Page 79 of Roads Behind Us
All the sadness, the lost hope and excitement, the feeling that I’d failed my wife, my son, and my daughter all tried to strangle me. It was choking the life out of me.
Finally, Bea pulled off Highway 26, east of Moran. She parked somewhere—I had no idea where we were—and I tried not to break her passenger door when I threw it open, but the fucking crutches stopped me from running away like I wanted to.
I made my way past the tree line along the highway, banged my head against the trunk of a lone quakie, and let the crutches fall.
“Fuck!”
Bea sat next to the base of my tree on the ground and crisscrossed her legs. She must’ve grabbed my Bob’s Feed sweatshirt off the back of my kitchen chair, because now she draped the thick, green fabric over her knees.
“I’m so fuckin’ sorry,” I said, “but I’m about to lose my shit.”
“It’s okay. I’m just here to make sure you’re safe. You scream, cry, kill a tree. I don’t care. Do what you need to.”
When I looked down at the patience and acceptance on her face, I lost it.
Pivoting on my foot, I slid down the tree. Rough bark tore at my back but I couldn’t feel the pain. All the heartache clawing at my insides made it hard to for anything else to get my attention.
“You didn’t just lose Candy, did you?” Bea said softly while I curled into her lap and cried. “That’s what you’ve been strugglin’ to tell me. You lost a child too.”
She didn’t need to hear me say it. The information had been written in every cell inside my body, and the pain had been etched on my face and rang in the sound of my voice all this time. I was surprised Bea hadn’t guessed it sooner.
Sobs ripped from my soul and it all came out, and I clutched at her like I was chasing the wind. I couldn’t hold on tight enough. Bea moved with the violence of the anguish coming out of me, like a tiny boat in the ocean, trying hard as hell not to sink in a squall. I still felt like I might be sick, and the ringing in my ears threatened to deafen me.
We stayed like that for so long that I thought time had stopped.
The rush of pain finally receded enough so I could speak. I wiped my face with the sweatshirt and tried to clear my throat. “When Candy died, sh-she was seven months pregnant with our son. That’s why the third bedroom’s locked. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of his stuff.”
“Oh, Bax.” Tears streamed down Bea’s cheeks, and she cradled my face in her hands, rubbing the beard growth I hadn’t yet shaved today with her thumbs. “I’m so sorry.” She covered me with my sweatshirt, patting it closer to my body to hold in my body heat, trying to protect me from the wind blowing through the trees, rustling the leaves and whispering things I didn’t want to hear.
“Dixon was with her in her truck that day.”
“Was he… Was your brother high at the time? Was he drivin’?”
“No. Candy drove, but I suspect Dixon had been drinkin’. The drugs didn’t start till after she died. He thinks it’s his fault. The doctors said there was nothin’ more he could’ve done. They just pulled up to a stop sign in the middle of town, Candy braked, and she never moved again. Dixon had to shove his leg over the console to get to the pedal to stop the truck from rollin’ onto the sidewalk.
“They died almost instantly. Nobody could explain it. Duo should’ve been able to survive. Dixon did CPR until the paramedics got there and took over. They delivered Duo in the OR, but he was gone. Nobody knows why.
“I couldn’t bring myself to hold him. They offered to let me hold him in the hospital. They said sometimes that h-helps, but he wasn’t breathin’, and he was too small. It didn’t make sense. And now Dixon thinks he can just drop his kid on my doorstep and everything will be okay? How fucked up is that?”
“Very,” Bea whispered. “Duo?”
“Baxton Brennen Lee II. Duo for short.”
The thunderstorm in my head had passed. I could breathe again, but every time I drew in a new breath, all I could think about was that my son couldn’t, and the air scraped and rubbed me raw inside.
“I’ll never know him. I’ll never know the sound of his laugh or what his eyes would look like when he’s happy. I can’t get past that.
“And I feel so fuckin’ guilty because I never grieved Candy like this. I missed her, you know? But her death didn’t eat at me the way his did. I don’t know why. I can’t make sense of it.”
“I don’t think grief is s’posed to make sense, Bax. It just is.”
“Yeah, but how can I explain this to Athena? Oh shit.” I sat up. “Athena. We have to go. I have to figure this out before she gets home.”
“Okay.” Bea stood slowly, brushing fallen leaves and dirt off her jeans, and she jingled her keys in front of me. “You drivin’ or am I?”
With a soft smile, she held out her other hand. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and took the hand she offered, and for the first time in three years, there was no weight behind my smile. Telling her about Duo had lifted it. I knew it wasn’t gone. The reprieve was temporary, and the pain still lingered behind my bones, but for right now, it let me breathe and feel and laugh.
“You better.”
