— AUSTIN —
9. WITH DIGNITY
FIVE YEARS AGO — APRIL 2012
END OF SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL
The desk in front of me was a haphazard collage of comic books—most in protective sleeves, some read countless times using gentle fingers to maintain their stature, and still others crisp and new. I treated my cello with respect, but I treated my graphic novels with…reverence.
Most people gravitated toward the superhero themed comic books, but I loved the quirky and creative ones. Like Fable: Legends in Exile, my current favorite. Set in modern-day New York City, the storyline was mixed with well-known fairy tales…a gritty world where everything was familiar yet twisted.
I’d been waiting all day to read the new release that I’d just gotten, suffering through practice with Dallas and then a family dinner where the only subject my mother wanted to discuss was our upcoming cross country move to Vegas. Just the idea of moving, of leaving our hometown, was enough to make me lose my appetite. We weren’t selling our house, but we’d be gone for an undetermined amount of time, and I hadn’t quite come to terms with the enormity of it.
Everyone had gone to bed an hour ago and my time was finally my own. And I wanted to read.
I pulled the new comic book out of the bag and gingerly flipped through it as I had in the store, the bright colors and vivid graphics flashing tauntingly from the pages.
Frankie was the only one who appreciated my obsession. She didn’t read comic books and had made it clear that she didn’t care ever to do so, but she let me talk to her about them and listened while I explained the best stories and my favorite illustrators. She never told me it was stupid or childish.
Dallas had never shared my enthusiasm or shown any amount of indulgence toward the subject. We might have shared the same womb and the same innate talent for music, but aside from that, we couldn’t be more different. Whenever I wandered off to the comic book store downtown, Dallas got lost in the record shop. He’d always wanted to play the guitar. Unfortunately for him, mother always wanted us to play in an orchestra. She couldn’t understand why he was drawn to what she called “the heathen beats of rock and roll” when there were so many wonderful classical pieces. What she couldn’t see was that for Dallas, rock was just like calling to like. That kind of music flowed in Dallas’ veins, and he wouldn’t be happy until that’s what he was playing.
But my mother was never one to consult us on what our dreams were. As far as Chantel Stone was concerned, we were music prodigies, and she wasn’t about to waste that kind of talent on a guitar and a future with some band that might never see more than the back of an old van and a few musty bars. And that’s what always started their fights because Dallas would retort that he wasn’t going to waste his life playing stuff that only his grandma wanted to listen to. He could play classical music, but he didn’t want to.
Sometimes it seemed that my purpose in life was to be a referee—between Dallas and my mom and sometimes even between Dallas and Frankie. Dallas and Frankie were friends a lot of the time, but they fought just as often. As Nana Ruth always said “Some people are like oil and water, but Dallas and Frankie? He might be oil, but she is the match.”
Deep down, that bothered me. Because if anyone was going to burn for Frankie, I wanted it to be me.
But I knew my role—I was the sand that was kicked over the fire of Dallas’s passion. I was the one who put out the flames of his tantrums and made sure everyone came out in one piece.
Once—after a particularly vicious fight between my mother and Dallas over the type of music he listened to and the type of music my mother expected him to play— Frankie had suggested to Dallas, in a smart-ass offhand way, “Why don’t you just play rock on the cello? That way you and your mother will both be happy.”
Frankie had meant it as a joke.
Dallas had seen it as his salvation.
And Dueling Cellos was born. A mix of classic and rock and passion. Against my mother’s wishes, we tried out for Rising Stars, a reality talent show. Not only did we make it through the first round, but we won the whole damn thing. Now we had the summer at home, and in the fall we’d leave for Vegas for our resident show. My mother was moving out there with us since Dallas and I were barely eighteen, and she had taken it upon herself to take over as our manager. Plus, with Dallas’s past health issues, there was no way she was letting him out of her sight. My father would stay home with my sister Abby. At least until she finished school and he found a job out west.
