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It doesn’t.
We’re in the aftermath, the wreckage, still tending to our needs, but inside, we bleed.
I walk back inside the house up the stairs, wishing I had slept tonight. When I’m at the top of the stairs, I glance at the closed bedroom. I don’t go in. Instead, I sit in the hallway, my head in my hands. Why is it so hard to open up to her? I don’t know the answer. I believe in marriage. I believe in its worth, its value. I promised Kelly forever, and I’m going to give it to her, but is it what she wants?
“Daddy?”
I look up to see Hazel standing in front of me in her footy pig pajamas and her teddy bear that used to be Mara’s. The one Mara gave to her one afternoon, five days before she died. It had been Mara’s favorite, and I remember Kelly and me wondering why she gave it away. Had she known she was going to die? Is that why she gave it to her?
My eyes lift to Hazel’s. “What are you doing up so early?”
She shrugs. “I can’t sleep. My room is watching.”
“Huh?”
She presses her fingers to her lips and points to her ceiling. “The eyes are watching.”
What kind of freaky shit is she talking about? She makes me follow her into her room and points to the stained pine ceiling and then to the knots in the wood. “The eyes.”
I stare up at the ceiling, kinda freaked out. “Those are knots in the wood, Darlin’. Not eyes.”
I can see why she thinks they’re watching her, and I’m tempted to paint over it now. I notice something moving on her bed and frown. “Hazel, that cat is not yours. You need to give it back to Bonner and Ashlynn.”
She shrugs her small shoulders. “I can’t help it if he likes me better.” And then she grabs my hand and my eyes land on the teddy bear. “Daddy?”
“Hmm?”
“I forgive you for your heart having a tummy ache.”
Am I supposed to know what that means? “A what?”
She looks up from the bear. “Your heart has a tummy ache since Mara went to heaven. It feels unhappy.” She hands me Mara’s teddy bear. “Mara wants you to have this.”
I kneel to her level, the early morning sun filtering into her room. I stare at her, unsure where she’s going with this, but I can’t help the way my voice shakes when I say to her, “Oh, well, that’s yours now. She gave it to you, sweetie.”
She pushes the bear into my chest. “I got you.”
Twenty-Three
Road Rules
(Road trips with three kids and a pretend puppy = HELL.)
Ever since Hazel’scomment about the eyes on the ceiling, I find myself staring at them a lot more. I’m creeped out. But there’s something more about the other night that keeps coming back to me.
I got you.
Those words rattle around in my head for days. I can’t sleep. I can barely eat. That was the last thing I said to Mara when she died. “Daddy’s got you.”
It doesn’t make me feel better; it makes it worse. Hazel couldn’t have known that. So was it just a coincidence that it happened?
“If we don’t leave soon, we’re never going to get there by Thursday,” I tell Kelly when I catch a glimpse of her running around the house as if there’s a storm coming. There is when you think about it. It’s called a road trip, and no family with kids is ever prepared for them. If you think you are, you’re being naïve. Traveling with kids is exhausting, and those who say it’s not are either superhuman or liars. It’s when your kids decide to act their worst. I’m sure of it.
We’re set to leave for Austin today and have to be there for the wedding festivities by Thursday. I tried hard to get out of it by using the excuse that I can’t leave the shop, and even, “I hate your mother, therefore, I refuse to go.”
Nothing works for me. All I get is the, “If I’m going, you’re going,” speech and something about I’m not taking four kids on a road trip by myself.
I counter with a “Three kids and a puppy” comment and all that gets me is a probably much-deserved slap to my head. Can’t blame a guy for trying.