Eliza raised her head, looked at the camera, and smiled. “Dada.”
“Shh, baby,” he said. “Go to sleep for your mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Now.”
“Tomorrow. Promise. ’Night baby.” He logged out and left Shelby to settle Eliza back into bed, wishing he was there with both of them. Wishing for more than maybe he deserved.
He’d drop by the bank and see about getting an equity line of credit on the house to get him started on his new life. Then he’d run his errands, pick Eliza up from daycare, and spend some time with her again. He’d start looking for a job, too.
In rehab, they told him to establish a new routine. He’d make Eliza and Shelby his priority.
He walked down the hall to his room and tossed his duffel bag on the floor at the foot of the bed. He stared at the amazing wood wall, still surprised by Shelby’s skill and that she’d go out of her way to do something like that for him. Although this room still needed a rug, some bedside tables, and something on the walls to finish it off, she’d made it feel warm and welcoming. Plus, he didn’t have to sleep in a lumpy motel bed where who knew how many people had slept and fucked their way through a night in a place that always felt temporary.
This place was his. That bed was his.
And although he’d be sleeping in it alone, he’d still be dreaming of the night he spent with Shelby, wondering if they could ever have that again.
Chase woke up the way he usually did, in a cold sweat, nightmare images overlapping in his mind, the sound of gunfire and bombs and the screams of those he couldn’t save.
The silence of those he couldn’t reach in time.
Shaken and fatigued from yet another restless night, he untangled himself from the sweaty bedsheets, sat on the edge of the bed, and gave himself a minute to orient himself and focus on reality. Then he stood naked, stretched his aching back muscles, and rummaged through his duffel until he found a pair of sweats.
He walked down the hall, stopped at the thermostat to turn on the heat because the house felt like an icebox, then went into the kitchen and realized not only didn’t he have any coffee, but he also didn’t own a coffeepot at the moment. He’d left his phone on the bed but mentally added both those things to his purchase list.
He opened the fridge and found the staples Shelby promised along with a six-pack of cola. Needing the caffeine, he grabbed a can and headed for the front door to investigate the strange creaking sound.
He walked out onto the porch and found his dad’s truck parked next to his in the driveway and his old man sitting in one of two rocking chairs that hadn’t adorned his porch last night.
“I heard you talking and thrashing in your sleep all the way out here.”
Chase finally recognized the rocking chairs as two of the many his mom had on the front porch and back patio area at Split Tree Ranch. “I don’t really sleep.” He relived hell.
His old man probably thought he deserved his nightmares for helping his mom end her life the way she wanted to end it.
His dad turned his gaze from the cold misty morning to Chase standing next to him. His eyes fell on each of the round scars marring his torso and arm and the manyother lines of scars he’d accumulated in war. “I had no idea what you’d been through over there.”
“You wanted me to pay for what I did. I hope you feel like you got it, because I’m done paying.” He took a sip of the sugary soda even though it didn’t wash away the bitterness inside him.
His dad stared back out to the grass and trees. “I didn’t want anything bad to happen to you, son. I wanted you to understand what you took from me.”
“The cancer took her.”
“She had more time.”
“She was done!” He wished his father could understand how it felt to be in that kind of pain and how desperate it felt to make it stop. Chase understood it all too well. “You and Hunt and Max weren’t ready to let her go, but she was done fighting a losing battle. You guys wanted her to stick it out to the bitter end. She wanted to say goodbye and end things on her terms with all of us beside her.”
“I didn’t want her to give up.”
“What was the use of fighting when the end result wasn’t going to change? Why are we more humane to our pets and livestock than we are to the ones closest to us?”
“It’s not the same. I loved her. I wanted more time.”
“She felt the same way about you. About us. But it was never going to be enough. She didn’t want to be bedridden and lost in a drug-induced haze without the ability to think clearly and say goodbye with a clear and open heart. She held on as long as she could. She tried to say goodbye to you, but you wouldn’t let her. You, Hunt, Max, and me could have had that moment with her, but you guys just kept begging her to hold on a littlelonger. That was for you, not her. So when she asked me to take her away, that she wanted to see the ocean before she died, and listen to the waves crashing on the beach as she took her last breath, I did it. Not because I wanted to, but because it was her life, her decision, and I couldn’t watch her suffer anymore.”
Silence stretched as the mist hung in the air, clouding everything beyond the edges of the house his father had wanted but Shelby stole right out from under him.
Chase took the chair next to his father’s, letting the cold seep into his bones and the silence that had lived between them for so long expand.