Unstable (10 page)

One more check! Just one damn more!

“Henley, wake up, Darlin’. Come on, wake up and yell at me instead.”

I slowly lift my heavy lids, sitting up. “I checked, I swear. But she wouldn’t let me, just one more time,” I mumble, almost incoherently, and to myself. The last ramblings spilling over from my too realistic, harrowing dream.

When my mind finally joins me in a state of wakefulness and my eyes focus, I realize Keaton’s squatted down beside me, hand on my shoulder. I’m too haunted by things that can’t touch me to cower from his touch, which is haunting in and of itself.

“I know, Hen. I was there, I saw how hard you tried. Always worrying, taking care of her. It wasn’t your fault.”

I glance around, still somewhat disoriented, and put the pieces together. I’d fallen asleep, descended into a nightmare, right here on the hard, aptly unforgiving ground.

It’s funny how the mind is able to remember and point out every disturbing detail when you’re asleep, but conveniently blocks out common sense warnings when you’re awake. It’d never even dawned on me, until they’d taken down the tent and moved all the flowers, shrouding all but the plot dug out for my mother, that I’d seen it…
exactly
where they’d buried her.

Which had to be my subconscious, an internal safeguard refusing to let me even think about the obvious…because where
else
would they lay one of them to rest but beside the other?

But the full realization, seeing the words etched into the daunting, gray granite, staring me back in the face—it’d been too much for me to handle, both of them gone and me still here: selfish, weak and undeserving—I’d obviously passed out from the onslaught.

I don’t know how long it’s been, but surely enough so that Gatlin must be wondering where I am. And yet…it’s Keaton who’s found me.

“You want to talk about it?” he asks, casually taking a seat beside me, bending his knees and resting his arms across them.

I face him and scowl, wondering if he’s lost his mind. “Why would I possibly want to talk about it? And what would I say? You already know what happened. Like you said, you were there then, and you’re here now. They’re gone.”

“Because, talking things out can help. And like I
also
said, it wasn’t your fault, any of this. I know what
I
saw happen back then, but I don’t know what
you
think happened, or how you feel about it. But the things you were sobbing in your sleep, Hen, you need to talk about it. I came over, that next day, to check on you, but they wouldn’t let me see you. Tried to catch you at the funeral, but they were guarding you close. So then I came back to your house about a week later, hopin’ for different results, but,” he exhales a deep sigh, “you were already gone by then. Whole thing was sealed up tighter than a drum since you were both minors, so I couldn’t track ya. And again, they wouldn’t tell me a damn thing.”

“Who is
they
?”

“Your mom, and Merrick,” he hisses the latter as if it caused a bad taste in his mouth. “Tried to beat it out of that fucker twice, and he still wouldn’t talk.”

Forgetting for just a moment that I’m sitting in a graveyard, next to the resting spots of the two most important people I’ve ever loved, the tiniest smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth. “You beat up Merrick?”

“Twice,” he humbly boasts.

“I was in California, near the beach. But I didn’t get a single glimpse of the ocean. Until I checked out that is, then it’s the first place I went. And stayed. You ever seen the ocean?”

“My parents retired to Florida.” He arches a brow and grins. “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

“It tells me there’s a God. Water, vastness with no end as far as the human eye can see. Only something bigger than this world could’ve made something so endless. After I was free, to go there when I wanted, it wasn’t so bad. Sometimes, in the early mornings when it was just me and the wonderment of something bigger, I could forget the pain for a little while.”

If there was any doubt before this is all taking its toll on my sanity, it’s obliterated…because I’m talking calmly,
openly
, to Keaton. I’ve officially lost it.

He next speaks in an angered, yet gentle tone…that most people couldn’t pull off, but there’s not much,
that I know of
, Keaton Cash can’t do.

“That’s good and all, but the whole thing was still bullshit. I’m sorry they did that to you, Hen, real fucking sorry. Never agreed with it and made it known, in no uncertain terms, to your mom. Guess that’s why we didn’t do much talking ever again. But my mom tried to make me see things from your mom’s side, probably so I wouldn’t hate her. Didn’t like her, but didn’t hate her either. And tried like hell to save her.” He looks away on his last words, apology heavy in his voice.

“Yeah, you mentioned that before. Wanna tell me what you mean this time?”

He returns his focus on me, his eyes assessing and contemplative, yet compassionate. “You sure you want to hear about that right now? It’s been a helluva day, Hen. It can, probably should, wait.”

I bark out a facetious laugh. “I already know the worst part, the ending. How bad could the beginning possibly be?”

He smiles, but only slightly, then his eyes brighten a bit. “Wanna grab a beer, or three, for this talk?”

And in mind-altering surprise, I actually hear myself say,
to Keaton Cash
, “Hell yes.”

WHEN A GIRL FINDS
herself in the bed of Keaton’s truck, leaned back against the cab and three beers in, old town rumors of our youth would lead one to believe that girl is one of three things: looking to get laid, drowning in self-destructive sorrow that she’ll smother out by getting laid…or she’s bat-shit crazy.

I buried my mother and woke up in a graveyard today…at this point, I’m past the point of reason, but the last option is still the
only
one applicable in my case.

