Page 23 of Unstable

THE NEXT MORNING, I wake on the couch with the sun blazing in my eyes, which I’m almost used to now, and a huge question burning in my mind so fiercely it eliminates room for any other thoughts.

I almost think myself deranged, my curiosity morbid, but I want to hear Gatlin’s account of that night too.

I want every possible,bothersome blank filled with an answer. I can’t explain it, but I need as much closure as I can get.

Per my new usual, I shower, change, and grab a banana for myself and several slices of lunch meat for Bourbon, since I still haven’t spotted his bowl or figured out where the dog food’s kept, and head outside.

And there he sits, tail wagging in greeting.

“Here ya go, boy. I’ll go buy you some bowls and food today, I promise.”

He gobbles up the turkey so fast my heart aches with fault, so I immediately go back inside and grab my keys. The mere thought of venturing into town, especially having just seen everyone at the funeral, turns my stomach. But Bourbon’s is empty…and that’s motivation enough for me to suck it up, because my faithful dog deserves better than a cowardly owner that lets him starve.

“You wanna go with me?” I ask Bourbon, but out of nowhere, it’s Gatlin who answers me.

“Nah, I’ve got work to do,” he walks up the middle of the driveway, waving his arms as previously promised, wearing an easy smile. “How you feeling today, after everything? Noticed you got in kinda late.”

I open my truck door and move aside as Bourbon jumps in. “Yeah, I fell asleep at the gravesite. Never thought that’d be something I’d say.” I shake my head with a pained laugh. “Then I got caught up visiting with someone I used to know, who came looking for me.” I lift both brows for emphasis, and to hopefully add the unsaid—“unlike you.”

I don’t necessarily think Gatlin owes me anything, especially babysitting my every move, but you know the saying “dance with the one who brought ya?” I’m pretty sure that applies to funerals as well—find the one you went with and…is now missing.

If I stay and we’re going to work together, there has to be at least a modicum of trust…as close as I can get to that anyway. Leaving me to sleep in a cemetery doesn’t bode well for building that.

He hears what I don’t say and his expression falls, a wounded shadow moving over his face. “I came back, Henley. I gave you the time you asked for, then started to worry when it seemed like too much time, and came back. You were gone. Where’d you go? ‘Cause I didn’t spot you anywhere in town. And believe me, I looked everywhere.”

So he did go looking for me. For a brief second, I think maybe I can’t fault him for not panicking, or say, maybe calling in a missing person’s report…‘cause I have been known to up and disappear from town. But not since he’s known me. So while I feel marginally better about this particular issue, it still stings a bit.

“I already told you, I was visiting with an old…acquaintance. He was telling me about the night my mom died, how he was there, tried to save her.”

I let my silence do the rest of my talking for me, waiting for him to volunteer information to explain away any lingering questions wringing tightly around my heart and stomach. Did he see exactly what happened to her?

When he dips his head and says nothing, I’m forced to ask. “Will you tell me about it, Gatlin?”

“Why?” His head shoots up, agonized confusion in his tawny eyes. “You just said you already know.”

“Everyone takes in a different view of a scene. I…I just need to know everything I can.”

His exhale is heavy, as is the sag to his shoulders. “I guess I can understand that. I…I searched through the darkness, like everyone else, but…I didn’t stay as long as them. That, I shamefully admit. Once I saw my dad, watched them pull his body out, I just…” his heavy lament is too mournful and ashamed to be called a sigh, “couldn’t. I waited a while, on my knees, praying someone would yell out that they’d found your mom, alive.” All the color drains from his face and his voice cracks, “But every minute that passed by and that didn’t happen, and my father’s body laid there on the bank…I broke. Is that what you want to hear? I broke, Henley! I ran home, threw up, and cried like a baby ‘til I couldn’t cry anymore.”

His pain, remorse, is as familiar to me as it is acute, and I suddenly feel like the ass I am, making him relive it.

“Gatlin,” I mumble, unable to look him in the eyes, “I’m sorry I asked. I can’t imagine what that was like for you. And I wasn’t there, haven’t been here, so I’m certainly not judging you. I have no right to judge anyone. You didn’t do anything wrong, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.” I think it’s important he hears that. I just hope he listens, and believes it…something I spent far too long not doing.

“They…didn’t tell me they were going out there. Just left from the main house.” His head drops again and shakes from side to side. “Dad knows I’d have gone to help him, not your Mom, not out in a storm. They didn’t tell me.”

I take tentative steps toward him and, very unusual for me, slowly lift my hand to place a gentle touch on his arm. The hands of the hurt attempt to heal.

“He just laid there, rain pelting down on his lifeless body. I know they were busy, but they didn’t even cover him up. And I couldn’t get across the river!” He tucks his chin further into his chest so I won’t see the tears I have no doubt accompany his sob-wracked voice. “To close his eyes, his mouth. To give him some dignity. It was awful.”

I feel her—the girl I once was—gradually clawing her way up from the deepest pits inside me where I’d long ago shut her away, and gaining ground, trying desperately to break free of her confines. And she cries…right in front of Gatlin, unashamed.

Tears for him. His dad. My mom. Tears for me.

When I have nothing left and gather myself, taking deep breaths in and out as I wipe my eyes, he speaks softly.

“It’s gonna be okay, Henley. We’re gonna be okay, both of us.”

“How do you know that?” I don’t believe him for a second.

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