by Leddy Harper
I knew I must’ve seemed crazy to her with my robotic movements and monotone responses, but after my over-the-top explosion earlier, I had nothing left in me. I was void of emotion and too weak to fake it like I’d done so many times before. It didn’t matter what I did anyway, because she’d see right through it. She knew me too well, and I’d never get away with pretending in front of her.
“Oh, and by the way, I’d like my key back.”
Her posture gave way as her shoulders slumped forward. She regarded me with soft eyes, her brow wrinkling as if she’d cry at any moment. I hated to see someone I loved so sad, and I felt even worse that her reaction was due to me, but there was nothing I could’ve done about it. She’d invited herself over to my house and walked in on one of my darkest times. I hadn’t asked her to bear witness to this.
“Sarah…this isn’t about a key.”
“You’re right. This is about my total lack of privacy. I can’t even have a bad day in peace. And now that you’ve seen this, I wouldn’t put it past you to come barging in here every chance you get to check up on your poor, depressed sister. My front door was locked, and that doesn’t even keep you out.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, working furiously at twisting my key off the ring. Once she finally had it off, she held it between her fingers in the air, staring daggers at me. “For your information, I didn’t use my key to get in here. Your key was still in the front door.” And then she threw the small piece of metal at me.
I didn’t even bother to duck out of the way as it hit my shoulder before falling to the tile at my feet, the clicking sound filling the silence between us. I had no argument for her. The fact I’d left my keys in the door spoke volumes about where my head had been when I came home the night before, and adding in what she’d walked in on in my kitchen, I had nothing to come back at her with.
“You’ve got to stop this, Sarah. You’re destroying yourself.”
“How did you even know to come here?” I pushed off the counter and took a step in her direction, careful not to step on any broken glass or eggshells.
“I called you—your cell phone. Bentley picked up and told me I needed to check on you.”
“Did he tell you what happened?”
“No. He said I needed to ask you, but that it was important I come find you. I called the salon and they said you didn’t show up today. That’s when I got worried. And when you didn’t answer the house phone, I jumped in the car and headed over here. This”—she waved her arm around my destroyed kitchen—“is not healthy. This isn’t what sane people do.”
“So I’m insane now?” I laughed and cocked my head at her, daring her to answer me.
A tear slid down her cheek, followed by another and another until she had a river of mascara lining her face. “You seemed so happy the other day, and I know that wasn’t a lie. I know it was genuine. What happened between then and now? Talk to me, Sarah. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“I’m not going to cry on your shoulder less than three weeks before your wedding. You have way more important things to deal with other than your sister losing her mind.”
“It’s a wedding, Sarah. A fucking wedding. Do you honestly think that’s more important than you and how you’re doing?” She took a step but then stopped, probably worried about stepping on something.
“What about the baby? That’s more important than me. And if my grief and problems caused anything to happen to it, I’d never forgive myself. You don’t need to worry about me…worry about your baby.”
Her eyes widened as she gasped and covered her opened mouth with her small hand. It wasn’t my place to say anything, and I should’ve kept my knowledge of her pregnancy to myself, but I had to remind her of her priorities, which at this moment shouldn’t have had me at the top of that list.
“I’m sorry, I know you were keeping it a secret and I shouldn’t even know about it. But I do. And it’d be completely selfish of me to burden you with my problems when you have another life that’s solely dependent on you. You also have Ayla and Axel that need you. I can’t add more to your plate with my problems.”
“How did you even know?” she whispered with her fingers still hiding her lips.
“Axel said something at the barbecue. He said he’s noticed that you’ve stopped drinking caffeine and wine. But don’t tell him I said anything. I think he’s really excited about you telling him. This is such a happy time for you both, and neither of you need me to ruin it. You’ve waited so long for this—Axel, the family, the baby—and you deserve to be surrounded by happiness. Not have me bring you down all the time.”
Bree took a few steps, ignoring the mess on the floor, and grabbed my hands in hers, holding them between our bodies. “You are my family, Sarah. You, Clari, Joel, my dad, as well as Axel, Ayla, and this baby. Whether you come to me with your problems or not, it still affects me. Do you honestly think I’m happy knowing you’re hurting?”
My vision clouded over and I blinked, feeling the warm wetness fall down my cheeks, and then I stared directly into Bree’s pleading eyes. “I don’t even know how to deal…how do you expect me to come to you and let you help me when I can’t even explain how I feel? I don’t know what’s wrong. So I don’t even know how to fix it.”
She wiped my face with her knuckle and then whispered, “Come on.” She pulled me out of the kitchen, away from the mess I’d made in my fit of blind rage, and led me to the couch.
I waited until she’d taken a seat before falling to the cushion beside her. This was something my mom would’ve done. She always had a way of offering comfort, and it seemed as though Bree had picked it up through her time with us. Even though it hurt to know my mom wasn’t there to cry to, it calmed me to know I at least had someone capable of channeling her love and support. And no one could do that better than Bree, considering my mom had showered her with it once Bree came to live with us so many years ago.
