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Appearing in no way forgiving, his sister—half-sister—whirled from the doorway and let the screen slam behind her as she went in search of her sobbing grandson. Exhaling, he fell back into the porch swing and scrubbed at his face with both hands. When no one came outside to console him and tell him they pardoned him for his slip-up, he left the house. This time, when he went walking, he headed straight for the barn.
He needed comfort, and at the moment, even the achy, painful memories of Jo Ellen would do.
After climbing up into the hayloft, he sat at the opening and watched the last bit of sun disappear behind the horizon. He wondered if she was cuddled up in some high-rise condo and watching the sunset from a huge, classy window. Did she think of him at all these days?
He knew he shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t matter. But it did.
He’d been stupid and too drunk the night before, thinking he could just call her and get her back. She didn’t belong in his kind of life any more than he did in hers.
Sighing, he glanced toward the house. Other family members had claimed his room for the night, even the couch was already called for. He decided not to return; he didn’t feel welcome there anyway.
An hour passed before he lay down on the warm floorboards of the loft and curled an arm under his head, pillowing it. Sleep finally took him deep in the night, but it wasn’t easy. When he dreamed, he dreamed of Jo Ellen and her smile, the feel of her hands as she touched him, the way she looked at him when she liked what he said.
He woke earlier than the rooster, stiff and sore from lying so long on the hard wood. His joints ached, but his body throbbed for a woman he couldn’t have.
Guilty for becoming aroused only two days after his father’s passing, he waited a while before returning to the house.
His misery rose to a new level when his sister Stacia pounced on him as soon as he pushed inside the back door.
“Where the hell have you been?” She grabbed his arm and yanked him through the kitchen toward the front room. “Mama’s been worried sick, asking where you were.”
Shame slapped him in the face and he brushed past her to find Loren in the living room, surrounded by everyone in the family. But she didn’t look worried or sick. Instead, her eyes brightened with warmth when she saw him. “Cooper! I wondered where you went off to.”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I went out to sleep in the barn.”
As he bent to kiss her cheek, her face softened with sympathy. “In the hayloft?” she guessed.
He glanced away and nodded, uncomfortable because she might suspect he’d thought of Jo Ellen most of the night. After clearing his throat, he searched for a spot to sit, but Stacia slid into the last seat in the room beside their mother. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he found an empty patch of wall to lean against.
Brendel continued to shove daggered glares his way. Chet, his wife, and Harry were absent, but their two daughters toddled around the room while Stacia’s teenage boys regaled Loren with all the athletics they were involved in at their school.
Another tense day passed. Coop didn’t dare try to escape out of the house this time in fear his mother would need him, though his sisters smothered her so much he couldn’t manage to get within ten feet of her.
He attended the visitation that night, and found more kinship and sympathy from his neighbors than he did his own family. Though the night seemed to pass in a blur, it dragged on. Exhaustion consumed him, but when he tucked down in his sleeping bag on a free spot of floor in the parlor that night, sleep continued to elude him.
He was never so grateful for the day of the funeral to arrive. Lik
e his Mama had said, he just wanted everything over and done. A part of him realized nothing could return to normal once it was over and done, but at least he could get started with the rest of his new, altered life.
The funeral home attendants kept his family in a back room of the church before the service started. He didn’t get to see who had come to pay their respects until the ceremony began. And even then, they paraded his family in to their reserved pews like cattle; he didn’t feel easy about gawking around to look for Jo Ellen.
A part of him wondered if anyone had told her what happened. What would she do if she knew? She hadn’t come to the visitation, which pretty much meant she likely wouldn’t make it today either. But he ached to see her. He wanted her beside him so he could have a hand to hold.
No one else in his family would certainly hold his.
He’d become the black sheep overnight it seemed. Harry burst into tears every time he saw Coop. Chet had cussed him out more than once. His sisters gave him the cold shoulder and seemed to guard their mother from him. The rest of his nieces and nephews and great-nieces seemed leery of him on principle alone.
His surreal existence continued all the way through the service and off to the cemetery. He sat under the canopied tent in front of his father’s closed casket three spaces down from his mother and next to his brother-in-law as the last prayer chanted through the warm summer air.
And another line of mourners began. He managed the obligatory smile and nod, hugged all the ladies who bent down to console him, shook all the hands thrust in his face.
By the time B.J. Gilmore appeared in front of him, he wanted to grab her and drag her off to Rio’s Bar to play pool or throw darts. If he’d known his night with her would be the last piece of normal he ever saw, he wouldn’t have stopped at taking her shirt off. He would’ve—
“Hey, bud.” She squeezed his shoulder. “This just isn’t your week, is it?”
He laughed softly. “Doesn’t seem to be.”
The growing crowd behind her forced her to move along. An urge overcame him to snake out his arm and grab her wrist, yanking her back to his side—grabbing the only sense of reality he’d felt in two days—but he controlled himself and turned to the next couple in line with a polite, distant smile.
