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He manages to keep one hand on my knee while he goes through a few more tissues, and I steadily rub his back.
When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet and croaky and only for me to hear. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”
A tearful ache spikes up my throat. I try to swallow it back before I whisper, “No, love. I’m so, so sorry,” but it doesn’t work much.
He sniffles and watches his hand close weakly around mine. I use my other hand to brush gently at his reddened cheek.
Another minute or so passes before he speaks again. “Is it mean that I—that I want to get out of here?”
“Not at all,” I murmur.
I watch his chin tremble. “But I have to, uh…?” He nods toward the Quiet Springs staff, who are just outside the door now, finally having caught on that he needs a bit of space.
“Talk to them? Yeah, babe, I think so.”
He blows out a juddering breath.
“I’ll stay right here with you, though, okay? I’ll help you.”
He nods several times, looking like a scared little boy.
I stroke at his messy hair with shaking fingers, then press a kiss to his cheek.
As he squeezes my hand, he mumbles, “Okay,” and I know he’s as ready as he’s ever going to be for something like this.
So I lock eyes with the woman who tried to talk to us before, and she reenters the room to commence the handling of what comes after a loved one’s death: the goodbye.
*
Because I’ve only ever cared about one person in my life, I didn’t realize exactly how dreadful, stressful, and painful a goodbye like this could be.
I don’t mean to say I completely understand it just from watching Landon over the next few days, but I damn sure get closer.
He’s so…
…drained.
He’s lost a bit of himself.
It shows in how he sometimes tears up out of nowhere, and how he walks less confidently, and how mechanically he moves through everyday tasks. If he’s able to summon a smile about something, it doesn’t approach his eyes. No matter how long a day has been, he sleeps poorly at night.
I take time off work to be with him during his bereavement leave from the bar. I handle the stuff around the house and I assist with Lolly’s funeral plans, which he has to find and check her will for details on.
When we aren’t worrying about things like that, we set Rae up with something fun and lie on the couch to distract ourselves with episode after episode ofParks and Recreation,which we’ve been thinking looks funny but never found the time to start. It manages to get some chuckles out of us, but Landon’s are detached, muted, hollow.
Breaks my heart.
He has always been such a bright light of a man and now he’s fallen under shadow, and it shreds me. I would do anything,anything, to be able to fix it.
But there’s no fixing it. There’s no alleviating it. The best I can do is just…be here. Be here to do whatever he might ask, help with whatever might come up, comfort him however he might need.
I make sure he knows he can count on me. I touch some part of him every chance I get, tell him I love him often.
I know he feels all of it, even when he’s in one of his bad ways, so that’s comforting. He’s had some pretty furious minutes about Quiet Springs, Lolly’s disease, and the abruptness of her passing, but he hasn’t snapped at me, hasn’t withdrawn from me.
Our first kiss since her death comes in a florist’s shop after he grows tearful explaining the occasion to the woman, and even through his heartache, I can feel his affection for me.
He’s also still sweet to Rae, although he’s considerably less playful than before; he accepts her little-kid comfort just as he accepts mine.
