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“Are you okay?” I reached for the church fan Penny had brought over a few days before. “Do you need me to call the nurse?”
“No.” Mama barely had enough strength, but her fanning habit was too strong after all those years in a church in the Lowcountry swelter. “I’m fine. Wonderful actually. It’s just your stories are making all my angels sing… if you know what I mean.”
“Mama, this is weird.”
I can’t tell you how many of those moments we had. I cherish them all.
“It ain’t weird. We’re laughing about all the great things in life.” She stopped fanning herself. “That’s a helluva lot better than spending your last minutes crying over it.” She squeezed my hand. “Now, don’t stop.” She laughed. “Wait… that’s what you said, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I did.”
So I didn’t hold back. I told her everything, and she loved it like her favorite books come to life (pun intended) until the story of our last time together.
“It was powerful, actually.” My head rested on the pillow next to hers. She was turned my way like I was telling the best XXX-rated bedtime stories. “The last time the three of us were together, I swear I couldn’t stop crying after it. Like something came over me. At how I’m gonna miss Silas and how Redix and I can’t seem to get it right.”
I didn’t want to burden my mama, not then. But she could see it along with the tears in my eyes. “Mama, I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re not gonna know,” she said. “You’re gonna feel it. Not everything is tactics and training. Just let go, and you’ll feel the answer. You’ll know when it’s right.”
She played with my hair. I was five again and so thankful. “You know when I knew me and your dad were good again? That we were back together until the end.” She stopped. “Until now.”
The lump in my throat. It was a mountain holding back my sob. “When?” I barely muttered.
“When we were fussing and fighting, and I started coughing. And right in the middle of telling me what a mule-headed beauty I was, your dad poured me a glass of water, just like that. He was pissed as hell, and so was I, but that’s love. You keep caring through the anger.”
We had lots of great talks—way too many laughs. So much so I swear we were pissing off other people on the hospital floor, but we didn’t care.
Everyone visited.
Penny brought welcome news when she came by in the first few days. They tracked the phone they found on Derek back to where Gentry’s old sailboat was hidden on the island. And there, they found Cam Le. Alive.
“How is she?” I was afraid to ask.
“She’s gonna be okay, all things considered,” Penny answered. And like my mama was still Sheriff, Penny debriefed us. “We found so much on Derek’s phone. It’s like he’s been obsessed with Redix all this time. We even found chats where he posted threats and outright lies about him. It’s sick.”
“Is Redix okay?”
“Yeah.” Penny can’t help but like him now. “He doesn’t care about the stuff Derek posted on him. But he created a fund for Cam. For all the victims. They’ll have all the medical care, counseling, and even housing and such to get their lives back. And Silas got his family’s foundation to help, too. It’s gonna be okay from here.”
That news filled my fragile heart, and I had to fight the tears biting at my eyes. “What about Pamela?”
“No clues yet.” Penny hated delivering that news. “Gentry claims he had no idea Derek was using his old boat as a hideout, and we found no evidence of an alternate location. We’re back at square one with Pamela.”
“No, you’re not.” Mama sat up as tall as she could in bed. “You’re gonna find her. She’s gonna be okay. I promise.”
Part of me wanted to believe her. Like she had the ability to give such a divine prophecy. The other part of me hated why.
Silas came by a couple of days later. He was great with my mama and took my dad to lunch several times over the weeks to give him needed breaks. I remember that part.
But I wouldn’t leave her side.
Redix came by a few times with his family. His arm was bandaged, and he was back from whatever hell he disappeared into that night with Derek. Redix was so focused on my mama and worried about his because our moms were best friends. And Elise was not taking Mama’s passing very well.
I think that’s when it started to hit me, too. I barely remember Redix leaving the last time or what he said to me. I just remember his kiss on my cheek and that I was slipping away.
Days passed, and with each one, Mama slipped away more into the relief they gave her from the pain. Dad never left her side in the end, either.
It was a couple of days before her last one. In one of her final lucid moments, I swear Mama looked at me like the past fourteen years hadn’t happened.