I still wasn’t sure how I felt about moving cross country, but after Dallas’s illness and all the hospital stays, it seemed only fair to let him live out his dream. Dallas was finally happy, and the fighting between him and my mother had lessened. Frankie had been right. They’d found a compromise. Performing in front of a crowd, playing the kind of music he wanted, was a dream come true for Dallas. I wanted that for him. He was the other half of me, and I wanted him to be completely happy and fulfilled.
The only problem was, for him to have his dream, I needed to make it mine, too. And music? I was good at it. Really fucking good. Only…it wasn’t my dream. It never had been. But without me? There was no Dueling Cellos. Without me, Dallas’s dream would go unfulfilled. With how hard he’d fought for his future, all he’d endured just to get well, I couldn’t take that away from him.
As I sat there, musing over the end of the summer and all of the changes to come, I found that I suddenly had no interest in that brand new graphic novel that I’d been looking forward to all day. What I wanted…
I felt the pull deep inside my chest and looked out my window, across the darkness as if I could see beyond the curtains inside the house next door. I don’t know how long I sat there… wanting. Waiting.
Suddenly, my walkie-talkie crackled with static in the far corner of my desk, and then Frankie’s voice whispered into the silence. “Pssst. You there?”
I picked up the battered old radio, the same one I’d used for years, and pressed the button to speak. “What’s up?”
“Hopefully you,” she said with amusement. There was a muffled thud, and then the radio hissed like the sound of someone huffing through a microphone before Frankie spoke again. “Open your window…I’m coming up.”
I strode across the room, turning off all the lights except for the small desk lamp as I went. I didn’t want any nosy neighbors waking my mother up in the middle of the night to tell her someone was sneaking in her second-floor window.
When I lifted the window and pulled out the screen, Frankie’s face appeared from the dark as she shuffled out across the limb of the tree that was just outside my room. She reached for the edge of the sill, and I grabbed her elbow to help her inside. She stumbled into my arms but didn’t try to move away once she’d steadied herself. Her expression wasn’t the carefree, amused one I was used to, even though she’d been joking only moments before.
“If you wanted to talk, you could have called,” I reminded her.
Frankie frowned. She hated phones and insisted the walkie-talkies were more fun because we were the only ones who used them. “And miss out on nearly breaking my neck trying to climb into your room?” She tried to laugh, but it was forced.
“What’s going on?” I asked, peering into her eyes. “Is something wrong?”
Instead of answering, she leaned forward and kissed me. Not the sweet, tentative, exploring kisses we’d shared over the last few months. Before this moment, she’d always kissed me carefully, like if she was too demanding or rough it might shatter something between us.
Tonight, she was reckless. As she pushed me back toward the bed, her mouth and hands swarmed over me in a frenzy. I planted my feet to stop our progress and grabbed her wrists.
She broke the kiss, her chest heaving against mine, fear and apology in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, embarrassed. Sometimes it was still weird that the lines of our friendship had blurred into romance.
“Frankie.” I rubbed my thumbs along the insides of her wrists. Maybe to calm her, I wasn’t sure. “What’s going on?” I asked again.
She licked her bottom lip and blinked quickly, worry darkening her gaze. “You’re leaving. For Vegas.”
I felt my shoulders slump a bit and I bent my head to bring my face closer to hers. We’d known that moving to Vegas would eventually happen. It hadn’t felt real until today when the date for our departure was finalized. And as I looked in Frankie’s eyes, I could see the hurt in them. I’d sent her a text after dinner to let her know because I wasn’t sure how to tell her to her face.
“Not for months,” I said, trying to sound hopeful. “We have the rest of the school year and the summer.”
“But you will eventually leave. And I…I can’t…I don’t think I can handle it,” she admitted. Her eyes were glistening as she pressed her lips together.
The shock of her statement crushed my chest for a moment. Frankie had always handled everything. She was the strong one. And even if she was voicing fears I already had, it sounded worse coming from her. I was the one who always worried. Never her.
“You should come with me,” I said quietly.