We’re parked in the middle of one of his many fields, the sky above us filled with more stars than I can ever remember seeing at one time, with the local country station playing low in the background. “Sure Be Cool If You Did” by Blake Shelton our current, soft serenade…great song that I’d sing along to if alone. Or in the mood to sing. Ever.

“This is a mighty fine farm you’ve got yourself here,
Eatin’ Ass
,” I slur a bit and laugh. If my buzz wasn’t apparent before, it is now…‘cause I just called him by the nickname I’d branded him with all those years ago…playfully. I don’t do playful without a buzz. And even those odds are fifty-fifty at best.

‘Bout time I reminded him of it though—he’d come up with so many plays off
Hen
ley that I’d taken real pleasure in changing Keaton Cash to Eatin’ Ass.
Still just as catchy as ever.

“Eh, not real big on eating any ass, but I’m big on
eating
, and
ass
,” he gives me his cockiest grin, “just not together.”

“Ugh,” I groan. “Spare me the details, playboy. And by the way, I’m not sitting out here with you, at night,
drinking
, for shits and giggles. You said you’d tell me about the accident. So start talking.”

He pops the tab on another beer and takes a long swig before speaking. “Well, no one will ever know exactly what happened, but I think this is probably pretty close. We’d had heavy rain for about three days, and that last night, the official flood warnings were issued. So I went out to check one more time, the river, my cattle, just to make sure none of them had trampled a fence and had any access to it.”

Which is the same thing my mom and Jack were doing, I’m sure.

“Anyway, it was coming down hard and it was so damn dark out, but I just happened to shine my flashlight a certain way and caught the tail end of the scene.” He nurses his beer and I wait with bated breath.

“The calf was already dead, bobbing up every so often, caught on a branch and the mama wasn’t moving, staying right with her baby. I didn’t pay that much mind though, ‘cause the horse I always saw your Mom riding was tied to a tree…but I didn’t see your mom.”

He stops again, labored exhales huffed out through his nose.

“Go on,” I choke out, no longer thirsty, setting down my beer.

“I ran along the bank, screaming her name, searching, praying I’d see her or she’d answer me. I tried not to panic, I kept telling myself she’d know better than to go in a flooded river. I mean, everyone knows not to even drive over a bridge covered with
any
water, so who’d jump into a rushing current, in the dark, right? But she didn’t answer, never broke the surface, nothing,” he gulps and shakes his head.

“I’d have gone in after her, Hen, I swear to God I would have, but…it was too late. I called the Sheriff, and I didn’t leave until late in the morning. We searched all night, no one was willing to give up, even though we knew. We’d found him, and when the rain let up and the sun came out…we found her too,” his voice wobbles and then his mood shifts to anger and he throws his beer can into the field as hard as he can. “Best we could figure, your mom’s hand, what was his name?”

“Jack,” I whisper.

“Jack, he must’ve went in after the calf, and like I said, so did the calf’s mama. Judging from the huge knot on his head and twisted, broken leg, the cow knocked him down coming after her baby. Or maybe he just fell, no man could’ve kept sure footing in that current. My guess is, your mom went in to save him. We found her quite a ways down the river. Your mom, such a bitty thing, just got swept away. I’m so, so sorry, Hen.”

“Thank you, Keaton, for trying. And for telling me. At least now I have some idea.” I raise my arm and fake a cough, covering my whimpers and quickly swiping at my eyes.

“She must’ve really cared about him, Jack.” I ponder aloud. “You ever meet him?”

“Not officially. Saw them in town together a time or two, but like I told ya, me and your mom didn’t talk much. I just, couldn’t quite get past the past.”

Same
, I think to myself.

But my audible response forms and speaks itself. “She was only trying to help me. I didn’t exactly make it easy on her, and she was mourning too.”

It’s not the alcohol talking, it’s me, older now, having learned so many things since being back here, and finally trying to face the truth my younger, bitter soul, cut completely in half, simply wouldn’t allow.

Why
couldn’t I have realized it before? Just once, answered a call, a letter…anything. Hindsight is my hatred enemy.

“I know that,
now
, I suppose. But I was young too, and it didn’t sit well with me. And then it festered until…it was just easier to avoid her. But she was a good woman. Not many people would jump into a raging river to save someone else, unless maybe it was their kid.”

I think about his words. Jack was all she had, helped her when I refused to. He no doubt held her when she cried and tried every day to drag a smile out of her. Told her she did the right thing and one day…I’d understand that.

She died with that false hope still in her heart. But it wasn’t false, and he was right—I am back—just too late.

“She loved him. And if
you
loved someone, what wouldn’t you do for them? If your house caught on fire, would you sit on the sidewalk and wait for the firemen to arrive, knowing your other half was still trapped inside? Or would you go back in and die with them, die trying to save them?”

His answer is automatic, a reverent promise said while his gaze locked with mine stays steady. “If I loved someone, you’d find us with our fingers melted together, because I’d be right beside her, holding her hand, to the very end.”

I inhale a bottomless breath, pushing down the sob already halfway up my throat and blink rapidly to refuse the creeping tears. “And now you know why my mom, against all reason, went in after him.”

He nods. “Guess I do.”