Page 50 of Unbound
The early morning sun hits my back as I sit on my bike next to the cemetery Sunday morning. I cut the engine off, but I make no move to get off the bike, my attention drifting to the headstones. I don’t even know how I got here only that I couldn’t sleep and decided to go for a ride through the city.
I haven’t been to my dad’s grave. Ever. Not even the day he died. I mean, I was at his funeral, but I never went toward the grave. Couldn’t make myself because I felt responsible in many ways.
After the fight we had, I couldn’t do it. I thought for sure if I went to his grave, the memories of the argument would return and I’d feel worse. I didn’t want to feel anything, let alone worse.
In a lot of ways, it was the guilt that kept me from coming. I said some horrible things to him the day he died, words I can never take back.
I take a deep breath and push the feelings down, wishing I could wrap my mind around everything that’s happened in the last few days, or what I’m doing here. Why now? Why, after being dead two and-a-half-years, did I decide to come here now?
Swinging my leg over the bike, I grab my helmet in my hand and make my way over to his grave site.
Setting my helmet on the ground at my feet, I stare at his headstone and the words written over the smooth surface.
Lyric Allen Walker
My heart tugs thinking of my son having the same name as my father. I may not have gotten along with him, but my dad was an amazing man. Red reminds me of him in so many ways. Noble, always ready and willing to defend what he thought was right. Smiling to myself, I’ve always thought we were so different, but for someone who’s been holding onto resentment for so long, I suppose I’m not that different, am I?
I sit down in front of the grave and stare at it. Grief squeezes my lungs and stiffens my throat. “I’m sorry for what I said to you that night, Dad.”
Drawing in a deep breath, I look up at the blue sky. It’s so I bright I have to squint. The ground’s cold and hard, the dirt beneath my feet sliding as I raise my knees to my chest. “But what I’m mostly sorry about is not being here yet. I guess maybe I didn’t know what to say so I stayed away.” Resting my chin on my knees, I shake my head. “I guess I was afraid you’d still be mad at me, like I’m mad at myself for the way I acted and the things I said.”
I sit there for another moment wishing to never forget even the smallest details about my father, like the sound of his voice. It’s sad that time steals those memories away from you. Even when I see pictures of him now, it’s like the memories are beginning to fade, and I hate it.
Lying back against the ground, I stare up at the sky and the streaks of clouds. “You probably already know this because you seem to know what the hell was going on in my life before I ever told you, but I’m a dad now, believe it or not.” I laugh, shaking my head. “I hate the night he was conceived. I fucking hate it so much that something so beautiful came from me at my worst,” I say slowly, letting my words come out as they need and not rushing to tell him anything. I feel something crawling on my hand and when I glance down, there’s a ladybug on the back of my hand. I raise my hand and hold it above my head staring at the bug. “His name is Lyric and if I had any choice in his name, I would have chosen that too. Sophie and I actually talked about it when we were younger that our firstborn son would have your name.”
The ladybug on my hand flies away with the subtle wind. I drop my palm onto my stomach and continue to look up at the sky, my breathing light and easy. I never would have thought it would be like this, being here.
“Sophie’s a great mom to him and I want to… I love her, still, always, but it’s hard to think of having a relationship with her. Every time I think of forever, I wonder about when she’s going to decide she wants something else. I mean, she did it once, you know? And it’s a shitty way to look at things considering how many times I’ve pushed her away.”
I don’t know why but I turn my head to the left. Right then I hear a noise and notice Red’s over by Nevaeh’s grave, talking to her. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but it seems heartfelt by the look on this face, one of sadness.
I think about losing Sophie, in the way Red lost his wife, and how sorry I’d be for everything I’d ever put her through. What if I never had the chance to make things right like I didn’t with dad?
Just as I’m thinking I should get off the ground, Red approaches, shadowing the sunlight from me. It seems appropriate for how I see him, always in his shadow, him always looking down on me.
“Why are you lying on the ground?”
Just like that, at the sound of his voice, I’m back to being the smartass he knows me to be. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. You’re getting remarried soon, why are you talking to your dead wife?”
Red shrugs, eyes unfocused in the distance. “It’s not weird. I don’t think. Is it weird your lying on the ground?”
“No.” I stand up and brush the dirt from my legs. “Why are you still talking to her?”
He rubs his hand along his jaw, focusing on her grave. “Don’t be an asshole, man. Just because she died doesn’t change the fact that I loved her. Nothing will. I still love her, even now. It’s just different. She’s Nova’s mom, and I never want her to forget that. It’s not like she chose to leave us. She was taken. Marrying Lenny is what I want, but I’m never going to forget what I had with Nevaeh.”
I actually respect Red for what he’s doing. Despite the cards he was handed, he’s still shuffling the deck so to speak, instead of folding like I did.
Red literally went through the unthinkable with Nevaeh and watched her die. Two years later, he watched his father die in front of him and never once has he veered off the track he’s on. Yeah, he was unsteady for a while and you knew a breakdown was coming, but it never did. He stayed strong and pushed through life.
Whether I want to admit it or not, Red is in many ways a father figure to me. Always has been. Maybe that’s why we’ve never got along. We were never really brothers. It’s always been him telling me what to do, not guiding me along like a brother would or being there for me.
One thing’s certain, I can’t discount what a good father he is to Nova and the way he keeps Dad’s business running. I know why he didn’t leave it to me. I would have fucked it up the first week. Happened to Beck. When his dad died, he left him his construction company. Beck managed to keep it going for a month and then it went under. He knew nothing about construction nor did he care to run the family business. It’s sad really, all that hard work his dad put in down the drain over careless decisions made by an eighteen-year-old kid.
“How do you do it?”
He finally looks my way, his eyes cloudy, as if he has been lost in deep thought this whole time. “Do what?”
“Beyou. Hard working, noble… a good dad… all of it.” He makes everything he does seem effortless in his unwaveringly beliefs.
