Page 55 of Southern Storms

My breath caught in my throat as he took a step forward and walked in my direction.

In the stillness of the night, Jax sat beside me.

After that night, I learned when he traveled to the field, and he learned my periods of meditation, too. I couldn’t stop myself from arriving whenever I knew he’d be there, and he kept showing up whenever I was sitting upon that bench. Time would speed forward and somehow stand still all at once when I was out there with Jax. When it felt as if nothing in the world made sense, at least sitting in that field calmed me. We didn’t talk out there. It was as if words weren’t even needed for us to find our common thread of peacefulness. His stillness felt so comforting, as if his silence was the warmest blanket he was wrapping around me.

Never in my life had I known silence could feel so good until I sat beside Jax Kilter.

It wasn’t until late one afternoon, after about an hour of sitting, that I built up the courage to finally break our silence with words. It was quiet, almost a whisper. If nature hadn’t been so still, he would’ve missed the words falling off my tongue.

“Daisy,” I said, staring out at the field of flowers. “My daughter’s name was Daisy. I named her after my favorite flower.”

Jax turned toward me with a perplexed look on his face. “So when you came upon this field…”

I sniffled and brushed my hand beneath my nose, then nodded. “It kind of knocked me backward. The day before, I’d asked my parents for a sign, a sign that everything would be okay, that somehow I’d find my footing again, and then I went for a walk in the woods and found a field of daisies. I figured that was the sign my parents sent me.”

His elbows rested on his knees, his hands clasped together as he stared forward. “I don’t believe in signs.”

“What do you believe in?”

His brows furrowed, and a vein in his throat throbbed as he stayed quiet.

Nothing.

He believed in nothing.

That had to be hard. If I didn’t have my little beliefs, my small trusts in the universe, I was almost certain I would’ve died a long time ago right alongside my loved ones.

“It must be tough…not having anything to believe in.”

“I’ve made it through this far.”

“That doesn’t mean it was easy.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t. It’s good that you believe in signs. I wish I could myself sometimes.”

I smiled. “It’s never too late to start believing in something.”

“It probably is for me. Old dog, new tricks and all.” He scratched at the scruff on his chin and cleared his throat. “So, the tattoo on your wrist is for her?” he asked. “Your daughter?”

I looked down to the daisy tattoo with the backward D inside it and nodded. My mind went back to my last night with Penn when Marybeth asked about my tattoo—the way he scolded me for being unable to control my emotions, the way he shamed me for falling apart.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Why is the D backward?”

“It’s…I…” My chest tightened, and I felt myself starting to lose the battle with my mind.

Jax must’ve realized it. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he said.

But that wasn’t it. I wanted to talk about it. I needed to talk about my little girl. It was how I’d been able to keep her alive in my mind, but Penn was so against any conversations that related to her. He said it made it too hard for him to move on. Maybe that was our biggest problem: he wanted to move on while I wanted to hold on. We were pulling one another in two completely different directions. Of course it wasn’t going to last. It was only a matter of time before our seam ripped.

“No, I want to, it’s just that I get emotional talking about it. My husband hated that about me—how emotional I became when I talked about our daughter. He hated whenever I brought her up.”

“No offense, Kennedy, but your husband sounds like an asshole.”

I laughed. “He had his moments. I’m sure I wasn’t the best wife in the world. I didn’t make things easy for him.”

“Yeah, well, I still get to hate him. But go ahead,” he said, nudging my leg. “Talk about her.”

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