“I wish I’d been stronger after your mom passed away. I wish I could’ve been there for you more. But it was so hard for me, Sarah. I understand that it might seem ridiculous that her death could’ve affected me as much as it did considering she was my stepmom and had only been in my life for seven years. But she was way more than a stepparent. And in those seven years, she’d been more of a mother to me than my own had been in seventeen years. She loved me like her own, and I loved her like she had given birth to me. I know I didn’t make it easy for her when I came here. I was a pregnant teen with no one to help me with the baby. I brought a lot to her front doorstep that day, and she’d asked for none of it. But she accepted it all without hesitation, and not once did she ever allow me to feel bad about my situation or throw it back in my face. So when she died, it affected me more than I think you realize.”
“I never said it didn’t.”
“I know, I’m just trying to explain to you where I am coming from. All three of us girls should’ve bonded together when she passed. We should have leaned on each other and helped one another through it. But that didn’t happen. Clari and I tried to get you to be with us, but you chose to deal with the pain on your own, which I understood. But I really wish I’d been stronger and more adamant we all band together. Because Clarissa and I seem like we’re light years ahead of where you are right now. That’s not saying we’re over it or have forgotten what happened in the least. We still have moments when we get sad. Like when I found out about being pregnant…that was very hard for me. She helped me through my first pregnancy, but I can’t share it with her this time. And that hurts. But one thing this pregnancy has taught me is that life is never guaranteed. It’s precious and valuable, but it comes with an expiration date. And none of us know that date. I won’t spend my baby’s life sad or grieving. I want him or her to hear me laugh, see me smile, and never doubt my love. Because that’s what I want to leave behind when it’s my time to go. Just like your mom did. Her laugh, her smile, her love is what I remember when I think of her. Have I ever told you w
hat I remember when I think of my own mom?”
Her voice, filled with so much emotion, kept me silent. I hung on every word, unable to vocally respond, so I shook my head, needing her to continue before I broke down and allowed the anguish to overtake the numbness inside.
“When I think of her…I remember her telling me how worthless I was. I remember the disgust on her face when she’d look at me, or the things she’d do to get back at me if I pissed her off. Nothing about any of the memories I have of my times with her are good. And I never want my kids to remember me as anything less than loving and caring…anything less than the way I remember your mom.”
“But I don’t have kids…”
“No, but you have us. You have people that care about you. I had to stop and ask myself one day…if I died tomorrow, is how I’m living today what I want people to remember me by? So now I’m asking you…is this person that’s sitting on the couch next to me, the one who destroyed the kitchen and who’s pushed everyone closest to her away for the last six months…is this the person you want people to remember? And if not, what are you going to do to change it?”
My attempt at preventing my sorrow from consuming me failed miserably. I stared flatly at my hands in my lap, picking at a cuticle as I tried to distract myself, but it didn’t work. The ache in my chest spread, causing my shoulders to quake and my eyes to close. My chin began to tremble moments before the heavy flow of tears made their way past my tightly closed eyelids and fell to my lap.
“I don’t want people to remember me this way. I don’t want to leave behind the memory of a depressed and broken person. But I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to stop being sad.” I’m sure most of my words weren’t clear enough to have been heard, but Bree understood.
Her warm hand pressed against my back before rubbing gentle circles, comforting me enough to calm my cries. “Why don’t you start by explaining what happened to Bentley and why he has your phone?”
I shook my head and tilted my head back, staring at the white ceiling above. “Has Clarissa told you that Luke is his cousin?” I glanced at Bree and watched her nod as she kept her attention on me. “Well, I guess Bentley had some kinda heart problem and needed a transplant. So he came here last year and stayed with Luke because it’s close to Regional where his specialists are. Bentley actually lives like six hours away, so he came here to be closer to the hospital. And as luck would have it, a heart became available on Christmas day last year.”
“Wait, you mean…?”
“Yup. My mom’s heart is beating inside Bentley’s chest.” Saying those words felt surreal, like I’d told her about a movie I’d seen versus reality.
“How does he know that?”
“Luke was there. I guess he overheard the doctor explaining organ donation to me or something. I have no idea. I don’t remember him being there, but then again, I had other things on my mind besides who was around me at that time.”
Bree’s eyebrows pinched together in the middle of her forehead as her cheeks puffed out, slowly exhaling through her pursed lips as if she were trying to whistle. “I don’t understand. Why would Luke have been there? I mean, if he’d overheard the doctor talking to you about the donation forms, that would have been before you gave consent. Which means, they wouldn’t have even called the recipient yet. Was Bentley already at the hospital?”
Sometimes Bree was too smart for own good, and she had a tendency to think of things no one else did. Her question made me pause, searching my memory of the things Bentley had told me about coming to town and then about what he’d said regarding getting my mom’s heart. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. I found pills in his room and questioned him about it, thinking he was sick or something. That’s when he told me about his heart and I thought he was trying to tell me he was dying. But then he said he had a heart transplant and it happened on Christmas. I put two and two together, he confirmed it, I called him a liar, told him to never contact me again, and then left.”