Her eyebrows dipped, and her mouth flattened further into displeasure. “Come with you? That’s not even…” She huffed. “I’m only seventeen, Austin. Even though I turn eighteen in August, Nana isn’t going to let me move clear across the country to hang around while you,” she paused to flutter her hand around and then continued, “follow your dreams. What am I supposed to do? Go all the way out there and get a job at Target or something? I don’t think the role of best friend is one of those things—where you tag along with someone while they pursue a career.” There was so much bitterness in her words that I could taste it.
A sound of disgust echoed in my chest. “You’re more than just my best friend. You know that.”
She lifted a hand to rub across her forehead as she closed her eyes. “I know. I know,” she said softly. “But I still can’t leave for Vegas on a whim. You will be working. And I’d be…floundering.”
I pulled her hands close to my chest and looked down at her fingers as I stroked along them with my own. “You could go to school out there.” She started to give me a look like I was crazy because we both knew she wasn’t planning on college right away. She couldn’t afford it yet.
“And there are tracks,” I said, silencing her before she could give me an argument. “You could train on your dirt bike, compete, maybe even get a job at one of them. Whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be school. There are just as many opportunities out there as there are here. Maybe more.” I didn’t mention that if she moved out west, she’d also be leaving behind the stigma of her family’s reputation and that leaving the small town of Buckley, Maryland would be a way for her to shed the rumors.
“You think so?” she asked, hopefully. Like she’d already thought about it but had been too logical to even consider it.
I looked up to meet her eyes and was satisfied to see my relief reflected in her expression. “What other reason do you have to stay?” I asked. “I know you’re close to your family and don’t want to leave them, but all of your brothers have moved out, and Nana Ruth has her friends to keep her busy.”
I didn’t mention that once I left, Frankie would be severely lacking in the friend department.
“There are so many options for you out there. I even printed out some applications for scholarships and loans you might be able to get if you want to apply for school in the spring. They say it’s easier to get into schools in the spring. And I’ve also got some printouts on the local tracks—” I turned to my desk where the papers were buried under the comic books, but she held tight to my hand and pulled me back to her.
“You were researching this? For me?” She chewed on her bottom lip and that light of hope I’d seen so often before was creeping into her eyes. Her father had taken that light away one too many times. I wanted to be the one who kept it there. The one who made sure it never went out.
Frankie licked her lips and then pulled the bottom one between her teeth. She looked like she was about to cry.
“Come here,” I said. I tugged on her hand and led her over to my bed so we could both sit down side by side, our backs against the headboard.
We sat in silence for a few moments, our fingers doing a slow dance across one another as we held hands. Then, in the silence of the night, we planned our future.
***
I held the copy of Fable in my hand, the smell of the ink and paper reminding me of the indie bookstore where I bought it. Just looking at the cover had thrust me back into the memories of that night—the night that Frankie had agreed to come to Vegas. The night we’d had sex for the first time. It had been the first time for both of us, and it was slow and clumsy and full of quiet laughter and teasing. Even now, I wouldn’t change a thing about it. No matter what happened between Frankie and me afterward, that night had been perfect, and I wouldn’t regret it.
I set the comic book on the desk alongside the old walkie-talkie which had also been inside the box.
I picked up another plastic-covered comic as a loud bark of sound, like that of a tree breaking half, was followed by cursing that would have made even Pauly DiGorgio pause in discomfort. The noise, both of wood shattering and swearing, drew me out of my memories. Setting the comic back in the box, I strode over to the window and peered out to see Frankie getting to her feet and brushing dirt off the ass of her tiny jean shorts.
She was swearing at the porch railing—which appeared to have snapped in two and dumped her into Nana Ruth’s old garden. After yelling at the broken wood like it was a disobedient dog, Frankie angrily stomped off to the back of her house, pulling leaves out of her hair as she went. I assumed she was going to find Weatherby. I was about to turn away and let him deal with Frankie alone when I realized that it was Sunday and I hadn’t heard a single sound of construction all morning.
Turning back to the window, I craned my head in curiosity to watch as Frankie stormed to the shed behind her house, yanked the door open, and disappeared inside. She was back outside moments later with a crowbar in her hand and a look of vengeance on her face.
