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A half-smile tugged at my lips. She’d started calling me Coop again. I loved it. Yet another step towards normalcy.
“Nah, not really,” I admitted, even though it would have been so easy to have shrugged off how shitty I was doing at that exact moment. If anyone deserved to know, it was her.
I’d kept too much from her throughout my life, and I had to make a vow that that wouldn’t be the case again.
Still, the rasp in my throat, the huskiness to my words embarrassed me. Not that she let me be embarrassed for long:
“When was the last time you came here?” she asked quietly, snuggling into my side, trying to gift me with her gentle tenderness.
“The day of the funeral,” I told her gruffly. “We moved shortly after. Couldn’t afford to be anywhere close to the suburbs around here.” I sighed, reaching up to rub my nose as we traversed the gravel path, heading past tombstones centuries older than my father’s. Green with moss, tumble-down with age, the overwhelming realization that life wasn’t forever seemed to shroud me.
My vacation hadn’t really been a vacation at all. At least not in a way that most people would recognize. I’d worked hard, been attacked by a bat, had a short stay in a hospital clinic, and was now visiting my father’s grave... Not everybody’s idea of vacation hotspots. However, I was coming to realize that this had actually been exactly what I needed.
These reckonings, as it were, were a long time coming.
I’d wasted so many years with her. Though I swore to waste no more time, I knew I’d never be able to get back what had been lost. But it made it easier to make a vow to myself and to her, even if it was silently spoken, to waste no more time with her. And surrounded by the one certainty in life, death, that vow was all the more powerful for it.
“What happened? Why did you lose everything?”
I shrugged. “Bad investments. He took one too many, lost it all, and that’s why he’s here and not roaming around still. He was bipolar, but it wasn’t called that back then, and he used to have these moments of blackness that, to this day still terrify me,” I admitted. “One thing I’ll never forget is when my mom told me the news, I was almost relieved not to have to be around that anymore.”
The confession escaped me on a whirl of air. I’d never told anyone that before. Never.
I peeked at her, terrified she’d be judging me, terrified she’d be horrified at my admission.
“It can’t have been easy for you, growing up around that,” was all she said, her tone and her features serene—not an ounce of tension in them. That in turn helped ease the tension from me. “Can’t expect a small boy to understand bipolar. Hell, adults don’t understand it, and I bet a lot of sufferers go through divorces because their partners can’t deal with it. Why should you have been able to?”
“Because I was his son,” I whispered softly. “And he wasn’t always bad. There were plenty of good days too.” Well, not on the professional front. Personal, however? That was another matter entirely.
“Yeah, but you were frightened on the bad days. Your fear fed that relief at his not being around anymore. Anyway, that was a momentary instance, Coop. I’m sure once you’d processed everything, you felt more than just relief.”
I thought about that, then nodded. “I guess you’re right. Each day brought something new.” Talk about understatement. When the true horrors of what my father had done sank home, when we learned the extent of his perfidy, everything had changed. None of it for the better.
She shuddered. “I can only imagine. I’m sorry, sweetheart. You should never have had to go through that. No child should lose a parent, and no child should have to lose everything at the same time.”
I grimaced. “You don’t have to pity me, Lauren.” Last thing I wanted was that.
“I’m not pitying you,” she snapped, her tone angry and the heat in her eyes telling me I’d managed to piss her off without meaning to. “I mean it. This isn’t pity. It’s sympathy. Hell, empathy too. I feel for that kid. I’d feel for any kid that had gone through what you had, Coop. Jesus.”
My lips twitched at her staunch defense. “Sorry.”
She growled under her breath. “Don’t be. Just don’t be dumb again.”
I snorted, then getting my bearings, pointed down one pathway. “I can’t believe I remember where the grave is,” I admit gruffly, the pebbles under my feet crunching as I spoke before we began to walk on soft, velvety lawn. “I’ve only been here once.”
I could feel the moisture from the wet grass seeping into my shoes and wished I’d worn something more substantial than high tops, but the truth was, this visit had come out of the blue.
It had popped into my head this morning, and the burning need to come here had filled me. After spending the night for observation, I’d only been released from the hospital just before lunch. I’d been given the all clear to drive, and when I’d gotten behind the wheel of my car—which Lauren had driven over for me—I’d taken the opposite direction of the rental home I was staying in.
“It was a traumatic day for you, and we tend to remember the bad,” was all she said. In fact, she hadn’t said much today. Not when I’d told her where we were going.
I couldn’t tell if she was creeped out by being here or what. I’d ask, but selfish though it was, this wasn’t something I could do alone. I needed her here. With me. At my side.
Hell, I needed that for always.
Letting out a sigh when I saw the black polished granite, I murmured, “We’re here.”
For a second, I was blindsided by how I felt. That young kid inside me was almost screaming to get out as I stared at the grave. Seeing his name engraved there, the lack of flowers to the untended site, I felt guilt, but also a curious sense of rage.
