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When I lost my mother and sister, I shut down. I ignored the pain eating away at my insides like a cancer and pushed back the emptiness rolling through me like The Nothing, focusing only on the anger. And right now, I’m doing the same thing. It’s the only way I will survive the heartache and devastation ripping through me like a forest fire. That and focusing on her…
Late afternoon sun shines through the windows, and it’s not until I close the door to my bedroom that she finally cries. Her fingers curl around the footboard of the bed, her shoulders shaking as she fights back a sob. Small. Broken. We are both broken as fuck… and it’s all my fault. Had I let her go the day she showed up at my house, none of this would have happened.
I cross the room and pull her against me. “I’m so sorry, Tor.”
Fisting my shirt, she buries her face in my chest. And God, does it hurt. It hurts so fucking bad. I hold her tighter, bracing my arms around her like that can stop this shit, like this can bring Caleb back or change anything that happened to her. Each ragged sob that breaks from her tears at me a little more; it makes it all too hard to ignore the harsh reality of the situation.
“He knows where we are,” she whispers.
The delivery of magnolias had told me that much. I just naïvely thought I could get Tor out of the country without him knowing.
“He called me Tor.”
I’d heard it on the message before I picked up the phone, but it’s not until now that the significance of it really sinks in. He not only knows where we are, but he’s also listening. And that means we have to leave and go somewhere else. Where though? I have no fucking idea. I tried to send her to New Zealand, and he intercepted her. He knows I call her Tor. Panic creeps in, wrapping around my throat, finger by finger, until I struggle to find a breath. I want to tell her we’ll leave, that it will be okay, but I have no idea if he’s bugged my house or just has eyes on me. “I’ll fix it.”
“Fix it?” She shoves off my chest, glaring at me with tears in her eyes. “You can’t fix this, Jude. He’ll never stop.”
On a sigh, I wrap an arm around Tor and drag her back down with me, sweeping my fingers through her soft hair. “I promise you, I’m going to fix this. Just trust me, doll.”
I’m just not exactly sure how I will yet.
_____
The sun slowly rises behind the tree line, casting a somber orange glow over the limbs. And that’s what I focus on when I grab onto the coffin handle. Marney rests his hand on my shoulder as he steps in behind me. "He was a good kid. A real good kid."
The rest of the men fold in around the wooden box, taking their places. Then we lift. This is where I feel myself slipping. This makes it all too real. The trajectory of my life has been forever changed, stained by a guilt I’ll never rid myself of because I didn’t protect my kid brother. I’ve carried my mother and sister and father to their graves, and this coffin is too light. Caleb was too young. Grace was too young. I stare ahead as we cart the coffin toward the woods, my gaze eventually landing on Tor beside the pile of red dirt to the side of my sister’s headstone. The breeze catches her dyed hair, shadowing the fallen expression on her face.
After we set the coffin on the grave, she moves beside me. My knees beg to buckle, but I refuse to give in to the black cloud consuming me. I can’t. I’ve failed everyone in my family, but I refuse to fail her. I grab her hand and pull her to my side, knowing she is the only damn thing that can give me any sense of peace or hope—anything that isn’t death and destruction.
"He's with his pops now." Marney chokes a little as he steps back from the graveside. "We'll make this right, Caleb. I promise you and your pops we will."
The first shovel of dirt is thrown on top of the casket, followed by the next. I close my eyes but still can’t block out the sound of earth raining down to cover my brother. Burials are meant to respect the dead, but I struggle with it. I struggle with the idea of placing a person who means so much in the ground, then leaving them. With each shovel full of dirt that is thrown into the grave, I break a little more. A lifetime of memories flip through my head like a tattered movie reel and abruptly stop, the loose end of the film slapping as the reel tries to continue rolling because this shouldn’t be where his life ends. And that’s when I break. I hang my head, and I fucking cry. For my brother. For my mother and sister and father. For my Tor.
