Pee Bee

I laid in Tegan’s bed staring at the ceiling. Beside me, she slept, worn out from the night’s festivities.

We’d been seeing each other for a month, and as insignificant as some might see that as being, I looked at it as a lifetime achievement.

Because for me, it was.

For whatever reason, I couldn’t sleep. Something was just off. I dismissed it as excitement, and then as my having recognized just how much I loved Tegan.

I couldn’t tell her, at least not yet. I felt foolish for feeling the way I felt, but as my father said, when you know, you just know.

He realized his love for my mother when they made love for the first time. I’m not so sure Tegan didn’t convince me when we kissed for the first time.

I’d never really kissed anyone like that, and although I had very little to compare it to, I didn’t need to liken it to anything to realize just how special that kiss actually was.

All I needed to do was kiss her again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

When I kissed her at her door, I knew.

I really did.

Now, I simply needed enough time to pass so I could tell her how I felt without her thinking I was some sentimental idiot.

I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of passing cars, and tried to fall asleep.

The sound of my ringing phone woke me up. Confused, groggy, and pissed off that someone was calling me in the middle of the night, I reached for my phone and stared at the screen.

Mom and Dad

I looked at the time in the corner of the screen.

3:52 a.m.

My heart sank.

I swiped my thumb across the screen.

“Hello?”

After a few seconds of silence, my mother’s voice came over the phone.

“Bradley?”

She never called me Bradley, unless I was in trouble. I swallowed hard, afraid I really didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Visions of my father standing up, attempting to go to the bathroom, and breaking another ankle ran though my head.

“Yeah?”

“I need you to come home.”

“Is everything alright?”

“I need you to come home, Bradley. He’s gone.”

I sat up in bed. “Who’s gone? What’s going on?”

“Your father, Bradley. He’s left us.” She began to whimper, and after a moment, regained her composure.

It took a moment for everything to register. I think my brain simply refused to process it. At the same time I realized what she had told me, she continued.

“I need help getting him back into his chair. I don’t want the funeral home to see him like this.”

She began to cry.

My heart shot to my throat.

I couldn’t breathe.

I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t form the words.

I couldn’t anything.

After an immeasurable period of silence, I swallowed hard. Somehow, I was able to mutter, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

I choked on each of the words.

“Thank you.”

The phone went silent.

I dropped it onto my chest and lay there in a daze, staring at the ceiling. Somehow, I felt if I didn’t move, if I don’t go there, if I didn’t react, I’d wake up from the nightmare.

Tegan rolled over. “Who called?”

“Mom,” I said flatly.

She sat up and looked at me. I turned my head to the side and met her gaze.

Immediately, she started crying.

I didn’t even have to tell her. She knew. She wrapped her arms around me, and before I’d spoken a single word, kissed my neck.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Immobile and staring at the ceiling, I simply nodded.

I couldn’t do anything else.

She rolled to the side, got dressed, and turned on the light. “Come on. Your mother needs you.”

“Are you going to go?”

“I have to,” she said. “I need to tell him a few things.”

“Okay.”

I got up and managed, somehow, to get dressed.

“Can you drive? I asked. “I can’t ride.”

“Yep.”

Hand-in-hand we walked to her car.

The trip took us fifteen minutes that night, and we didn’t speak. Not one word. I’d end up forgetting it completely, as well as walking through the front door, but I’ll never forget what my father looked like when I saw him.

On the floor, laying on his side, he was still dressed in his tuxedo.

I looked down at him, and then at my mother. I didn’t have to ask.

“He insisted that he wear it to bed,” she said. “And you know how he is. There was no arguing.”

“I think he just hung on until the anniversary,” I said, feeling proud of him in an odd sense. “He probably wanted to cling on to the celebration as long as he could.”

“He knew it was coming,” she said. “Can you pick him up? Get him in the chair?”

I chewed my bottom lip and looked at him for a few seconds.

“Can I?” Tegan asked. “One last time?”

I nodded, and then burst into tears.

She lifted him from the floor, shuffled toward the chair, and then lowered him into it. After brushing the wrinkles from his jacket, she leaned over, kissed him, and whispered something in his ear.

At some point, I stopped crying. It wasn’t because I didn’t care, or that I stopped grieving. I simply stopped crying.

After the ambulance pulled away, I turned to Tegan and took her in my arms. “What did you tell him? When you put him in the chair?”

“Just reassured him of a promise I made to him,” she said. “But I forgot to tell him last night before we left.”

I stood on the porch with my arm draped over her shoulder, and held her close. It was the same porch I sat on as a kid while I talked to him about everything a boy talks to his father about.

My mother stepped to my other side. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close.

And, as I held the two most important women in the world, I realized I had become the pillar of the family.

The foundation.

I tilted my head back, looked up at the stars, and made my own promise.

I’ll make you proud, Pop.