What the hell was she doing?
Through the open window, I could still hear her muttering curses as she stalked back toward the front porch before glaring at the broken railing. She lifted the crowbar like a baseball bat, the curved end menacingly hovering over her head.
Was she going to—
She swung the bar around on the railing so hard that another piece of it broke off with a resounding crack before cartwheeling into the garden behind her. She looked like a mafia hitman as she pummeled the wooden railing over and over again. Despite the fact that each blow seemed to shudder through her like she was a tuning fork, she didn’t seem to be ready to stop any time soon.
Frankie DiGorgio was assassinating her porch.
I sighed and shook my head. After the awkwardness of my drunken behavior last night, I had no business going over there. But I also didn’t want to have to take her to the hospital with a piece of deck shrapnel embedded somewhere in her body. And since Weatherby wasn’t around, it would be my neighborly duty to take care of her.
I jogged down the steps and out my front door. As I approached, she stopped slashing at the wood with overhead blows as she breathed heavily and glared at the remnants of the railing. Frankie ascended a few steps to shove the curved end of the crowbar under one of the boards right before she used all of her weight to try to pry it free. She was throwing every ounce of strength into her effort, and the board refused to move even though she muttered threats at it.
She was so intent on her battle with the porch that she didn’t see me come up behind her.
“Need some help?” I asked, my voice a low growl of amusement.
She swirled around in surprise, the crowbar hoisted in defense.
I backed away, my hands held out in front of me. “What were you doing?” I asked, nodding my head toward the board she was trying to rip up.
Frankie glanced guiltily over her shoulder at the board. When I followed her gaze, I saw that it was the piece of wood where I’d carved FRANKIE RULES all those years ago.
“Are you trying to erase all proof of our past together?” My voice was thick as it came out, even though I tried to say it with some semblance of teasing.
All trace of humor was gone from her face. “No,” she said quietly. “I’m just tired of everything falling apart.” She nodded toward the broken railing, but I knew she was talking about more than just an old porch and a few pieces of damaged wood. She meant us and the memories in this house.
I held my hand out for the crowbar, and she handed it over without argument. When I reached out to grab it, I noticed a long bloody gash along the inside of her right arm. “Jesus,” I said, grabbing her wrist to get a closer look. “How did you do this?”
She seemed almost surprised to see it. “I guess it happened when I fell?” Glancing over her shoulder, she looked around in confusion as if trying to find someone to blame.
“You can’t leave it like this. Do you have anything inside to bandage it up or do we need to go over to my place?” I asked.
Frankie shook her head. “I’ve got stuff inside. There’s a bunch of medical supplies in Nana’s bathroom. You know what she always said about having boys around—someone always needed patching up.”
I didn’t argue that it was often Frankie that needed patching up when she was a kid.
“Come on.” I grabbed her elbow and began to drag her up the steps. “I’ll help you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know,” I said dryly. She tensed but didn’t say anything.
Once inside, I paused to let her walk ahead of me. She led the way even though I’d been in her house a million times and knew where Nana’s bathroom was. As we ascended the stairs, I tried but failed not to stare at the way the jean shorts hugged Frankie’s ass into two perfect swells above her tan and muscular legs. All I could think about was the drunken way I’d kissed her in the kitchen last night—like I was trying to devour her—and how right now all I wanted to do was bite her round, luscious ass that was swaying in front of me.
I was confused as hell, still furious with her. Hurt. And yet I couldn’t stop the deep feeling of want that I felt every time I saw her. Frankie DiGorgio was like a disease I couldn’t find a cure for.
“It looks like you’ve made a lot of progress,” I said, glancing around. The pictures had been taken down, and most of the decor was gone. The walls were painted a soft white, which I supposed was intended to make it look fresh and clean. Instead, it looked like someone had sucked the life out of the place I once considered home.
“There’s still a lot to do.” Frankie sounded tired as she reached the top of the steps and turned left toward her grandmother’s old room.
