Page 42 of Loving Luna

When a soft snore passed her lips, Luna stood, sighed, and looked around with wide frantic eyes that eventually landed on me.

I stood there blankly, not knowing what to do, not knowing what I wanted or needed. I was exhausted, bone-weary, and my eyes burned from all the crying I’d done.

“Daddy,” Luna whispered, crossing the room.

The word sparked something in me. A need to take care of her that I couldn’t handle at the moment, and my face crumpled with fresh tears.

Luna didn’t shy away from my emotions as I’d expected. Instead she opened her arms and waited for me to step into them.

“I can’t believe it,” I whispered thickly. “It still doesn’t feel real.”

Luna nodded sagely. “It probably won’t for a while. Your body is still in shock. Your brain is still processing. Be patient with yourself and kind to yourself. Grief is a complicated process.”

Her psychology degree in the making was coming into play. “Yeah, okay. Thanks. I’ll try.”

I looked around the room for a place to sit, but realized all I really wanted to do was lie down. “I need sleep,” I mumbled.

“Yes, you do,” Luna agreed.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.”

“That’s why I got an extra valium.” She grinned. And pulled a bottle out of her pocket, dispensing a pill and handing it to me with the same glass of wine my mom hadn’t finished.

I eyeballed it skeptically but I knew she was right. My body needed rest. My brain needed a break. I smiled gratefully, swigged the wine and swallowed down the pill.

“Good.” Luna offered a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She took the glass and set it back on the table then took my hand inhers. “Come on, big boy. Let’s get you to bed.” She wrapped my arm around her shoulders as if I needed help to walk. I gave her the side-eye.

“Big boy?” I grumbled. “It’s Daddy to you.”

Luna just rolled her eyes and all but dragged me to bed. She took over the caretaker role and helped me into bed. There was no need for me to change as I still had on the sweatpants I’d pulled on that morning.

But I humored her when she took them off anyway and thrust a fresh pair at me. I let her help me into bed and when she climbed in beside me, the little spoon to my big spoon, I held on for dear life.

CHAPTER TWELVE

DRAKE

The valium did its job, and I managed to sleep, but when I woke up the next morning, the pain was made even worse by the fact that I’d had eight blissful hours of forgetting. I woke up like I did every morning, rolled onto my back, and stretched out, ending with my arms folded behind my head. I glanced over at Luna snoring softly beside me and smiled, because I was still so happy that we were finally together.

And then reality seeped in and I remembered the events of the day before. My mom pounding on my door in the middle of the night, delivering the devastating news. My dad was dead.

Tears sprang to my eyes instantly and I blinked them furiously back. My chest suddenly ached, as if there was an anvil sitting on top of it. I gasped for air and then wondered what the point was. He couldn’t be gone. But he was. Fuck.

Beside me Luna stirred, her eyes popping open when she realized I was awake. “Drake.” Her voice was heavy and full of concern as she sidled up next to me, resting her head on my chest and reached up to stroke my cheek.

A tear escaped at her tenderness and she softly brushed it away. “Oh, Daddy.” The pain in her voice mirrored my own.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t permit words. Clamping my jaw shut, I shook my head, squeezing my eyes closed so that the tears wouldn't continue to come.

“I’m so sorry,” Luna whispered. The helplessness in her voice made me feel worse. Like a failure. And my dad wasn’t even here to impart his usual wisdom and remind me that relationships like ours were a two-way street.

“No! Oh…. No!” The piercing scream, followed by loud, heartbreakingly wrenching sobs alerted us to the fact that my mother had woken up in the living room.

“Shit,” I swore, sitting up in bed and looking around the room. I knew I needed to go to her, to provide comfort, to hold her and hug her, but my pain was too deep. I stared blindly around the room, trying to figure out how to get from A to B.

Luna was already up, pulling on clothes. She kissed me on the cheek and ran out of the room.

Ten minutes later, when I managed to pull myself together enough to pull on a t-shirt, run some water over my face and brush my teeth, Luna was sitting on the couch with her arms wrapped around my mom’s shoulders. My mother was holding a cup of tea and a fresh box of tissues sat on the coffee table in front of them.

---