I blamed him. I’d always feared he’d kill her and now he had. He’d killed her with a virus instead of a beating, but he had done it all the same. My abuela needed to know. I had tried to call her three times to tell her this morning, and I could never finish dialing the number. It wasn’t fair not to tell her. I would do it soon. Give her a few more moments before she lived the horror that currently engulfed me.
“Tallulah’s right. You need to eat,” Ryker said as he sat down beside me.
I stared at the cookies and nodded again. I didn’t want to talk. I was thankful they were here and I wasn’t alone, but I didn’t want to talk.
“What can I do?” Ryker asked me.
I shook my head. There was nothing he could do. He’d faced death this year. He knew that nothing made it easier. Nothing took the pain away. I appreciated him being there. That was enough.
“I know eating is the last thing you want to do, but you need it. Trust me.” He said the words with a knowledge I understood.
I reached for a cookie if only to stop them all from asking me to eat. It was still warm from the oven, and I wondered if it had been baked here. I hadn’t smelled anything in the oven. At that thought I remembered the spoon rest I’d made for my mother as a kid. It was always beside her stove. I wanted that spoon rest. She loved it and I wanted it.
“I made my mom a spoon rest as a kid. I want it,” I said to Ryker then. He didn’t ask questions. He just nodded his head and stood up. I wasn’t sure if he was going to get it now or he was just giving me some space now that I was eating. I took a drink of my milk just as the door opened and Brady walked inside. He was carrying a covered dish I knew he hadn’t made. It would be from his mother.
His gaze met mine, and the sadness in his eyes was deep. “Hey,” he said as Tallulah took the food from him and went to the kitchen.
I nodded once.
He walked over and patted me on the shoulder, then sat down beside me. I finished the cookie in my hand and dusted the crumbs off my jeans. “Thanks for coming,” I told him.
“I’m so sorry, man,” he replied.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
We had once gathered around West like this when his father had died of cancer. This wasn’t the first time one of us had lost a parent. It didn’t help, though. West had been able to say his good-byes. He had no regrets. He had been there in the end right beside him. His father’s suffering had been hell on West, but he had been there with him.
Covid didn’t give you that. Momma had suffered alone. I doubted it was easier. In the end, they were gone.
I thought about Maggie being there beside him through it all. I didn’t have a Maggie. I had pushed my chances of that away from the moment I came back here. Ezmita would have been beside me. She’d have been an amazing girlfriend. My momma would have loved her.
I’d been the one to make sure I didn’t have that kind of relationship. I wasn’t sure how many days it had been now since we’d slept together. My days were running into each other from fear and lack of sleep. I didn’t even know if she knew about my mom. I wanted to call her just to talk to someone about it and couldn’t do it.
There was no doubt I had messed up with Ezmita over and over again. I wasn’t sure I could salvage it now. If it was even fair to her for me to try. Thinking about her helped distract me. I needed distracting right now. Sitting here and thinking about everything I didn’t do and the fact I would never get a chance wasn’t helping.
I stood up and everyone went silent. They’d been talking softly as it was, but they were now all looking at me. This was my family. Each one of them would be beside me no matter what life threw my way, just like I’d be there for them. I wasn’t alone.
I just missed my mom.
“I need distracting,” I said.
“Want to play me in Madden?” Ryker asked.
That reminded me of Ezmita and I liked the memory. Nodding, I walked over to the beanbag and sank down, then picked up a controller.
The others began to relax, and their voices were no longer whispers. They weren’t as loud as they normally were, and there was an obvious heaviness. We were together. They were here for me. That didn’t bring my momma back to me. That didn’t take away all my regrets. It did give me strength in knowing I wasn’t alone.