“You will whether I want it or not.”
“Because that’s what family does. We keep each other from making humongous mistakes.”
My heart tugged because her words matched my thoughts. We were a family. We would always be that way, even without Darren tying us together.
“Go ahead, Doctor Phil,” I said, and she chuckled.
“Just tell her the truth.”
“About?”
“Everything. Anything. All of it.”
“I don’t know if I can,” I told her.
“Then you’ll never have what Darren and I had,” she replied.
“I hate that I told you that,” I said with a wry smile, remembering my drunken self after finishing sniper training, coming back to our apartment to find her and Darren tearing each other’s clothes off. I’d taken a walk and come back while Darren was in the shower. I’d told Tristan that, someday, I hoped to have what they had. The love that allowed you to finish each other’s sentences and could speak volumes with a look. I’d wanted it, and yet, I hadn’t because I’d seen what a love like that could do to a person when one of them didn’t come home. I’d been a mixed-up piece of shit.
I still was.
“I gotta go. It sounds like Hannah is pulling Molly’s tail again,” she said.
I smiled.
“We’ll talk again soon, okay?” she said.
“Take care of yourself.”
“You too.”
Then, she was gone.
I stared at the phone, emotions still raging through me as thoughts of family chugged through my burnt heart.
I picked up my keys and wallet and left the house by the back stairs. I got into the rental car and drove a route that took me closer to town. I pulled into the cemetery, got out, and walked toward our family’s mausoleum. The one holding my ancestors. The place that held the ashes of my mother and my father. The tomb I hadn’t visited since I was thirteen and had buried my second parent.
When I first walked in, the air was stale but cooler than outside. I found my way to the marble bench in the middle, and I sat on it, staring at the words in front of me:Suzannah Wellsley. Beloved wife, mother, and sister. The bronze plaque was screwed to the marble just above the one that read:Lance Gordon Harrison. Beloved husband, father, and son. My parents had been married, but they’d each kept their last names, giving me two instead: Nash Harrison Wellsley.
I wondered what my parents would think of my life. Would they be upset that I wasn’t participating in the family business that they’d both loved? Would Mom be upset at Carson for turning me out of my home and sending me to boarding school mere weeks after she’d died? I hadn’t had a chance to grieve for her. I’d been lost and rootless, and Carson had flung me away so I could become a man.
It had taken me many years to see the time Carson spent with me for what it was. It wasn’t because he loved me. It wasn’t because he enjoyed our times together. It was because he was molding me into the person he wanted me to be. For the business. And my parents had let him because, after all,Carson knew bestwas the tagline of our household. Even though the business was left equally to both my mom and Carson, it had always been Carson who’d been in charge. It hadn’t seemed to bother my father. In truth, the drudgery of running a farm and a corporation on a daily basis would have dragged both my parents down.
My father had rarely been home. Looking back, it was easy to say that I’d hardly known him. I’d seen him for short stints in between each of his great adventures. His happy place had been on the hunt for new plant and flower specimens to add to the estate’s unique collection. Many times, my mom would go with him, and I’d be alone on the estate for months with just Maribelle and Carson.
Mom had always tried to make up for it with an outpouring of love and attention when she came home. Dad had simply gone from traveling to the experimenting, spending all his time in greenhouses and labs with whatever flora they’d brought back.
The one incontrovertible fact of my time with them was that they loved each other as much as they loved traveling the globe. And when Mom lost him, she’d been adrift.
When Tristan lost Darren, it was like seeing that all over again. A repeat appearance that had haunted my life. With some space, I could see I’d let my past fears overtake me in my present. Not for me, but for her. For Tristan.
I hadn’t wanted the same ending to her story.
I sat on the bench until I was brought back by the wind shuffling leaves onto the mausoleum floor. I wasn’t even sure why I’d come. Maybe I needed a goodbye I’d never gotten to give either of my parents, like the one I’d received in pounding my Trident into the wood of my lost brothers’ coffins. The SEAL tradition was both symbolic and healing.
A sudden memory filled me: my mom kissing her fingers and then placing them on my father’s lips as he said goodbye at the door. “I love you. Keep this with you until you can give it back to me.”
The memory hit me with a sudden desire to have that for my own. Someone to love me enough to hold on to a kiss for me. Someone who saw me, with all my damn flaws and scars and hang-ups, and could still love me. A reason for me to come back from the mission rather than a reason for me to go on the mission. Fucking Dr. Inez was right. The sudden craving felt like a gift being handed to me as I sat there. And maybe it was. Maybe my mom had reached down and offered it to me.
