The Fear of Letting Go (26 page)

I run a shaky hand through my tangled hair. I don't want to feel responsible for this, but the guilt is eating at me. If I had come home to visit, even once, I would have seen for myself how bad things had gotten.

“She didn't want you to know, anyway,” he says. “She was real proud of you for going to college, even if she wouldn't say it in so many words.”

I am silent. I lean back against the kitchen counter and hold my arms tight against my body.

“What about rehab?” I ask. “I thought she got cleaned up.”

“She was sober about three months,” he says. “Came home from rehab and dumped nearly fifty dollars-worth of bourbon right down the drain. I thought Dad was going to lose his mind when she did that. She had me sell all her leftover pills. Even let me keep half the money.”

I close my eyes and try to still my tongue from lashing out at him. He almost sounds proud of earning that extra cash for himself.

“It didn't stick, though,” he says. “I figured it wouldn't. She took her part of the money and bought this little laptop. Started searching the Internet for better jobs and going out on interviews. You should have seen her. She even went over to the Walmart in Perry and bought a new set of clothes for the interviews. They looked real nice on her.”

“What happened?”

“She couldn't get a job,” he says. “Nothing better than cleaning houses or waiting tables. She was looking for a desk job, but that was ridiculous, since she can hardly type and barely knows her way around a computer. Besides, with her face all scarred up, no one wanted her sitting at the front desk, greeting customers. But she tried real hard. She'd sit here at the table all evening, after she got off work, pecking away on the keyboard, looking for something better to come along. I guess after a while, she just got tired of waiting.”

“Where did she get the pills?”

“Pawned the laptop,” he says. “Bought some stuff off a guy down the street who got hurt at work and is out on disability.”

“You knew this, and didn't do anything about it?”

“Well, damn, Jenny.” I cringe at the name. He'd started calling me Jenny in kindergarten just because he realized it made me mad. “What do you think I should have done about it? She was a grown woman. I couldn't stop her from doing whatever she wanted to do.

“About a month ago, she got fired from her best cleaning job. They accused her of stealing some jewelry from the master bedroom. A diamond ring from the lady's grandmother or some shit.”

“Did she?”

He acts angry I would even suggest it, but then shrugs and lights another cigarette. “Hell, damned if I know. She swore she'd never stole anything from those houses, but I don't know where she was getting the money for those pills. After rehab, none of the doctors in town would prescribe anything stronger than ibuprofen.”

I run my hand along my forehead and sigh. The hopelessness of my mother's life weighed me down, like a stone around my heart. “I should have come home,” I say.

“Damned right, you should have,” Dylan says. “What kind of girl leaves her whole family and never even comes home for Christmas? Not once in four years did you come home. You have no idea how hard that was on her.”

“I'm sorry,” I whisper.

“Nobody here to apologize to anymore,” he says. He gets up and tosses his cigarette into the almost empty bottle. “Now that Momma's gone, you can leave and never come back for all I care.”

He leaves the room and goes back to the couch and starts flipping through channels.

I consider following him and telling him he's a real piece of shit, but take a deep breath and grab the keys to my truck instead. I pass through the living room, needing to get out of this place before it suffocates me.

“Where you going now?” he asks.

Daddy is still asleep in the recliner, and probably will be for another three or four hours.

“Someone has to make funeral arrangements,” I say, not glancing back as I close the door behind me.

Jenna

I somehow manage to survive until the funeral, but when the morning arrives, I have a hard time forcing myself out of bed. I want to pull the covers over my head and forget everything for a little while longer.

I have never felt so lonely in my life.

Instead of yelling at me, my father has spent the past two days in his recliner, staring at the television. My brother was gone when I got home from the funeral home, and I haven't seen him since. He's probably been off getting wasted with his friends. Do neither of them care that she's gone?

And what right do I have to care as much as I do?

I pull myself out of bed and go through the motions of getting ready. I pull my hair back into a messy bun and slide into my plain black dress. I feel numb, as if life has no meaning anymore.

