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CHAPTER 32
Hank
The sun was rising as I turned onto Crescent View Lane where Firefly Island Cemetery was located, and my mom was laid to rest.
I visited every week. Sometimes I told her about things going on with my brothers.
Sometimes I told her about the town gossip. She’d always loved sitting in Mrs. Shaw’s chair in Pretty in Peach and listening to the women talk. She liked to say that living on Firefly Island was like living in a real-life soap opera. She passed before reality shows were popular, but I knew if she’d been around for them, she would’ve been glued to the television. Her favorite would probably have been Desperate Housewives.
Sometimes I didn’t talk at all.
This morning I had a lot of news to fill her in on. I was in love. There was no denying it. I’d been pretty sure of my feelings for Skylar before she’d shown up on my doorstep last night and I’d carried her into my bed. But now, now, there was no question of what I felt for her.
I loved her. Totally and completely.
Skylar left in the early hours of the morning to go grab a few hours of sleep before Luna woke up. I’d almost told her how I felt after I kissed her goodbye on the back porch, but something stopped me. I’d watched her make her way across the field and said those three words out loud for the first time, but she was too far away to hear me.
The words were still on the tip of my tongue as I parked and got out of my truck and walked across the cemetery. I passed by my uncles’ graves but stopped in front of the headstone of the man that started the curse, my grandfather Phillip Bruce Comfort. He lived for another five years with my grandmother before dying of smallpox. In those days one out of ten people died from the disease, which was one of the reasons I didn’t put any stock in the curse.
“What do you think about this curse?” I asked the source for the first time.
Before today, I’d never stopped to wonder what my grandfather had thought after hearing that the woman he’d left at the altar had taken her own life and then put a hex on him and his bloodline.
“You probably thought she was crazy and you dodged a bullet.” Or at least, that’s what I would’ve thought.
I smiled as I continued on to where my mom was buried.
My dad had bought a special plot for the two of them beneath a large oak tree because she loved the shade and the spot overlooked the ocean. It was the only thing he’d managed after we lost her.
I sat on a bench I’d donated to the cemetery with a plaque in her honor that was beside her final resting place. I put my elbows on my knees, leaned forward, and ran my hands through my hair. I was nervous, which I knew was absolutely ridiculous. It’s not like she could actually hear me. I believed in ghosts about as much as I believed in curses. And even if I did believe in spirits still being on earth, I doubted they’d be hanging out in cemeteries. I knew my mom sure as hell wouldn’t. She’d be traveling the world like she always talked about.
No, this bout of anxiety was because I was going to say something I’d never said before to my mama, or to her gravesite, that is.
“Hey Mama, so you know Skylar, the woman I’ve been tellin’ you about? I’m in love with her.” I smiled. It was the second time I’d said those words out loud today and each time it felt even more right. “You remember Melody, I never said that I loved her. I told you about her. Said that she was my girlfriend and talked about us, but I never said the word love. Maybe that was because I can’t lie to you, even if I can lie to myself. I thought, at the time, that I loved her but maybe she’d just been there when you weren’t.”
We’d got together a month after my mom died and stayed together until she broke up with me on the beach. Looking back, I had a feeling my bond to her had more to do with everything else going on in my life and less to do with her.
“But Skylar…she’s different. I’ve never met anyone like her. She just…when she walks into a room, she brightens the place up. The atmosphere changes. It’s like she has this light inside of her and people are drawn to her warmth. She’s sweet. And caring. And everything that is good in this world. And it’s not just her. She’s a package deal.
“I wish you could meet Luna. She’s too smart for her own good. And I don’t know how she did it, but she’s had me wrapped around her little finger from the second she showed up on my porch selling her treasures. I threw a baby shower for her yesterday. Not for Skylar, she’s not pregnant,” I clarified, and when I did a picture popped into my mind, clear as day, of her sitting in a rocking chair, cradling a newborn baby.
Even when Melody told me she was pregnant, I’d never had flashes of what she’d look like, how her belly would swell, or her skin would glow. I didn’t imagine her holding, caring for our baby.
Shaking my head, I refocused on why I was there and continued to fill my mama in. “The baby shower was for Luna. It was her fifth birthday and she wanted a baby shower-themed party.” I smiled remembering her face when she’d gotten out of the car and seen the party all set up. “She had fun. Billy, Jimmy, and Cheyenne were there. And Billy and Jimmy’s ladies were too. The boys did good. They picked the right people. You don’t have to worry about them. As far as Cheyenne, well, I think her and Cash have something going on, but since Cash values his balls I’m not sure if they’ll ever admit to it.”
Billy had always been more protective of Cheyenne than I had. And since our sister had been back I’d witnessed him seething whenever Cash and Cheyenne were five feet from each other. I didn’t know why. Cash and Billy had been thick as thieves since they were in the womb. Mama and Cash’s mom had been best friends and had been pregnant at the same time. Billy and Cash were born two days apart and were basically twins.
But for whatever reason, Billy didn’t want Cash anywhere near our sister. It was fun to watch from the sidelines, seein’ Billy gettin’ himself all worked up, but I felt bad for Cheyenne. She was tryin’ so hard to be a part of the family again, and she and Billy were the closest. I knew that she didn’t want to do anything to upset him, but I could see that she was a smitten kitten. Every time Cash was in the room, she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him.
“I wish you were here to talk some sense into Billy. And I wish you could see Cheyenne. She looks just like you. And sounds just like you, too. Even her laugh.”
I hadn’t talked to Mama about Cheyenne much, except to tell her that she was back. I wasn’t sure why…I’d been mad when she left, but that made no sense because…
Then, like a bolt of lightning the reason I hadn’t talked about her and why I’d been so mad for so many years over her being gone struck me. I wasn’t mad at my sister for leaving. She was just a kid. I was mad at myself. I hadn’t protected her. In the note, my mama had asked me to take care of my brothers and sister and I failed.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry that I didn’t do what you asked. I shouldn’t have let them take her.” Even as I said it, I knew that no matter what I’d done I couldn’t have stopped it.
I was thirteen. At the time, I’d felt like a man. And I could see why I had. I’d had the responsibilities of an adult. But I was just a kid. Which was probably why my answer for everything I didn’t like was to fight. It had been my way of coping.