There was a small amount of relief at seeing that Nana’s room was still untouched. The pink rose wallpaper was faded, but still intact. Perfume bottles and a jewelry box were meticulously displayed on the dresser, an old afghan blanket was folded carefully and rested across the bottom of the bed. The room smelled like orange furniture polish. It seemed even though she hadn’t dismantled the room yet, Frankie had at least taken care to clean it. Maybe out of respect. I wasn’t sure.
When we reached Nana’s bathroom, Frankie went to the sink to rinse the blood off her arm while I raided the linen closet, pulling out bandages and ointment. Turning off the water, she grabbed a towel and attempted to dry the wound, blood spotting the fabric with each dab.
“Sit,” I said, pointing to the edge of the counter.
“I can do this my—”
I chuckled darkly. “So goddamned hardheaded,” I muttered. “Just sit your ass down and let me help you.”
She grumbled but did as I demanded, which was a miracle since Frankie had never been one to take orders well. She probably realized that trying to patch herself up with her left hand would be more of a hassle than dealing with me.
Soaking a cotton ball in peroxide, I lightly grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm until the gouge was facing up. She sucked in a breath and flinched a little when I began to clean the wound, but she didn’t make a sound or pull away as I carefully worked around the torn skin. She’d had enough skinned knees and elbows over the years from riding her dirt bike that this was little more than a scratch to her. The peroxide did its job, fizzing up in bubbles along the gash. When the cotton ball I was holding was dirty, I reached for another. I took my time, making sure there weren’t any splinters embedded inside. It looked nasty, but I didn’t think it needed stitches.
After tossing the dirty cotton in the trash, I generously applied Neosporin to her arm.
“When is Dallas coming home?” Frankie asked.
The unexpected question bounced as harshly around in my chest as it did in the silence of the bathroom. A crushing sense of not being able to breathe took over my body, but I breathed slow and deep to calm myself. The shock of hearing his name dissipated as I exhaled.
Dallas was still a fresh wound, but it surprised me that just his name could be so painful when uttered unexpectedly. While I tried to decide how I wanted to answer, I used a few butterfly bandages along the center of the cut just as a precaution.
“He’s not.” I reached into the box of gauze pads and laid a few across the rest of the injury, pressing them gently into the medicine before reaching for the medical tape.
“Why?” A small quiet word that peeled back the thin layers of my composure. “Are you guys arguing? I saw that the show was canceled. What happened?”
I was quiet as I tore off pieces of tape and used them to secure the gauze to her arm. Frankie, even after all this time, knew me well enough that she didn’t press for more. I would either answer or I wouldn’t, but she was wise enough not to badger me. After I fastened the last piece of tape, I lifted my eyes to meet hers.
“Dallas is dead. Passed away a few months ago.”
Frankie’s expression crumpled with a grief so powerful that I looked back down at her arm so that I didn’t have to watch it. I didn’t want to experience it. I couldn’t shoulder her pain and mine at the same time. Not for this.
“Wh-what?” she asked in a whisper.
I took more time than necessary taping the rest of the gauze down. “You remember how Dallas had astrocytoma before Rising Stars?”
It was a pointless question because I knew she remembered as well as I did all of the appointments he went to and the numerous hospital stays. Those were the times when I found solace at the DiGorgio house. When I found comfort in being around my best friend. A brain tumor wasn’t one of those things she would just easily forget about.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her nod. “But the surgery…they removed the tumor. I thought the cancer was gone,” she argued weakly. “They cured him.” Her voice was almost begging, like she refused to believe me. It was almost as if she thought she could will the past away if she just found the right argument.
I shook my head. “It was in remission. Almost a year ago, the seizures started again. They did tests and found out that his cancer had not only come back, but it was grade four, fast growing and aggressive. They said it had progressed to a glioblastoma, and that there was no cure because it was so advanced.”
