Chapter 41
Jakob
I’m sitting on the porch in the old rocking chair, staring out into the darkness. Every now and then, a car will drive by and I’ll see its headlights illuminating the distance and its engine will rumble on into the night.
But no one turns onto the muddy path down toward the lonely farmhouse. Nobody comes to bring her back. Lily’s gone and she’s not coming back.
Just like Brittany Delaney.
And it hurts like fuck to know that I’ll never get to kiss those chatty, pink lips again or hold her close to me as we watch infomercials in the wee hours of the morning. I’ll never hold that baby or hear him cry in the middle of the night.
He’ll never know how much this sad, lonely farmer loved his mother.
Mini’s wheelchair rolls up to the screen.
“Hey…” I stand and open the door, helping her wheel down the newly-installed ramp, onto the porch.
She looks at me with kind eyes. “Hey…”
“It’s way past your bedtime,” I say with a weak chuckle as I settle back into my seat.
She shoos me off with her wrist. “Don’t you start with me!” She’s so sassy. This feisty old broad is all that’s keeping me together. Her and this farm.
We fall into an easy silence, one we’ve shared so many times over the course of my life. I watch the fireflies lighting up the sky and I can’t help but think about Lily’s eyes and how they effortlessly outshine those tiny creatures. A heaving sigh rushes past my lips.
Mini reaches over and taps my hand. “I miss her, too,” she says knowingly, “but I imagine not nearly as much as you do.”
I maintain my aloof façade. “Don’t worry about it. I’m gonna go into town tomorrow and print out some new flyers at the library. You’ll have a new caregiver in no time.” I force a smile to the surface.
Her pitying gaze falls on me. “And who’s gonna take care of you?”
Her words stab me straight in the feels. True, I hired Lily to look after my grandmother but she found a way to take care of me. And I took care of her. In our own little corner of the world, tucked away from everyone else, we were healing each other.
But that wasn’t enough for her. I allowed myself to get tangled in her web of softness and light and beauty. And now that she’s taken those things away from me, I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
Before, she came here, I was short-tempered and irritable. A peevish, old grouch as Mini would say. But at least it was familiar. I was used to it. But now that Lily has sprinkled her fairy-dust magic all over me before disappearing from my life, I’m lost. I’m drowning in my own misery.
“You shouldn’t have let her go,” Mini says, “She was good for you. And you were good for her.”
I scoff. “You’re wrong. I wasn’t good for her. I didn’t have anything to offer her.”
She squints at me under the thick frames of her glasses. “You had your heart.”
“What heart?” I counter, trying not to roll my eyes. “You’re mistaken, old lady.”
Mini ignores me. She just keeps on talking. “I’d never seen you as happy as you were with her.”
I’m silent, staring out into the black, hopeless night.
“You’re beating yourself up. I can see it. You’re just going to beat yourself over it for the rest of your days…You shouldn’t have let her go.”
“What did you want me to do, Mini!” I yell. “She wanted to leave! She probably wanted to go back to her fancy job and make up with the baby’s father and I didn’t have a good enough reason to make her stay! There’s nothing here for a city girl like her!”
Mini falls quiet, her lips tight with frustration. After a long, moment of edgy silence, she speaks. “Help me back inside, please.”
Self-reproach weighs heavily on my shoulders yet again. I shouldn’t have yelled at her. Especially since I know that, deep down, she only wants to see me happy. And she’s right.
About everything.
As always.
I stand and wheel her chair up the ramp and down the hall into her room. I help her get into bed.
“I’m sorry…” I mumble feebly, as I hover at the foot of her bed.
She just pulls her blanket around her body and rolls onto her side, refusing to look at me.
I turn toward the door. I’m becoming an expert at hurting the people I care about. Not exactly a badge I wear with pride.
Mini speaks as I step over the threshold. “I didn’t raise you rich. I didn’t raise you to be a genius. But I did raise you to be a man. And a man doesn’t sit by and wallow when the woman he loves up and walks away from him. A man fights.”
I don’t turn back or acknowledge her words. But I hear them loud and clear.
Without saying a thing, I close the door softly behind me.