At 4:53 that morning my dad took his last breath. I hadn’t been sleeping. I couldn’t. Momma had, though, and I’d woken her before the nurses could arrive. She had kissed his face and told him over and over that she loved him, then curled into my arms and sobbed.
While I stood there holding her and watching as the nurses began undoing all the machines, I said my own silent good-bye. To the best man I would ever know. He had fought hard, but in the end I knew he couldn’t hold on any longer. I’d promised him I’d take care of Momma, and I wouldn’t let him down.
When it was time for us to leave, I held my mother in my arms, and we walked out that door for the last time. We made our way down the hall toward the waiting room door. I opened it, expecting it to be empty.
It wasn’t. Brady, Nash, Gunner, Asa, and Ryker were all lying around on different chairs or slumped over, asleep in their seats. They hadn’t left. Even though I’d asked them all to go home, these five hadn’t left. We had been a friends and teammates since we were kids, but more than that . . . we were a family.
“I’m going to go call your grandmother. She’d want to know. You go wake the boys and tell them.”
My mother’s mother had never come around much. We’d gone to visit her over the years, but she was a stuffy old rich woman who looked down her nose at the life my mother had chosen. My grandfather had passed away of a heart attack when I was five. I didn’t remember much about him. They were the only grandparents I had met. My dad’s parents had died in a car accident on Old Morphy Bridge in a storm when he was away at college. He’d been an only child just like my mom.
I felt numb. Almost as if it weren’t real. As if I were going to go home, and he’d be there waiting on us. Wanting Momma to make meat loaf and asking me about my day.
It was impossible to comprehend that he was really gone.
First I went to Brady, who was slumped in a chair with his baseball cap pulled down over his face. He moved the minute I nudged his shoulder. Shoving his hat back on his head, he looked up at me. I didn’t have to say anything. He knew.
Standing up, he pulled me in for a hug. “I’m sorry, man. So damn sorry.”
I nodded, and he moved back and helped me wake the others. Each one told me how sorry he was, and that if I needed anything, to call them. They’d do whatever. I thanked them for staying and told them all I’d call when I knew the funeral arrangements.
Brady was the last to follow the others out. He stopped and looked back at me. “Do you want me to wake Maggie and tell her? I can bring her to you if . . . you need me to.”
I shook my head. I needed to get my momma home in bed, and Maggie needed her rest. She’d been with me more than seventeen hours yesterday without sleep. “When she wakes up, tell her to call me.”
Brady frowned. I’d said for her to call me not text me. He was confused. Thankfully, he didn’t question it, just nodded before turning to go.
I let Maggie’s words play over and over again in my head, telling me I was strong. I would get through this. Then I went to find Momma and take her home.
After Momma was asleep, I crawled into bed and crashed. The numbness hadn’t left me yet. Even with coming home and his not being here, it hadn’t fully sunk in. I embraced that for now.
I slept for more than fourteen hours. It was dark outside when I finally opened my eyes. I heard Momma talking to someone and thanking them for the food. Must have been the knock at the front door that woke me.
Getting up, I grabbed a shirt and pulled it on, then headed down the hallway to see how she was doing. I had hoped I would wake up before her. I hadn’t meant to sleep all day.
Momma was walking to the kitchen with a casserole dish in her hands. She turned to look at me, and the dark circles under her eyes worried me. “Miriam Lee brought us some dinner. Sweet of her,” Momma said, forcing a smile.
Miriam was Nash’s mother. She’d always been nice to Momma even if they had never been close friends. Miriam didn’t socialize much with the other women in Lawton either. But from the times I’d been to Nash’s house, I knew she was a nice lady.
“You gonna eat?” I asked her, hoping she’d say yes. I didn’t feel much like eating, but I knew I needed to.
She shrugged then sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “I’m not hungry just yet.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
She shrugged again.
I moved around the bar and put my arm around her shoulders, then forced her toward the table. “Sit. You’re eating. We both are. We need to eat.”
She sat down willingly. I grabbed two plates and dished up some homemade lasagna.
I set the plate in front of her then placed a fork and napkin down beside it before getting us both drinks.
Once I had everything on the table, I sat down at my chair. “He’d want us to eat. I promised him I’d take care of you. Help me keep my promise.”
Momma sniffled again then nodded. I waited until she took a bite of her food before eating mine. We ate in silence. The lasagna was really good, and once I started eating, I realized I was starving. I went and made myself another plate before Momma had even forced down half of hers.
“I’m going to take a bath and go back to bed,” she said quietly. “I have some of those sleeping pills left. I think I’ll take one. I didn’t get much sleep today. I can’t turn my thoughts off. I can’t stop missing him.”
I set my second serving down and walked over to kiss her on the head. “We’re gonna miss him. We’ll always miss him. But we have each other, and we will make it through this.” I could hear Maggie’s encouragement as the words came out of my mouth. Without her the past three weeks, would I have been able to say that? To help my momma deal? I doubted it.