I was still holding her wrist and unable to look her in the eye, I ran my thumb along the bandage. I could hear her sharp gulps of breath, and when she reached up and swiped at her face, I knew she was crying. Her hand shifted, her fingers tightening around mine. “Austin. I’m so sorry. I—”
“You know how Dallas was,” I said, interrupting her. I didn’t want to hear her pain. Her apology. I’d been angry for so long that I didn’t know how to deal with either. I didn’t want to talk about her regrets. I wanted to talk about Dallas. I hadn’t talked about him to anyone in weeks.
I loosened my hand from hers and gave a bitter laugh. “He never wanted to listen to the advice of doctors. When they suggested radiation, he did a lot of research on his own. He found out that the radiation wouldn’t cure his cancer, it would only make him sick. Even sicker than he already was. From the research he did, he learned that the seizures would worsen and because he was otherwise healthy, he could develop morphine-resistant pain while losing cognitive and motor loss.”
All those clinical words. They sounded so foreign, so removed from what the disease did to him. I could feel Frankie staring at me, confusion and questions warring within her. I understood how she felt because I had asked myself those same questions over and over again. How could something so small take so much away from the loud, vibrant Dallas we both loved? It didn’t seem possible.
“Basically,” I said, “it was highly likely his cancer would have progressed to the point where Dallas would have suffered. His body might have held out and lingered, but he could have been in near constant pain…all while enduring the humiliation of losing control of his mind and body.” I took a deep breath, remembering Dallas’s choice…how brave and terrifying it was. “So he found a doctor in California who would honor a “death with dignity” for him if the symptoms became unbearable. He didn’t want to suffer,” I added. “But even more than that, he didn’t want us to watch him suffer. He just wanted to get the most out of the time he had left, and when the disease became too much to bear, he wanted to take his final bow on his terms.”
I paused, swallowing back the memories, staring at the bandage on Frankie’s arm which reminded me of the many others Dallas had worn during his years of hospital visits.
“So, when the show went on hiatus—” Frankie started.
I nodded quickly, bitterly. “That’s when we moved to California. The seizures were too frequent for him to continue with life as it was. He didn’t want to risk having one during a show. He wanted to enjoy the time he had left while still having the ability to decide for himself when he’d had enough.”
“When…did he… when did he have enough?” Frankie managed to ask.
When? That day…I thought about it often.
We were gathered next to the pool, Dallas reclined on a lounge chair, a portrait of ease and nonchalance. He’d had several seizures two days before. One seizure had left him unable to speak for the rest of the day. And I knew… I knew that it had scared him, because it had terrified me.
“I knew who you were,” Dallas had said, the next morning in the hospital. “I knew you were my brother, my best friend. But I couldn’t remember your name. I couldn’t even speak.” His hands shook as he admitted that, his terror clear. “It stole that from me. I want to live, but I can’t live with the fear that this tumor can steal my voice. My will.”
When he’d gotten home from the hospital, he’d demanded a cookout—a death-day party as he called it. Just our family. My mother had insisted that it wasn’t time, that he reconsider. But once Dallas had made up his mind, there was no changing it. He even asked our cousins to be there. Flights were made, schedules were rearranged, and everyone arrived by the afternoon. Dallas greeted them like he was hosting a back-yard BBQ.
Mom suggested in a choked voice that when the time came, he might be more comfortable in his room. Dallas only laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.
“Not the bed,” he’d said. “I’m not spending my last moments in bed unless there’s a girl underneath me.”
Mom couldn’t muster up enough outrage to be offended by the comment, which I knew rankled Dallas. He kept calling it a death-day party, kept taunting her with bawdy comments because he couldn’t bear her sorrow, her pity. If he was going, he was going out in style—laughing the entire way.
And it was no surprise that Dallas got his way. He always did. That’s what was so amazing about him. He didn’t accept what life threw at him. He took the scraps of talent and sickness and love and opportunity. He wrapped them all together and made them what he wanted. And for his last day, he wanted a cookout by the pool, surrounded by the people he loved.