Daddy is waiting for me in the living room. He's managed to squeeze himself into his one decent pair of slacks. His tie is crooked, but I can't bring myself to get close enough to him to fix it.

“Come on, then,” he says. “Let's get this over with.”

A tear rolls down my cheek as I follow him to his truck. I wipe the tear away, afraid that if I allow them to fall in earnest, they may never stop.

We don't speak on the ride to the funeral home, and I'm glad for the silence. I have nothing to say to him, anyway.

When we get there, the room is nearly empty except for a few of my mother's long-standing clients and a couple of ladies I remember from her bowling team. My mother didn't have a lot of friends.

I walk to the front of the room and sit down in one of the brown folding chairs. There is no casket. My mother's wish was always to be cremated, and what remains of her lies encased in a brass urn sitting atop a table in the front of the room. My father sits next to me, and when his leg accidentally brushes mine, I move away as if he's burned me.

I want to tell him this is all his fault, not mine, but it feels useless to pass blame now.

After a few minutes of silence, Dylan walks in and sits beside us. He's wearing jeans and an old Metallica t-shirt. He's obviously hung over or high, and it takes everything in me not to tell him to leave. If he can't at least show a little respect for our mother now, then he shouldn't be here at all.

The funeral director comes in and expresses his deepest sympathies to the family, but there is no real emotion on his face. We are nothing more than a job to him. A duty that must be performed. My mother was no one in this community, and no one has come to say goodbye.

But before the man begins the ceremony, the double doors in the back open. I turn to see Preston, Knox, and Leigh Anne enter the room.

The tears I've been trying so desperately to hold inside all morning come rushing forth at the sight of them. A choked sob escapes my throat, and I stand on shaky legs as Preston throws his arms around me.

I thought it would be easier to do this alone, but I was wrong. I didn't realize how much I needed them here until they walked through those doors.

I lean against him, my tears soaking the black coat of his suit. Leigh Anne puts her hand on my back and whispers something to me. I'm crying too hard to hear her, but I feel her words in the deepest part of my heart.

The funeral director begins to speak, and I leave my father's side. I take a seat on the other side of the aisle, my friends gathered around me as I say goodbye to my mother one last time.

Preston

After the ceremony, we walk out into the parking lot.

“Thank you for coming,” Jenna says, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I can't believe you drove all this way.”

“Sorry we were late,” I say. “We took a few wrong turns on the way in.”

“It's okay,” she says. “It's not like there were a ton of people here, anyway.”

The only funeral I've ever been to was my grandfather's when I was seven. I remember the church being so full there were people standing all along the back. I don't know what I was expecting today, but seeing only a handful of people there to pay their respects to Jenna's mom broke my heart.

“Do you want to get something to eat? Is there anything we can do for you?” Leigh Anne asks. She takes Jenna's hand.

“No, I don't feel like eating,” she says. “I don't feel like doing much of anything, to be honest.”

“That's understandable,” Knox says. He lost his own mother when he was younger, so out of all of us, he probably understands what she's going through the most. “It's going to take some time for things to feel normal again.”

Jenna shakes her head and dabs a tissue at her eyes. “I thought I was done with this place,” she says. “Like I'd moved on and moved past it, but the second I pulled into town, it all came rushing back.”

Her brother and father walk out of the funeral home. Her brother barely glances our way, heading instead for an old worn out Dodge. He drives away without a second glance. Her father, though, heads right for us.

“Are these some of your fancy college friends?” her dad asks. He's bigger than I imagined him. Tall and fat. I try to picture him throwing a punch at Jenna, and wonder what kind of person beats up on his wife and children.

“Daddy, this is my friend Leigh Anne and her boyfriend Knox. And this is my other friend Preston.”

I ignore the hurt of being introduced only as a friend. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

I hold my hand out to him, but he doesn't shake it. There's nothing about this man that's a gentleman, and the way he narrows his eyes at Jenna makes me worried. I feel the overwhelming urge to get her out of here as fast as possible, as if the air around us has turned rancid.

