, the spitting image of him when he was a young buck, would just about kill me right now.”

Her words shake me to the core.

“Good-bye, Bryan. I’ll call you when I get settled at Aunt Sophie’s.”

She hangs up before I finish saying good-bye, as if she couldn’t stand to hear my voice anymore. Telling me about my dad had to be the hardest conversation she’s had since my brother died, one more hard thing in a hard life.

I’m thinking this while I hold off the tidal wave of devastation coming from a distance, gathering force, and I dial the number Susie gave me, hoping she answers before I get hit.

It’s a California number, and my hand still shakes. I randomly wonder what the long-distance charge will be, distracting my pain as I struggle to hold myself in one piece long enough to hear her voice. I need to re-dial twice before I get the call through, and Susie’s parents’ phone rings on the other end.

Chapter Forty-Two

Susie

When I get off the plane in L.A., I lower my glasses against the outsized glare of the sun. I feel like I’m in an overexposed photograph, and if it weren’t so damn hot, I’d want to pull a coat over me and hide. Breathing in the hot, dry air parches my throat as I try to call out to Mom and Dad. They’re on the tarmac, waving at me.

Emotion explodes through me to my legs, and I burst into a run, my bag swinging from my shoulder and my arms outstretched. I hadn’t been looking forward to this trip, but now, seeing my parents, the longing for my family seeps through every cell, breaking down whatever brave front or bravado I’d been holding onto all year.

Even the distance, being so far away from Bryan, and not knowing when I’ll see him again, doesn’t diminish the splash of joy that hits me as I collapse into my dad’s arms and feel my mom add the weight of her hug. Surrounding me with their love, cocooning me like I haven’t felt since I was a child, overwhelms me, and the tears are automatic, even as I laugh, swiping them away.

Feeling foolish and too happy to really care at the same time, I hold onto my parents for a few more precious seconds, knowing this is what I’ve missed: their unconditional love, affection, and support when I’ve needed it most. Tomorrow I’ll be annoyed and feel put out by their well-meaning intrusion, but not today, not now.

When we get to the house my parents are renting, the first thing I notice is the phone on a small table in the entryway. It has an answering machine with a light like an office phone—and the light’s blinking.

Mom figures out how to play the message.

“Susie, it’s Bryan. Call me when you can.”

It’s not what he says, it’s the way he says it, the sound of his voice, like he’s desperate and in pain. Like he’s badly hurt and bleeding out in a ditch.

“He doesn’t say much,” Mom says, “but he sounds desperate to talk to you.” She smiles, not understanding everything behind the words—not that I know exactly what’s going on, but I know enough to understand the possible list of horrors.