Page 119 of Nothing But It All
“I think we have to. I don’t know where else to look, and it’s going to be getting dark really soon.” My stomach sours. “But I don’t know if they’ll even look for him in the dark. And if the temperature keeps dropping and heisout there somewhere—all wet from the rain ...”
“He’ll probably finagle a campfire and be fine.”
I hope you’re right.
“That’s what you would do,” she says, peering out the window and down a side road. “You’d figure it out. Michael would too. You both get that from Harvey.”
I regrip the steering wheel. I’m not sure if I need to get a grasp on the car or on my thoughts.
Both, probably.
“Do you think I’m a lot like Dad?”
Lauren moves Snaps to her other leg. “Is that a serious question?”
“Yeah. It is.”
“Then, yes, I think you’re a lot like your dad.”
I bite my bottom lip and mull that over.
Gravel crunches under our tires, mud puddles sloshing as we drive over them. Trees dripping with rain hang heavily over the road. But there’s no sign of him.
I imagine him lying on the ground, having slipped in the mud, with no way to get up. He could be in pain. Scared. Injured.
My blood pressure goes up again. It’s so high I can feel it in my neck.
Keep your mind busy. Don’t panic. That’s not going to help anything.
Instead of using my brain space to think of all the ways this could go wrong, I think of all the characteristics of my father.
He’s abrasive. Ornery. A giant pain in the ass.He might be dying of cancer and doesn’t bother to tell anyone.
He’s loyal. Capable of anything. Would jump the moon for his family.And is out trudging around the forest because we were all too busy with our bullshit to take care of him.
“Your dad is one of the best men I’ve ever known,” Lauren says softly, staring out the window. “He’s unapologetically him. What you see with Harvey is what you get, and there’s something really precious about that.”
“‘Precious,’ huh?”
“Yeah. Precious.” She wipes the fog off the window with the sleeve of her shirt. “I didn’t know him when you were growing up or whenyour mother was alive, so I can’t vouch for anything then. But I know that when he looks at you, and the kids, and even me, I never doubt—not for a second—that he loves us all.”
Does she think that about me too? Am I like him in that way?
I sink against my seat.
“I’ve been thinking about him being sick and that he didn’t tell us,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “It kills me that he was going through that alone.”
Her voice breaks, and that breaks something deep inside me. I reach for her hand. She grabs mine, holding it for dear life.
“I kept thinking we’d travel when I retired. We’d come up here and stay all summer together. We’d make up for lost time. But then she died ... and the time was already gone.”
A rock settles in my chest, making its presence known.
And I keep losing more time.
“Jack! Look!”
I follow Lauren’s gesture to a parking area on the side of the road. Next to a picnic table and a tall oak tree is Dad’s truck.
