LUCIAN’S PHONE WENT STRAIGHT TO voicemail, and guilt threatened to suffocate me as I left him a shaky message.
“Hi.” Pause. “It’s me.” Pause. “I just… I just wanted you to know that I’m on my way back. I miss you, and…” Pause. “I love you. I wish I’d told you that before. Maybe that would have changed your mind.”
My eyes watered, but I tried to hold it together as the passenger next to me on the flight looked my way. “Anyway, I’ll be there in a few hours, okay? I’ll see you soon.”
The flight attendant gave me a pointed look before reminding all passengers phones must be in flight mode as we prepared for takeoff. I settled into my seat and looked out the window, hoping to find a new way to broach the subject of Lucian’s cancer when I returned.
But all that found me was sleep.
Birdie was already waiting for me at the curb, and that was my first indication that something wasn’t right.
Birdie was always late.
Always.
But this time, she was here, and she wasn’t alone. Beside her car, Ace waited for me, his face drawn as I approached. I didn’t even look at my sister. My stomach was roiling, and I couldn’t get that sick feeling to go away.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“Let’s talk about it in the car,” Birdie pleaded.
I glared at Ace, and I wanted to shake him. He wouldn’t look at me. He wouldn’t make eye contact. He was staring at the ground, and my heart was shattering into a million pieces already.
“Tell me.” The words came out on a sob, and it surprised all of us. Inside, I already knew, but I didn’t want it to be real. I wanted to rewind three days and do it all over again because this couldn’t be happening.
“He’s okay,” I said. “He was fine. He was in the hospital when I left, but he’s fine. He’s strong, and there’s still plenty of time to change his mind.”
“Gypsy, he’s gone.”
There was such a sense of finality to Ace’s words that I couldn’t process them. I kept shaking my head, and words wouldn’t come out. I didn’t feel it, but at some point, I must have collapsed because Ace caught me in his arms and loaded me into the back of the car with Birdie. She held me while he drove, and I sobbed so hard it felt like my ribs were breaking.
“He can’t be gone,” I told Birdie. “You have to take me to the hospital. There’s still time.”
“There isn’t,” Birdie said through teary eyes. “I’m so sorry, Gypsy. He passed away last night, but I didn’t know until this morning.”
“He couldn’t have!” I shouted. “He didn’t even say goodbye. He was fine. There were still months, maybe even years.”
“There wasn’t,” she said gently. “It was the pneumonia.”
“No.” I shook my head again. I didn’t want to believe it. This great man had not been taken by a simple case of pneumonia. He was too strong for that. Too much of a warrior to go out like that.
“It can’t be true. I need to see him.”
Ace pulled into the driveway of Lucian’s home, but I wouldn’t get out of the car.
“I need to see him,” I demanded. “Take me to the hospital.”
He stared at the concrete again. “I’m sorry, Gypsy, but I can’t. He isn’t there.”
“Then where is he?”
“He’s been cremated,” Birdie said softly. “Everything was already set up. He didn’t want you to see him that way. He didn’t want you to remember him like that.”
“No.” The word came out too quiet, so I screamed it instead. Birdie tried to comfort me, but there was no comfort to be found. Because at that moment, I wanted to die too. And I finally realized what Lucian meant. I finally realized his pain.
He had left it behind and passed it onto me.