“You left him because of that?”
“Because he lied to me.”
She slowly shook her head and regarded me with soft, sympathetic eyes. “Sarah…I would think you’d want to hold him closer knowing he carries a piece of your mom around with him. Not just carries it, but it beats inside him and keeps him alive.”
“But he lied to me.”
“I don’t think this has anything to do with that. If you really want to move past this part in your life, you have to look beyond his lie. Look beyond him. When you first told me about Bentley, I have to admit, I didn’t think it was a great idea. But I couldn’t argue with you finding someone to talk to considering you wouldn’t talk to any of us. And then when I saw you at Dad’s house the other day with him, I thought maybe I’d been wrong about it. You were happy, and that’s all I ever wanted for you. But I don’t think you ever really dealt with your mom’s death. I think you were stuck in the grieving process when Bentley came along, and his presence in your life masked itself as acceptance. I don’t think you ever really got there.”
“I know,” I said through a sigh. “I fell in love with him, Bree. And I even questioned whether or not it was real or if I’d just become dependent on him. I don’t have that answer. Part of me thinks it was nothing more than him becoming my crutch, my drug that helped me feel normal. But if that’s all he was, why does it hurt so much that he lied to me? Why does the thought of him being gone make my heart ache so badly?”
A compassionate smile curled at the corners of her lips. “I don’t think you’ll find those answers until you deal with the core issue. You need to work through your grief and find acceptance over losing your mom first, and only then will you be able to decipher what Bentley really meant to you.”
“How do I do that?”
“Go through the stages of grief openly. Talk to people—you have me and Clari, as well as Joel, Axel, and Dad. You don’t have to lean on us or feel like you’re burdening us. Call one of us if you need to talk something through, or get something off your chest. That’s what we’re here for. I’m sure you’ve worked through some of it already, but you got stuck at some point.”
“Okay…I’ll work on it.”
“Promise me, Sarah. Promise me you’ll really try and not just pretend like last time. And swear that you’ll call us if you need us. Please.”
I smiled to offer her some comfort, knowing she didn’t need to worry about me. With her hand in mine, I squeezed and nodded. “I swear, Bree. You’re right—if I die tomorrow, I don’t want people talking about how pathetic I was.”
“And just remember that this won’t happen overnight. Don’t get down on yourself if you’re still struggling next week. It takes time.”
I became lost in what she said. Take your time. That’s what Bentley had told me the night we met—the night he’d gone to the bar to find me. It was the night that had changed everything for me. But I couldn’t focus on that now; I had to deal with the pain over losing my mom first. I only hoped that once I did that, I’d realize my love for Bentley was real. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle knowing it wasn’t.
Bree helped me clean up the mess in the kitchen and then went home. I called Marlo, knowing no one else would’ve been at the salon so late in the evening. I kept up with my lie about having a stomach bug and told her I wouldn’t be in the next day, either. Her tone seemed more compassionate than it had when I called earlier, and she told me to let her know how I felt the next day.
And then I was left alone with my thoughts.
I felt better after my conversation with Bree, but once I was left alone again, the silence became suffocating. I went into my bedroom and stood helpless in the middle of the room. It seemed so large and empty without Bentley there to help fill the space. But I couldn’t allow that to take me down. I had to find some strength, come up with some way to get me through this without him.
Opening one of my dresser drawers, I found one of his T-shirts. Since he’d stayed wit
h me for a couple weeks, I had a lot of his clothes at my house. His toothbrush sat next to mine by the sink in my bathroom, and his bottle of body wash was still in my shower. Looking at it made it seem like he was coming back, that maybe he had only run up to the store for a minute. But that wasn’t the case, and deep down, I knew it. I couldn’t start pretending this hadn’t happened. Living in a fairy tale never solved anything. I never thought I would get my happily ever after, but the possibility had been there with Bentley.
I grabbed his shirt and headed to the bathroom for a shower. Bree made a good point about not worrying about Bentley yet. I needed to spend my time healing first, and then deal with everything else. But I needed one more night to feel close to him, so I used his shower gel, sprayed his cologne in the air, and then dressed in his T-shirt before climbing into bed, using his pillow to curl up with as I imagined it was him next to me.
But sleep evaded me again. I hadn’t realized how dependent on Bentley I’d become until I couldn’t fall asleep without the sound of his heartbeat beneath my ear—the sound of my mom’s heartbeat. Realizing that made me think of the times I’d press my ear to his chest and immediately calm down. From day one, that soft, rhythmic beat offered me peace and safety. It was like my heart knew where his had come from. Like his heart knew me. Was it possible that people could live on through their donated organs? I thought back to the night he’d taken me painting, and how his manatee was flawless despite having never picked up a paintbrush before. I wondered how much of my mom was in him.
Finally, while morbidly contemplating whether or not Bentley had some sort of otherworldly connection to my mom, I fell asleep. My dreams that night were so real they felt like memories. But I knew they couldn’t have been because they were about Bentley and my mom together. My subconscious had somehow morphed the two of them into one being until I didn’t know where one ended and the other began.