Chapter Twelve - Maddie
December 29th
Two Days Until New Year’s Eve
“You OK?” Tyler asks as we drive north on I-15 towards the cemetery. He reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze.
“Yeah,” I say, forcing a smile. “I’m cool.” I’m not cool. In fact, I might be falling apart. Right here. In this car. On this freeway. Going to…
I look at Tyler, fake smile still in place.
He smiles back, except I’m pretty sure his is real, then he takes his attention back to the drive. There’s a ton of traffic so he changes lanes.
I take his distraction as a time to pull myself together and reflect. Not on Scotty. Not really. More about how long it’s been since I’ve visited his grave. How guilty that makes me feel. Like I’m the worst sister in the world.
Four years. I count the anniversaries. Yeah, four. The last time I was here I was selling make-up online. That was the year I got the idea for the pet bakery, so I was trying to figure out how I could talk my parents into lending me money. I’d blown through all my savings and maxed out seven credit cards on other stupid ideas.
That was two years after they left for France and one year after I totaled their car. Well, my car, I guess. They signed it over to me when they moved away.
I never told them about that. Just started taking the bus. I was waitressing at the Hard Rock and living in a pay-by-the-week motel just off the strip so I could be close to my job. It took me three years to save up money and rebuild my credit enough to buy the little Honda I had been driving last Halloween.
Which I no longer have because I left it in the middle of the street and went home with Tyler.
God, what was I thinking? Not about Tyler. He’s pretty much the best thing to happen to me in… maybe ever. But leaving my car like that was so irresponsible. So reckless. And crazy.
And all those words pretty much sum up the last seven years perfectly.
“How long?” Tyler asks, pulling me out of my self-reflection.
“Four years,” I say. “Funny. I was just thinking about it.”
“What were you doing four years ago?” Tyler looks over at me, but then quickly takes his attention to the road when the car in front of us slams on their brakes. “Fuck,” he says, changing lanes again.
“Four years ago…” Four years ago I was declaring bankruptcy. I was dead-ass broke. I was… unrecognizable. “I was selling make-up online.”
“Really? How was that?”
Wow. There’s still so much we don’t yet know about each other. Which kind of makes me excited, actually. Because it means there’s a lot to learn.
“Pretty good,” I say, nodding my head.
“Why’d you stop?”
“Oh.” I wave my hand in the air. “They went out of business. Left me with a shitload of stock too. Which I did sell on Ebay eventually.”
I just got rid of the last of that stock about six months ago. Which is ironic, because the very day I made that final sale—if you can call losing a hundred percent of the price I paid for it a “sale”—I had a drink with Annie. We bumped into each other at the post office and then drove over to a little bar to catch up since I was avoiding my wedding planner job after the Carlos shit started going sideways. And I told her all about my big online makeup venture and how it was over now, and I was a wedding planner but had another new idea, and we toasted to new beginnings.
That’s when she mentioned she needed a roommate.
Weird. How two completely unrelated things can become related.
I sure did get a new beginning, and I’m not complaining about how it all turned out, but… Jesus. So much has happened in that short period of time.
Tyler says, “If I’d had been here I’d have bought all the makeup.”
“Really? And done what with it?”
“Dunno. But you’d be driving a pink Caddie right now.”
God, I love him. “Thanks for this.”
“For what?”
“Coming with me to the grave.”
“You’re coming with me.” Then he squeezes my hand again. “But yeah. It’s hard.”
I nod, refusing to cry. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s hard.”
“Does it get any easier?” he asks.
“No,” I say. And now it’s my turn to squeeze his hand. “At least it hasn’t yet. But I’m glad you’re here.”
He sighs through his nose. Nods. Goes silent as he probably runs the past several years through his mind too.
In a way, life is like those dumb choose-your-own-adventure books we found in the closet. Sell makeup online, turn to page 34. Total your car, turn back to page 16. Fail at the make-up business, go back to start. Meet an old friend at the post office, skip to page 200. Get caught up in a drug lord’s crazy, go back to start. Get a job stripping at Pete’s, go to page 90. Fall in love with your childhood crush…
Then what?
That’s like the happily ever after, right? Achieving your goals isn’t the end, it’s supposed to be a beginning. Isn’t it?
So back to the start, I guess. “Book two. Page one.”
“What?” Tyler says. He looks over at me, smiling. Either his past four years have been better than mine—which I doubt—or he’s putting on a brave front for my sake. Just like the one I’m putting on for him.
“You know. Those choose-your-own-adventure books. We met, we did...all this, and now what? We’re at the end of the book. Commander Morgan has swept the Space Goddess off her feet and now what?”
He chuckles. Just a little one, but I’m pretty sure it’s real. “Book two. Page one.”
“Yeah,” I say.
We squeeze each other’s hands as he gets off the freeway. Less than a minute later I can see the cemetery off to the right and I begin to sweat, even though it’s cool out today.
“The last time I came here I was drunk. I said a lot of mean things to him. Like really shitty things.”
I didn’t mean to admit that. But fuck it. If I can’t tell Tyler about these things, then who can I tell? Plumeria Brown? No, thank you.
“I was drunk for the funeral too. I barely remember it. I know it was special. I know there was a color guard and cannons or whatever it is they fire to memorialize firefighters killed in the line of duty. I know there were a lot of men in uniform. And lots of crying. I know I got up halfway through the burial and left. Just walked away. My dad came looking for me in the car. I was almost to the freeway and… I don’t know where I was going. Like was I just gonna stumble onto the freeway? Where was I going?”
