Page 61 of New River Gorge(ous)
I sense it’s time to leave, so I bring Brooke’s knuckles to my lips and plant a kiss there before I let go. As I pass by June, she reaches out, slightly off-kilter. Her palm lands on my forearm, and my hands steady her slight frame.
“Thank you, young man,” she whispers.
I’m sure she’s not talking about going to the specialist with me.
33
Brooke
Beck left, and now it’s just me and Meemaw.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper.
“Brookie…” she trails off. “It’s not that bad. I just sometimes forget that doing things the way I decide to do them is unsafe.”
“But why didn’t you tell Mom? Youknew,” I accuse.
Meemaw sighs. Her lips curve into a deep frown, and the wrinkles on her face look as deep as the New River Gorge. My heart cracks. “I don’t think I really know anything until I see the specialist your doctor Beck wants me to see.”
“Fine,” I huff. “But why did you ignore it?”
“Because is it just me living my life and being eccentric, or is there something wrong with my brain?” She taps her forehead with her knuckles. “Some questions you just plumb don’t want answered.”
I accept her answer as a fair one, even if I’m still hurt and worried. I’m the human equivalent of a tangled yarn ball of emotions.
“Brookie…” Meemaw sighs. “I just want to see you happy.”
“Meemaw.” My eyes brim with tears as I cross the room to give her a hug. “I know you do.”
She squeezes me as best she can from her awkward position on the scooter. She sniffles in a breath and then, in a shaky voice, says, “I can’t find my phone.”
I pull back a little. “Is that why you were using the laptop?”
She nods.
“Then let’s go find it.”
I didn’t find Meemaw’s phone until early this morning before work. One of my socks had a little pebble orsomethingirritating in the toe seam, so I plopped on the couch to fix it. Inadvertently, I sat on the crack between cushions. With a huff, the worn couch spread apart, and I found myself sitting on Meemaw’s phone.
I had been nervous about leaving her without a phone while I went to work. Her specialist appointment is in two days, and despite Beck saying he’d take her, I know that’s why I’m here. I’m here to take Meemaw to doctor appointments, to be good company, and to help her with things around the house.
So far, Meemaw’s fiercely clung to her independence, and my job has been to keep a bemused eye on her. The weight of what we’re dealing with hangs heavy on my heart, but she insisted I go to work.
“How will you ever make friends if you’re stuck inside with an old lady all day?”
It was a valid question, and she assured me she was just fine, so off I went to work.
I pull out of the driveway and turn the behemoth vehicle through the mountain roads. When I arrive at work, I’m morethan a little exhausted from holding all the fragments of my heart together by sheer will.
“Hey, Brooke!” Logan calls from a perch atop a stack of gear. He appears to be tying a rope knot around supplies for the big day trip he’s leading, but he stands in the direct light of the sun, and I can’t make it out entirely.
I throw my hand over my forehead to shield my eyes just as he hops down from the top.
Logan takes one look at me before he murmurs, “Whoa. What happened?”
Inexplicably, I, the woman known as ‘the general’ because I am always in control, lose the grip on my firmly tethered emotions. The feelings take off, and despite the fact that I’m standing in front of a man I hardly know, I start to cry. And not just cry—uglycry.
Logan opens his arms, and I step into them for a hug. It’s strange, but I know that Logan, the serial dater of tourists, isn’t hitting on me. He’s doing nothing more than offering comfort to a friend.
