The ring fell to the floor, and just like everything else that day, it was the perfect ending to a perfectly shitty day.
Landing in the massive whirlwind of trash that had amounted over their efforts to save her, I almost didn’t even ask for it.
Almost.
It was my mother’s, though.
And I wanted it.
I walked over to it and picked it up, curling my fist around it.
“Is there anyone I can call?”
Miller.
I swallowed hard.
“Suzanne,” I answered softly. “She’s all I have left in this world.”
Miller’s arms came around me and he pulled me in tight, squeezing me harder than I think he realized.
“You’re not alone, honey,” he said. “That baby inside of you is my boy’s. You’re carrying something that means the whole world to a lot of people. But, even if you weren’t, you’d still be ours. You’re not getting out. But I’ll call your person. Make sure she comes.”
I didn’t say a word.
Couldn’t.
I was all out of breath.
***
It took her six hours to get to me.
As I sat on my front porch, shivering and refusing to go inside because it would smell like him, I saw a car race up to the curb.
I stood up and knew it was my friend.
We’d only really seen each other in person a total of eight times.
But you wouldn’t know that was all.
She was my best friend.
My confidant.
The only person that I had left.
The car had barely rocked to a stop at the curb before she was out and hurrying toward me.
Her curls bounced as she raced to me, her arms outstretched.
And I fell into them.
I cried.
And I cried.
And I cried.
I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.
And still she held me.Chapter 22
I act like I’m okay, but deep down I need my nails done.
-Hastings’ secret thoughts
Hastings
I ran my fingers over the light wood that the preacher stood behind at weddings.
I couldn’t even recall what it was named.
And normally something like that would be important. I was a writer, of course. Words were important to me.
But today?
Not so much.
“I had a book release today,” I said to nobody in particular.
Suzanne’s breath hitched.
“When I first was told that my father, mother, sister and future husband were in an accident,” I said softly, “I thought, surely God wouldn’t take all of them away from me.” I looked up at the bright lights that were so bright that they hurt my eyes. The pain did nothing to stop the tears from coming. The first tear tracked down my cheek as I said, “Then my mom walked through the doors of the emergency room.” My voice cracked. “She told me that she’d stayed home. She’d had a bad stomachache the night before that’d turned into the stomach flu. And she’d stayed.”
My voice resembled something out of a horror movie as it cracked every couple of words. My breathing was labored, and I couldn’t find the ability to draw in a good breath.
“That tractor-trailer fell onto my dad’s car, killing my sister and dad instantly.” I licked my lips.
At least, that was what the accident investigators assumed had happened. At this point, it was only speculation when and how they were killed.
The bodies still hadn’t been recovered. There just wasn’t anything left.
According to the people that I spoke with, it would be a couple of weeks before they could identify any of the remains.
The accident was cleared from the highway.
Things had resumed as normal.
Well, things had resumed back to normal for everyone else.
For me?
Not so much.
The chemical that the first truck had been transporting had been gasoline. When that truck had exploded, it’d caused another tractor that’d been carrying some other hazardous material to explode right along with it.
The blast had been so big and deadly that everyone in a mile range after the accident had been affected.
Thankfully, the man that’d been driving the other tanker had been aware enough of what he’d been transporting to tell an officer that’d arrived on scene.
They’d evacuated everyone that could move.
Over nineteen people had died.
My father, sister, and Sammy among the nineteen.
I looked over at the large photo of my mom. The one that I’d taken with her at the Back Porch just a few short months ago after coming home from Alaska.
She’d been one of my biggest supporters when it came to my career.
The tears that I’d started to get ahold of broke free again.
“When my mom suffered a heart attack later that day,” I said, “I thought, surely not. I already lost my dad. My sister. My fiancé. And now my mother?” I looked down at the podium. “The doctors said that it was so fast that she likely didn’t feel a thing.”
And she was with my dad and sister now.
I looked at the one lone casket next to the two urns of ash that might or might not have my sister and father inside.