Page 90 of The Cost of Forgetting You

My lips flatline. He’s right. I haven’t spoken much since I got off the phone with Debbie. I’d have powered off my phone if I weren’t hoping for Dad to call. As it stands, Mom has already left six voicemails and a slew of texts I refuse to read. The minute we find Dad, I may sink my phone in the river. If we don’t find him…well, maybe I’ll go in with it.

We’re climbing a winding road that branches out of the valley behind his house. Fencing lines either side of the dirt path. Besides a few stragglers dotting the hill, this part of the pasture is mostly empty of cattle. We’re far from the feeders, and grass is sparser on the hillside. Instead, dense clusters of hawthorn bushes interspersed with towering oaks keep the ground mostly bare beyond the graveyard of their fallen leaves.

Graveyard. Oh God.

“Tru, are we driving toward the cemetery?”

His lips flatten and he swallows. It’s answer enough.

We crest the hill and veer left. The trees part to reveal my car parked in front of a waist-high wrought-iron fence. It’s intentionally secluded, cradling its visitors in a cocoon of privacy. There’s no way Roberta or the firefighters or even Tru’s farmhands could’ve seen my white sedan tucked away up here. I know that logically. But as my gaze lands on Dad’s slumped shoulders where he sits on a stone bench in the center of the small cemetery, I can’t help but feel a wave of anger roll through me. It settles in the pit of my stomach, simmering.

All that panic and he was here the whole time.

Truett blows out a breath just as I draw one in, filling my lungs to bursting. I climb from the truck on wobbling legs and stagger forward. The little iron gate is propped open. Moss should grow here in this shaded spot, but the fencing and gravestones are immaculately clean. There are only a few plots. Tru’s maternal grandmother, who passed away when we were in middle school, is buried to my right. I’d forgotten this place, her funeral, but the memory of it comes flooding back. Sitting with Tru in the pasture while the sermon was delivered, holding his hand while he cried.

The man who owned this land before Truett’s family had lost a son when the boy was only six in a farming accident. His headstone is massive, taking up the entire back left corner of the small cemetery. Abel Junior has a garden in front of his stone, and though the flowers are done blooming for the year, their leaves are a vibrant, healthy green. A smaller stone beside it honors his parents. There’s a hummingbird feeder hung from a garden hook over Abel Sr. and Marie Johnson’s grave, filled to the brim with sugar water.

They’re cared for. All of them. With a tenderness that strikes me square in the chest.

I glance over my shoulder to find Truett. He’s standing at the entrance with his hands tucked into his jeans. His gaze isn’t trained on me or even my father, but on the stone in the center of the private cemetery.

Lucy Parker’s headstone is almost as beautiful as she was. It has live edges that glimmer where sunlight filters through the canopy overhead. There’s a stone slab over her body with the words from an old hymn engraved. Beneath the two dates that bracket her life, a simple “I’ll love you forever” is carved into the face, which is embellished with roses along the borders.

“Dad?” Leaves crunch underfoot, announcing my approach. He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t react. I steel myself, prepared for whatever version of him I might get, as I round the bench and sit by his side. I rest my hand on his knee. “Are you okay?”

His gaze is transfixed on the headstone. A tear slips from his blue eyes, scaling his stubble-pricked skin. Shaving has been hard for him lately. Soon he’ll have a full beard, because I’m too scared to take a razor to his skin.

He inhales sharply, his bottom lip quivering. “I miss her.”

He’s here with me. His words are slow, but they’re his.

“I know you do.”

I study his profile, so similar to my own. Our noses have the same soft arch. Our eyelashes are both straight as a board but long. So long they brush his cheeks when his eyes drift closed and he lets out a low whimper.

“Mom always forgot Dad was gone, toward the end.” He turns to face me, eyes clear as a bright summer sky. “Sometimes I think she chose to because it hurt a lot less.”

I tilt my head. That simmering anger in my gut stills as a dart punctures it, letting out the air. “Do you choose what you forget?”

A tear snags on the wrinkles at the edge of his eye. “I don’t wanna forget anything.”

My heart sinks low in my chest, heavy as an anvil. Or an anchor.

“You know, I loved your mom.”

I force myself to swallow. To breathe through the grief. “Yeah, Dad. I know.”

“But Lucy was so special.”

My forehead falls against his shoulder. We both suck in air that is at once painfully thin and so, so thick. “She was.”

A sound rattles his throat, caught somewhere between a hum and a groan. His hand smooths my hair. His mouth parts, then closes. I sit up, studying his face. He rolls his lips together, searching for words that don’t come easily anymore.

He shakes his head, as if giving up on what he wanted to say and settling for what he can. His voice is filled with yearning when he whispers, “Lucy could hear the music.”

Then his fingers begin to drum against his lap, a phantom melody only he and Lucy can hear.

I try to find Truett’s eyes. To plead for rescue from this heartbreak. But he’s walked away from the cemetery and now stands in the first patch of sunshine beyond reach of the trees. The radio is raised to his mouth. His gaze is pointed toward home, where I imagine Roberta sagging with relief at the news that Dad is safe. That he is fine. Something we would’ve known hours ago if the fire chief knew what the hell he was doing.

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