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I smile at him. “I’m fine. I came to check on you.” We both turn toward the water, and I’m next to him, gently touching his arm. “What are you doing out here?”
He doesn’t answer me immediately. I watch him as he closes his eyes, trying to fight back his tears, so I move my arm around him and pull him into me. J.R. turns to me, and though we’ve shared a lot of vulnerable moments, he’s never completely collapsed into me the way he is now. His forehead hangs from my shoulder, and I hold onto him. His body is tense, and then he begins to cry.
I’ve never held J.R. as he cried. He’s held me more times than I can count, but he’s never let me hold him. I choke back my own tears as I feel my heart break in my chest. I don’t offer any words because I don’t have any. We stand together in a moment meant only to be shared by two people who love each other more than life itself.
J.R. lifts his head from my shoulder, and he looks at me, cupping my face in his hands. I put my palm against his cheek, and I clear away his tears.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m…I’m going to miss him. Even if he was an undeniable asshole.”
I find myself giggling slightly. “He loved you, J.R. I know that.”
J.R. pulls my lips to his, and he kisses me before he slides his arm around me again. “I don’t know what my mom is going to do. With the farm, I mean. She can’t take care of it on her own.”
I feel a pit in my stomach, and I hope he’s not about to suggest that we stay here longer. I’m ready to go home, but what choice would I have? I’ll stay here with J.R., just as I promised.
“We have to go home,” he says. “I want to go home. I…I don’t know what will happen to this place. As much as I hate it, it’s where I was raised. My dad and I did so much here. I was miserable, but it was time. It was memories.”
“J.R., whatever you decide, I’m here. Right here.”
J.R.’s blue eyes gaze in mine. He doesn’t say anything. His expression is straight, pained, confused. I wipe away a stray tear as it rolls down his cheek.
Finally, he says, “We’re going to go home. It’s where we belong. Where we’re supposed to be.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling relieved.
J.R. looks away from me and back out across the pond. “We’re burying my dad today.”
“Yeah,” I say softly.
He looks back at me. “It’s such a strange thing—something that I’ve always known I’d have to do one day—but it still doesn’t feel real.”
“Death is something we were never expected to adjust to.”
J.R. considers this, kisses the top of my head, and then, with his arm around my shoulders, says, “Let’s go get our kids.”
It’s hot. My body hurts. I did just push a human from it a few days ago, which is why I’m not sure why Ellie insisted on a graveside service. I’m certain I’ve never been this hot a day in my life. I can’t complain, though. I won’t. Well, maybe to Kelley later, although she's doing a really great job at keeping Amia quiet during this service.
I’m not great at funerals. The last one I attended was my own father’s. I was younger then, and I didn’t fully understand everything that was happening. Sometimes, I do regret not giving my own mother a funeral of some fashion. I was older then and thought that no service was what she deserved. Today, I stand next to my husband, and I feel his pain. Only a few hours earlier, I was holding him while he grieved, and now he has his fingers locked in mine as he holds himself together. Ellie stands on his other side, crying silently as the priest says only good things about Roger. The priest talks about Roger’s life, his dedication to his family, and the way he loved Ellie and J.R. Maybe those things are true, but Roger also allowed a legacy to derail his relationship with his son.
I wonder what J.R. is thinking now. Is he reflecting on good memories, or is he only remembering the bad? Is he thinking about the day he saw his father again for the first time in years, or is he thinking about the day his father told him that he would never amount to anything?
Maybe Roger was a good man, and I am thankful that I got to know him over the last few months. He did some things, though. He said some things—things that J.R. will never be able to erase from his memory—and I know this because my own mother scarred me with her words. Roger let J.R. walk away, and he spent fifteen years choosing not to pick up the phone to call his son.
I had left J.R., too. That thought doesn’t make me feel any better. This man, holding my hand beside me now never deserved to be abandoned by any of us. He is the greatest man in the world, and I will spend the rest of my life making sure he knows that.
Knox and I are standing beneath the shade of a tree as we watch J.R. stand over his father’s casket with Ellie next to him. He wraps an arm around his mother’s shoulders, and then he lays his other hand against the top of the casket. His head is bowed, and they both stand there quietly for a few moments.
“Mom, what are they doing?” Knox whispers to me.
I look down at her, only to find her big, blue eyes looking back up at me. “They’re saying goodbye,” I say softly.
Knox nods, and then she looks back at her daddy.
I feel sweat rolling down my back, and I glance back at Kelley with Amia. They both sit in the air-conditioned car not far from us, and I can’t help but feel a little jealous. Adam is suffering in the heat with his expensive black suit on, sweating like I’ve never seen a man sweat before. I’m not sure if he’s torturing himself for me or if he just didn’t want to be in the car with a crying baby anymore.
Finally, J.R. joins Knox and me. Ellie is talking with a few of the other guests. He forces a smile at me, and then he places his hand on Knox’s back.
“Are you two okay?” he asks.
