Page 18 of Quietly Falling
Besides, bingeing on processed foods does me no favors keeping my migraines in check, so it’s just easier if I don’t indulge in the snacks she’s so adamant we need.
We’ll see how that goes.
In the meantime, I need to clear my head before I let my anxiety get the best of me. We leave in a few days and I need this time to prepare, to settle my soul so I’m not damn near out of my mind sitting in the cab of the truck with her.
Fuck.
It’s all gonna be fine.
I’d taken Remi to the park yesterday after breakfast, chased her around the playground, and brought her home to a well-rested Jensen and Nessa. They were fresh-faced and well fucked, their matching smiles evidence of a night well spent.
And I’m happy for them.
Happy to take their kid.
Nessa had handed me a plate of protein cookies and a couple of premade meals as a thank you, although it’s not unusual for us to swap healthy recipes, with her being a former professional athlete and all.
But now it’s Sunday and it’s the first time in a long while that I haven’t made this journey alone. It’s nice. Holland had been waiting for me outside the house and had come at me at a dead sprint, jumping without fear I’d let her fall.
And she’s right because I never will.
She talked almost the entire way here, but I don’t mind. I like hearing about school and the things she’s interested in, and I want her to know that she can talk to me about anything. I want all the kids to know that.
“Uncle Bodhi?”
“Yeah?”
“Do the families know you clean the stones?” she asks as I pull my tools from the back of my truck, handing her a bucket to carry over to the gravestones.
“I don’t know, Holland. Some of them might but others have been buried here a long time. They might not have any living relatives.”
She seems to think this over. She’s audibly silent but her thoughts are loud as if I can hear them, her energy buzzing around us.
Like Audrey’s had been.
“Then why do you do it?” she asks finally as I point to one of the overgrown markers.
“Because I like to think that even though no one’s around, I’m still honoring them. The person who has no one but the maintenance crew and the person who has a hundred people coming to see them deserve the same consideration.”
“Okay, so this one?” she asks, placing the bucket down and frowning at the dirt and grass covering the name.
“I think that’s a good place to start.”
Holland lets me show her what to do, asking questions before taking over and allowing me to move to the next one. She’s meticulous, her little tongue peeking out in concentration as she works, picking the weeds and scrubbing away the dirt.
I like the peace, the stillness. I like getting lost in the process, letting my hands move over the stones, restoring them to the time they were put in the ground. Audrey’s had only been a marker, the state paying for the bare minimum while Mason and I had been the only ones to mourn her loss.
There’d been no ceremony, no celebration of her short life.
But I can’t tell any of that to Holland. Even after all these years, the memories still keep me up at night.
More so now with Jeffers awaiting trial.
“It’s kinda like what you do at the shelter,” Holland says, pulling me back to the present.
“What’s that?”
“Helping people. You do it with Mom too—like with my hair and when you pick us up from school sometimes. But at the shelter you make the dogs feel safe. You take care of them.” She motions to the stone she’s working on. “And you help them too, even if they’re not here.”