I pause to look at Tyler. As if he has the answer to this question. But it’s ridiculous because he wasn’t even there. And I know that’s what he’s thinking about. How he wasn’t there. And now we’re probably both thinking about all the things between then and now. All the failures. All the mistakes. All the sadness. All the—
“I’m so, so, so sorry I wasn’t there, Maddie.”
“Me too,” I whisper, my eyes already searching for the grave as we turn into the cemetery entrance. I point to the road that goes off to the left and he turns. “It would’ve been better if we’d had each other.” He nods.
Silence as I guide him the rest of the way to the grave by pointing my finger until we reach Scotty’s row and he stops the car.
Turns it off.
Silence.
Stillness.
“We’re here,” I say.
“Yeah, we are,” he replies.
We get out of the car at the same time. Meet at the entrance to the row and find each other’s hands. Squeezing tight, together.
I have a sudden stab of fear now that we’re here. I want to get back in the car. I want to drive home. I want to go back to bed, bury my face in the pillows, and cry and never stop.
I want to go back to the start.
Tyler says, “Visit your best friend’s grave, turn to page 99.”
This makes me keep walking. “That’s quite a jump. Sure it’s not page 23?”
“Nah,” Tyler says, focused on the grave markers and headstones. He already knows Scotty’s headstone is light grey and stands about waist tall because I told him before we left. So he passes by all the small, ground-level markers. “This is a monumental leap forward in pages for Commander Morgan.”
Fuck it. I decide to play along. It’s kinda fun. And better than dwelling on all the mistakes and failures. “Admit your brother didn’t die on purpose, turn to page 199.”
“Let go of the guilt of not being there, turn to page 256,” Tyler whispers.
“Take responsibility for your actions, turn to page 301.”
I start to cry. We stop walking and he just holds me, whispering in my ear, “You’re OK, you’re OK, you’re OK,” over and over again until I start nodding my head against his chest, trying to talk myself into believing it.
“I miss him,” I sob. “I just really miss him.”
Tyler drags a stray piece of hair away from my cheek and tucks it behind my ear. Then he kisses my head and says, “Me too. But…” I can feel him swallow hard. Feel him take a deep, deep breath. Feel him rally, for my sake, or his sake, or someone’s sake. And he says, “Come on.”
I back away, nodding. Sniffling. Wiping my wet cheeks. And then I turn, find his grave with my eyes just a few yards away, and pull myself together as I approach.
His name and date of last call is like a dark scar carved into the granite. Above that is a quote. For those I love, I shall sacrifice.
A hot flash of anger rides up my spine and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I go stiff. Bristling at my brother’s choices.
Tyler’s hand on my shoulder cools me off.
I take a deep breath, then drop to my knees and press my fingers into the creed. Tracing each letter. Letting go of my anger. Accepting that this was his love. He loved fighting fires. And he did make the ultimate sacrifice. But that was his choice. Maybe it was a bad one—for sure it was a bad one. But I’ve made so many bad choices, who am I to judge?
But then I remember he saved someone. That guy—I forget his name. Jim something, I think. He saved Jim. Sacrificed himself. And then I recall Brandon… Raven’s Brandon. He had a sticker on the back of his helmet that night he pulled Jeff out of the fire at Pete’s. It read, So that brothers and others may live.
“He was a hero,” I say. More to Tyler, but it’s Scotty I’m talking to. “You are my hero.”
And then I cry some more.
And the words pour out like water. “Scotty,” I say to him, still tracing the letter of his headstone quote. “God. I’ve seen a lot of fire over the past month. People have died in it. Some good, some bad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much fire.”
I look over my shoulder to find Tyler has stepped back. He’s leaning up against a tree, arms across his chest. Our eyes meet and he smiles with only his lips and then nods for me to keep going. So I do.
“I know I haven’t been here in a long time but I just want you to know, it’s got nothing to do with you, OK? It’s me. Because… because I wanted you to be proud of me and I couldn’t come back here until I was proud of myself. Until I was brave again. Until I was strong again. I never wanted you to see me the way you saw me last. Drunk at the funeral, then drunk again on the anniversary. I wanted to make you proud. I wanted to show you that I was OK. And it just took me a while. I’m sorry about that. But I’m doing better, I think.”
I drag the back of my hand across my nose, wiping away the running snot. “And guess what?” I smile, then find myself laughing. “Guess who’s here with me?”
I look over my shoulder to see Tyler. He looks… scared.
“It’s Tyler. He came home. He’s still alive. He’s been through hell and back, but he’s still here. And… and I don’t really know how to tell you this, but we’re together now.” I pause. I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m waiting for a reaction. “And it’s good. It’s good,” I say. “It’s really good. So I hope that makes you happy. That he’s back. That I’ve got him back. I just want you know that I’m safe, and I’m actually happy. For the first time since... since I last saw you. I think I’m going to be OK.”
I have books of things to say to him. I want to tell him about Carlos and the drone. About how we—or someone—blew up the fueling station and took down the compound. About how Tyler has my back now. How I feel safe with him. Protected and cherished. How he makes me laugh with his quirky weirdness. How I think we’re made for each other. And how he might be the one. Might be? No. He is the one.
But I don’t say any of that. I just trace his name and his last call date. I whisper his motto. And then I put my arms around his headstone and give him a hug. Because I think he needs a hug.
“I miss you,” I say, pretending he’s here. That he’s hugging me back. That he never left.
Because that’s all I can do.