I’d checked in on Becca often since her dad got here, even had her stay with me at night. She’d been bad, but never like this. Never so out of it that she couldn’t acknowledge my presence.

She’s sitting on the floor, her knees raised close to her chest, wearing one of my t-shirts—a shirt so big she uses it to cover her legs. She’s not crying, but her eyes are glazed, not with tears, but with complete and utter misery.

Her hands are on her head, her eyes staring at nothing in front of her.

It hurts to swallow.

About as much as it hurts to see her like this.

Completely empty.

I step toward her, careful not to spook her, and that’s when I focus on the hundreds of pictures littered around her. Pictures of Chazarae, some of them together, some of her alone. Some I’ve seen before, most I haven’t.

Martin says, “She was up all night on her computer, and I heard the printer running but I didn’t…” He rubs his eyes—eyes tired and defeated.

“Becca.” I squat in front of her. “Baby, what are you doing?”

She doesn’t react. Not in the slightest.

“Daddy?” Tommy says from behind me.

My eyes drift shut. He shouldn’t be here. I told him to stay in bed.

“Is my Becca okay?” he asks, standing next to me, his hand on my shoulder.

He’s not wearing a top. Just pajama bottoms.

“Becca’s very sad, buddy,” I tell him.

Tommy nods, and then copies my position. Only he settles a hand on her knee, and I almost cringe, fearing her response. I know not to touch her when she’s like this. He doesn’t. But the response isn’t what I was expecting. For the first time, her eyes move. First to Tommy, then to me, and even through her daze, through the tangled web of emotions that brought her here, sitting in the corner of the kitchen surrounded by painful memories, I can see the apology in her eyes. See the regret she feels that Tommy has to see her like this.

Her lips move, but her words are silent. Quickly, but carefully, I move Tommy out of the way and shift closer to her. “What is it, baby?”

“I want,” she mouths, rocking back and forth.

“You want…? What do you want?”

“I want,” she repeats, tears filling her eyes. She blinks once. Hard. And the tears fall, fast and free, giant droplets of withheld emotions streak down her cheeks and fall with purpose. “I want,” she says again, rocking faster, crying harder. She points to one of the many photographs on the floor.

Tommy’s the first to reach for it, the first to see the image of a woman with curly blonde hair, wearing a blue dress, carrying a toddler on her hip… a toddler with raven dark hair and eyes the color of emeralds…

“Is this your mamma?” Tommy asks.

Becca nods slowly, a silent sob filtering from her mouth and wrapping around my heart, taking away its pulse, its reason. It’s hope.

Tommy whispers, “You want your mamma?”

Becca nods again, covering her head as if to cover her shame that of all the things she could want, she could need, it’s the one person who tried to take it all away.

“Sometimes when I’m sad, I want my mamma, too,” Tommy says, his innocence defying all logic. “But most of the time, I want my daddy.”

Becca looks up, her eyes right on his, and her chest rapidly rising and falling with her breaths.

“Do you want me to sleep in your bed with you?” Tommy asks. “I can cuddle you. That’s what my daddy does when I’m sad.”

Becca nods again, her cries still silent, and takes Tommy’s offered hand to help her up. He keeps a hold of her hand all the way up the stairs and to her room.

“You raised some kid there, Warden,” Martin says.

I blink, coming to terms with everything that’s happened. I pick up the photograph Becca had pointed to. “This is her mom?” I ask him.

“That’s Rebecca.”

I don’t know why I feel the need to take the picture and shove it in my pocket, but I do.

I make my way upstairs and toward Becca’s room where I stand in the doorway and watch Tommy sitting against the headboard, patting his lap. “You can lie your head here, and I can stroke it. If you want me to. That’s what Daddy does when I’m sad, too.”

Becca lies on her side, her head on his lap, and he does exactly what he said he’d do. Becca cries. He doesn’t see it, but I do, because she’s looking right at me. She mouths, “I’m sorry.” And I shake my head at her. She has nothing to be sorry for.

“It’s okay, Daddy,” Tommy says, and my eyes meet his. “I got this. I’ll take care of our Becca.”

I move to the side, away from his view, but I don’t leave. Instead, I listen. I listen to him singing—a song Chazarae used to sing to him when she was still capable of having him spend the night. “Somewhere over the rainbow…” he sings, “…way up high…”

I lean against the wall, my son’s voice the soundtrack of our grief, our mourning, and I break. A thousand times over. I slide down the wall, my pain, my heartache, all of it consuming me, and I wonder how it’s possible that a six-year-old is the one to keep it together. To keep us together. “Don’t worry, Becs,” he says, the song now over.

I sniff back another sob and wipe my face with my sleeve.

“My Pa’s in heaven, too. He’ll take care of Ma’am. Even if she’s yelling at him to stop being so grumpy, and he’s yelling at her to stop being so loopy. They’ll take care of each other. And they’ll take care of us.”

38

Journal

coast

kəʊst/

noun

the part of the land adjoining or near the sea.

If I am the land,

and Josh is the sea,

Tommy is the shore that completes us.

~ ~

—Becca—

“You look so handsome,” I sign slowly, hoping Tommy will understand.

“I look…?” he asks.

I spell out, “S T U D,” and smile up at him as I fix his tie.

He sounds out the word a couple times, before yelling, “Stud! I look like a stud?”

My grin widens.

“You guys ready?” Josh asks, entering Tommy’s room, dressed as he is.

“What about Daddy?” Tommy asks. “Does he look like a stud, too?”

I stand and take Tommy’s hand and lead him toward his dad. I kiss Josh quickly, and press my hand to his chest. “Stud,” I mouth.

He smiles down at me. “Let’s go celebrate your Grams’s life.”

* * *

We hold the service at Grams’s church, of course.

They suggested we make it an open service. Because of everything my grandmother had contributed to the community, a lot of people would want to attend. Josh’s mother, however, suggested we keep it closed, keep it intimate, especially because of his status. It was hard to gauge who exactly would show up. We didn’t want media, and with how open Josh had been about his relationship with my grandmother, we were afraid it might take away from the reason we were there. But Josh disagreed with her and was adamant about it, so he hired security to keep the media out so that the doors of the church could remain open for everyone. No judgments. No questions. It was clear Grams had touched a lot of people in her life, and it wasn’t fair to her for Josh and I to be the ones to decide who could and couldn’t pay their respects.