“So, I guess you're too good to even sit with your own father during his time of need, huh?”

Jenna swallows, her jaw tensing. “This isn't about you, Daddy,” she says.

“Oh, well, excuse me for thinking I had a right to mourn your mother,” he says, his face turning red. “If I remember correctly, it wasn't you taking care of her the past few years, was it? No, you made it clear you didn't care about any of us when you left. You should have stayed gone.”

I put my hand on Jenna's shoulder and try to walk her toward my car, but she pulls away.

“Taking care of her? Is that what you call it?” she shouts. “You let her drink herself to death, Daddy. That's on you, not me.”

“Well, it certainly wasn't you staying up with her all hours of the night, making sure she was still breathing after going on one of her binges,” he says.

“No, I got the hell out of your house,” Jenna says. “The way Momma should have done years ago. If it wasn't for you, she'd have at least had a chance at happiness.”

“You watch your tongue, little girl,” he says through clenched teeth. “You always did think you were better than all of us, didn't you? Biding your time until you could leave us in the dust. But don't think I can't see straight through you. You might clean up nice, but underneath it all, you're a whore just like your mother.”

Anger like I've never known rips through me, and I step in front of Jenna, shielding her from her father.

“Sir, I think maybe you ought to just head on home now,” I say. “It's been an emotional day for everyone.”

“I wasn't talking to you,” he says, stepping forward until I can smell the sweat pouring off him. “But I bet you know better than anyone how much of a little whore she really is, don't you?”

Jenna puts a hand on my shoulder. “Preston, just walk away,” she says. “He's not worth it.”

But I can't walk away. Is this the trash Jenna's been dealing with her whole life?

“I feel sorry for you,” I say, not backing down an inch. “I feel sorry that you're too blind to see the person she really is. The person she's become in spite of you.”

“You have no idea who you're talking to, boy,” her father says.

“Oh, I know exactly who you are.”

“Preston, please,” Jenna says. “Don't do this.”

But I am so angry, I can hardly hear her. All I can think of is every mean word that must have come out of this man's mouth when he spoke to his little girl. How he taught her never to trust a man. The thought of him ever putting a hand to her makes me insane with rage.

“Is this how you've been putting yourself through school?” her father asks, his lips snarling up to show decaying teeth. “How many guys like this you got lined up, just waiting for a piece? Cause that's the only way I can figure you made it this far.”

“You son of a bitch.”

I can't help myself. My hand curls into a tight fist, and I slam it into his face. He's tougher than he looks, because I expect him to fall from a hit that hard. But he doesn't. Instead, he throws a punch straight at me, catching me off guard as my eye explodes in pain. I fall back two steps, my fists ready to fly again, when Knox grabs my arm.

Jenna steps in front of me, pushing me toward the car. “Just go,” she says. “I can't believe you would do this, today of all days.”

My stomach tightens into knots. “I couldn't stand the way he was talking about you,” I say. I wrench my arm from Knox's grasp, but Jenna backs away when I move closer. “You don't deserve that and you know it.”

“No, but I don't need you to fix my life for me, Preston,” she says, her voice raised. “I don't need you to be some knight in shining armor, come to sweep me off my feet. And I certainly don't need you to go punching my father in the face on the day of my mother's funeral.”

I struggle to catch my breath. I look over at her father, his fists still clenched and sweat pouring off his brow. “Jenna, I'm so sorry,” I say. “I just—”

“You just need to leave,” she says. Tears well up in her eyes and she shakes her head. “There's a McDonalds around the corner. Go get some lunch or something and wait for me there. I'll meet up with you in a little bit.”

“Jenna—”

The cold disappointment in her eyes stops my words in my throat. Leigh Anne pats my shoulder and leads me back to the car.

“Just give her some time,” she says. “It'll be okay.”

But the light is missing from Jenna's eyes, and I'm terrified it will be never be okay again.

Jenna