Chapter Twenty-Eight
2011
Phoebe rested her forehead against the glass of the car window and hoped that the coolness would quell the throbbing in her head. Carter, her quiet, steadfast rock, was behind the wheel. Beckett, the perpetual leader, and Jax, the creative troublemaker, rode silently in the backseat as they drove away from the hospital, away from John.
His death had been peaceful, beautiful almost. He’d passed with his sons surrounding his bed, his hand clasped in hers, and the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. With a quiet whisper of “thank you,” John Pierce was gone from her life forever.
From diagnosis to death, it had been a handful of months. Not nearly enough time to prepare.
She felt… Phoebe wasn’t sure how she felt. His suffering was over. Never again would he face another treatment more painful and withering than the disease it fought. Never again would he try to hide the bone-deep pain from those who hurt for him. He was finally free, and she was going home.
Home. The word rang flat in her head. Home was where John was. In the fields, on the tractor, in the bed they’d shared for twenty-six years. Where was home now? Where was her heart now?
Jax, eyes red-rimmed, leaned forward between the seats. “Maybe we should stop and get ice cream?”
The corner of her mouth tugged up. Jax took after her in the emotional eating department, and it looked as though three years in L.A. hadn’t changed that about him.
“Ice cream?” Beckett rumbled from the back, his voice raw. “You think ice cream is going to make you feel better right now?”
“It’s worth a shot,” Jax argued.
Beckett punched Jax in the shoulder. Jax retaliated with a blow to his brother’s thigh.
“Ouch!”
“If you two assholes don’t knock it off right now, I’m going to dump you on the side of the road, and then Mom and I are going for ice cream,” Carter said calmly. He held his hurt further under the surface, Phoebe had noted. Even with everything else happening around them, she’d seen the shadows in her son’s eyes. His hurried arrival at the hospital yesterday came on the tail end of twenty-three hours of frantic travel from his assignment in Afghanistan.
Sorries were grumbled from the backseat.
Well, at least that part of her life was intact, familiar. Her sons loved and fought with the same ferociousness. Arguments and tussles should have been left behind them, each one an adult now. But old habits—or family traditions—died hard. And Phoebe tried to take temporary comfort in the familiarity of it.
The bickering picked back up five miles from home. Law student Beckett was trying to discuss the next steps: funeral home, estate lawyer, obituary. Jax weighed in with his opinion that now wasn’t the time to start berating their mother with details. Carter mentioned that maybe they both should get their heads out of their asses.
It’s important to know what you want. She heard John’s voice, clear as day in her head. She let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. He was with her. She could feel his calming presence and wished their boys would shut the hell up and feel it to.
It’s important to know what you want. He’d told her that their first summer together when she’d been convinced that she had life all figured out. What she would have missed out on had she stayed the course.
If John wanted her to do what she wanted then she’d… well, right this second she wanted some quiet time. Silence. She wanted to lay down on that big bed, on the sheets that still smelled like her husband, her best friend, her partner in life. And she wanted to weep until she had nothing left inside her. And then she wanted to sleep until she could stand the thought of waking up to a world without John.
By the time they pulled into the farm’s drive, Phoebe’s headache had dug in like a pickaxe behind her eye, and everyone else was yelling. She just needed to get inside, lock the boys out, and let them fight it out in the yard like the old days.
She wanted peace.
But there was a car in the driveway. And her dearest friend Elvira Eustace was sitting on the porch swing holding a casserole dish in her lap. A bottle of wine sat on the cushion next to her.
Phoebe slipped out of the car, leaving her bickering boys behind, and trudged toward the house. Elvira met her at the foot of the porch steps. With the knowing that came from a long friendship, Elvira simply wrapped her arms around Phoebe’s shoulders and held her tight.
“He’s gone,” Phoebe said the words out loud and felt her world crumble just a little more.
“Beckett called,” Elvira said.
“It was beautiful and peaceful, and now he’s gone, and I don’t have an anchor.”
“Yes, you do.” Elvira’s arms tightened around her. “Yes, you do.”
Phoebe clung to her friend like a rock in the storm and let loose the tears she’d tamped down. “What am I going to do, El?”
“Whatever the fuck you want, honey.”
Phoebe hiccupped out a laugh. “You sound just like him.”
“Honey, John Pierce has been spreading his wisdom for years. We all sound like him.”
Phoebe heard what Elvira wasn’t saying. She wasn’t the only one who’d lost something wonderful today. They’d all lost him. A father, a friend, a mentor, a neighbor.
“What’s in the casserole dish?” Phoebe sniffled.
“Chicken and dumplings.”
Phoebe pulled back, swiping her sleeve over her eyes. “John’s favorite.”
“I figured we could either eat it or dump it on the ground in homage to him.”
Laughter through tears was good medicine, Phoebe decided.
“Mom?”
Phoebe turned to face Carter. Her sons stood behind her, broken in their own grief yet ready to hold her together.
“We’ve got more company,” Beckett said, tilting his head toward the parade of cars and trucks turning into their lane.
“Holy shit,” Jax muttered.
Elvira’s eyes widened. “I swear I didn’t tell anyone.”
Carter looked guilty. “I may have texted Cardona.”
Leading the pack was Michael and Hazel Cardona in Michael’s pride and joy, a shiny new red pick-up. Their son, Donovan, followed in his ancient Tahoe. Behind him was another dozen cars.
“Oh, my,” Phoebe whispered.
“This isn’t a damn party,” Carter muttered, and Phoebe heard the hurt behind his words. She laid a hand on his arm.
“Carter, they all lost him, too.”
He clenched his jaw and nodded, but she saw the tears glassy in his eyes. His father’s eyes, she thought.
“Let them do this. They need it as much as we do,” she whispered.
He swiped an arm over his eyes, the exact way she had. He’d gotten pieces of them both, she supposed.
“Okay. I’ll go dig out the tables.”
“Take Jax with you so he doesn’t start stress eating everything.”
Carter pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “Love you, Mom.”
She couldn’t say anything for a moment. Her throat was too tight. So, she just hung on. She released him and patted him on the chest. “I love you, Carter. Now, go on. Might as well get the canopies out, too.”
She watched as Carter caught Jax in a friendly headlock and dragged his brother in the direction of the barn. Beckett stepped up and put his hands on her shoulders. “Whenever you want them gone, just say the word,” he told her.
“I think this is exactly what we need,” she promised him.
“I do, too,” he agreed. “Thanks for raising us here, Mom. I can’t imagine a better home.”
Her eyes clouded for the umpteenth time today. “You better start complaining about your brothers before I start crying again.”
Hazel climbed out of the truck. She held a shopping bag of hot dog and hamburger buns. Michael slid a case of beer out of the backseat and looped another bag over his fingers. His eyes were red, his jaw set.
Best friends from birth. That’s what John and Michael had been. Everyone here had a history that was rooted around everyone else. It was the beauty and the pain of Blue Moon.
Beckett dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Love you, Mom. I’m gonna help here, and then I’m going to go fix the canopies. Those two idiots are setting them up all wrong.” He winked at her and took the load from Michael. Phoebe pulled the man in for a long, hard hug. She felt his shoulders shake once in a shared grief so sharp it cut the air, making it hurt to breathe.
Michael pulled back half a step. His mouth worked open and closed a few times, but nothing came out. Phoebe patted his cheek. “I feel exactly the same way,” she promised him. “Now, go get the grill off the porch and fire it up.”
Grief called for movement. Anything to keep you going forward one step and a time.