Page 94 of The Cost of Forgetting You

“So sorry for your loss,” Odette Love says, reaching for Kimberly’s hand, then mine. “Your mama was a good woman.”

“The best,” I try to say, but my throat swallows up the words. Odette smiles in understanding, like she speaks the language of grief.

“She kept us laughing till the very end,” one of Mom’s nurses at the memory care facility says. She places a hand on my forearm, a breathy laugh stretching her pink lips into a smile. “She was so determined not to be bathed by us that she’d hide in her bathroom and wash herself with a rag in the sink! Said she was a dignified woman, and she could take care of herself.” The nurse—Lana? Lena?—shakes her head. “She was a strong woman. You ought to be proud.”

I don’t remember how to make this kind of small talk. How to laugh at these well-meaning jokes when inside I’m falling apart. All I want to say is that the real Loretta Ridgefield was dignified and proper, but she also loved to dance in the living room with my dad and garden with no gloves just to feel the earth between her fingers. She was so much more than the confused, scared woman her disease reduced her to, and they can’t even see it. They don’t even know.

“Thanks so much for coming,” Kimberly offers on my behalf. The nurse smiles, dips her chin in a nod, and leaves.

“I want to go home,” I whisper.

Kimberly plasters a smile on her face and takes my hand, but her eyes fire a warning shot in my direction. “You’re not leaving me here with all these people.”

I sigh. Of course I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I don’t dream of doing it every second until the line finally dwindles to our closest family. Kimberly’s closest family.

I have none left, I realize. My grandparents are gone. My parents are gone. It’s just me, Kimberly, and our little girl. The family I created.

“You might want to tell that daughter of yours to wear hose the next time she climbs a tree in a dress,” Nancy, Kimberly’s mom, chides. “Reminds me of Helen at that age. Such a tomboy.”

“She’s just having fun,” I say.

“Delilah!” Kimberly yells. “Get down from there, please.”

Our daughter and Truett exchange a glance. He nods, then launches off the tree branch and lands with a thud in the dirt below. I start toward Delilah, but his arms go up and she leaps. The idea, I assume, was that he’d catch her, but they both tumble to the ground in a heap of flailing limbs instead.

Giggles ring out, and it’s sweeter than any music the choir sang. So at odds with our surroundings. So joyous. I stop in my tracks and listen. Let it calm some aching part of me.

“She’s moving to Italy for the summer, you know,” Nancy says.

Kimberly’s head whips around, meeting her mother’s gaze in a flash. “Who?”

“Your sister.” Her father smiles and shakes his head. “She called last week with the news.”

“What for?” Kimberly asks.

“Oh, some boy she met told her about an art program. It’s three months long. She’ll basically be in a commune, from what she says.” Nancy loops an arm through her daughter’s and starts toward the tree, where Lucy is dusting dirt from Truett’s little suit and Delilah’s baby-blue dress. You don’t dress kids in black, Mom always said. So I didn’t.

“You know how she is. Helen’s always off on some new adventure,” Greg muses.

“Of course she is.” Heat floods Kimberly’s cheeks. I reach for her hand, but she dodges it. The air around us compresses, like it’s holding its breath for what comes next. “She’s gallivanting around the world with zero responsibility while I’m stuck here in the middle of nowhere working as a glorified assistant rather than an actual accountant. My life consists of shuttling an eight-year-old to birthday parties and making small talk about the latest fad diet with the other boring moms who also have no life.” She throws her hand, cutting the air.

Greg’s gaze meets mine briefly, brow raised, then slips back to his daughter’s profile. “You could always move.”

“No, we can’t. You think my husband is ever going to let us leave this town?” She says it like her husband isn’t walking right beside her.

“Kimberly,” Nancy whisper-shouts. She may agree with her daughter on some level, but she hates a scene. And with the heads of a few stragglers turning our way, that’s exactly what this is becoming.

I can’t bring myself to care. I’m so numb, all the way to my core. This has been the worst day of the worst week of the shittiest year of my life, between balancing school and Mom’s declining health and Kimberly’s digs. If she wants to be angry about her sister living the life she wanted, so be it. My body aches with exhaustion and residual grief. I want nothing more than to get my daughter and go home.

I double my step, putting distance between us at the same time I’m closing in on Delilah. She turns to me and smiles. “Daddy!”

I sweep her up into my arms and hold her for the first time in ages. Her legs are getting long and she’s heavy enough that my back will ache in the morning, but I need this. Need her.

The one thing I did right in this life.

Waylon and the pastor are locked in conversation with the funeral director up ahead, and he glances up, measuring the distance between me and his wife. About four feet, I want to tell him. But don’t worry, I can smell your piss from here.

“You okay, Henry?” Lucy says, voice as cautious as her eyes. Her delicate fingers are clasping Truett’s shoulders, holding him in front of her.

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