The sun was shining, and a recording of one of our performances was playing loudly over the speakers of the stereo. My parents were seated on a nearby couch as if counting the minutes they had left with Dallas. I think he knew that they wouldn’t truly be able to give him the ending he’d wanted and that’s why he’d invited our cousins. Dallas didn’t want peace in death. He wanted his last moments to be full of life. He knew that no matter how much I’d sacrificed for him, even I wouldn’t be able to give that to him. But our cousins could. Trace and Huck manned the grill, joking with Dallas, finally making the rest of us laugh as they’d recited stories from our childhood. Pately and her family were playing croquet nearby, and my aunt and uncle were there to distract my parents.
No one but me noticed when Dallas took the dose. He waited until everyone’s attention was elsewhere, drawn by the antics of Trace. He gave me a bittersweet smile and mouthed the words “thank you.” He drank the contents of the glass quickly and then set it down on the ground beside his chair. He rested his head against the pillows behind him and closed his eyes, a smile of contentment on his face, the sound of our music and the laughter of our family the last things he heard.
Five minutes later, he was in a coma. Tears began to fall as everyone realized what he had done, but Trace continued with his stories, letting those words, those happy memories, be the last things that Dallas heard. Thirty minutes later, he stopped breathing.
And I felt an emptiness so acute I could hardly draw a breath. Losing Frankie had broken me inside. Losing Dallas had gutted what was left.
I’d sacrificed my dreams to give him his. And in the end, I was left with nothing.
“March twenty-third,” I said, blinking away the memories of that day.
I could tell by the broken look on Frankie’s face that she was trying to remember where she had been that day. What she had been doing. Despite how much she had fought with Dallas, she had loved him too.
“I think you’re all set,” I told her, taking a deep breath and swallowing back the memories as I put the bandages and ointments back in the cabinet while she stared at her hands.
“Austin,” Frankie said, pushing off the counter and reaching for me. She snagged my arm, and I paused. “Did he suffer?”
I didn’t meet her eyes even though I could feel the intensity of her gaze roaming over me, looking for something she could do. Because that was Frankie. She never accepted that there was a problem she couldn’t fix.
“It was peaceful,” I finally told her as I struggled to keep my voice even.
Her hand slipped down my arm, and she grasped my hand. “I wish I had been there.” I could hear the apology in her voice, the truth in her sorrow.
Inexplicably, my anger flared. Two and a half months ago I’d wanted her comfort, her apology, her presence. But now, it was too late. I’d come home broken and grieving only to find out that Nana Ruth had been hospitalized with a stroke and no one had told me. And not only that, but they’d put her in some unknown nursing home.
I yanked my hand out of Frankie’s and turned to the door. “It wouldn’t have made a difference,” I snapped.
At my words, her breath rushed out of her in a strangled sob as if I’d punched her in the gut. Frankie didn’t say anything as I left the bathroom and headed down the stairs and out her front door.
I knew the grief she was feeling. The helplessness. It was the same way I’d felt when I found out that Nana had a stroke and was admitted to a nursing home a few weeks after Dallas died. Even that hadn’t been enough for Frankie to reach out to me. Dealing with loss when you know it’s coming is hard. When it’s thrust upon you unexpectedly….
It shatters something inside of you.
After Frankie had disappeared, I’d kept in touch with Nana through letters and phone calls. She was like a grandmother to me, and even if Frankie was willing to walk away from me, I couldn’t let go of the DiGorgios as easily. No matter how much I begged, Nana would never tell me where Frankie had gone or give a reason for why she had left. Nana said that it was Frankie’s burden to bear and share. The only thing Nana had asked was that I would eventually come home.
Maybe she had known Dallas was sick or that his dream was a fleeting one. Maybe she had asked the same request of Frankie, and that’s why we were here together trying to navigate our damaged hearts. I had no idea. All I knew was that it was a request I couldn’t ignore.
So, a month ago, after I’d finally let go of Dallas and the letters from Nana had stopped coming, I did as Nana had asked me, even though I knew it might destroy me. I came home.
Coming home without Dallas, without Frankie, I couldn’t imagine it would do me good. But I also couldn’t stay in California. So, I got in my car and drove all the way home to find Nana gone and the DiGorgio house empty.
Just like me.