He was warm and solid, and our limbs were knotted in perfect chaos. His arms were around my torso. My arms were around his neck. His head was on my breast. One of his legs was between mine, and our calves were hooked around each other.

It felt divine.

So I relaxed into the feeling for several minutes before searching for the clock on the nightstand; I found it, and next to it was Drew’s leather notebook. I looked at the brown binding, studied the Norse symbols on the front, and found myself wondering what was inside. I’d witnessed him writing in the book from time to time and somehow doubted it contained field notes.

Shaking myself, because what Drew wrote in the notebook was really none of my business, I glanced at the clock. It was just before 4:30 a.m. and, despite my current epic levels of snuggly comfort, I felt like I had a stone in the pit of my stomach and a bug in my ear.

I was gripped by a desire to get up.

Despite the carefulness with which I tried to extract myself from Drew, I woke him.

“Ashley,” he started awake, saying my name before he’d left his dream state, his arms tightening around me.

“Shh…Drew,” I whispered. “I need to get up.”

He peered up at me as though confused by the sight of my face. “Ashley?”

“Yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Drew, you’re in my bed. We fell asleep.”

“Oh.” His hand slid down my body—from waist to thigh—as though checking to see if I were real.

His confusion made me wonder what he’d been dreaming about if he’d said my name upon waking but was surprised to see me there.

“Why’d you wake me up?” He asked my chest.

I wrinkled my nose at him. “I didn’t mean to. I was trying to get up without disturbing you; it was an accident.”

“Oh…” Again, he said this to my chest. His hand caressed its way up my body until it rested on my ribs just below my breast. “This is a really nice way to wake up.” This time he spoke mostly to himself, but his eyes didn’t budge from my boobs.

Growing warm around my neck, I tamped down the desire rising within me and tried to sit up. “Drew, I need to pee. Remove your arms before my bladder explodes.”

He reluctantly released me, falling back onto the bed with a heavy flop as I stood. “On second thought, we shouldn’t do this again,” he muttered.

I reached for my robe and shrugged it on. “Why not?”

“Because…reasons,” he growled.

I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling, my eyes moving over his bare chest and stomach, illuminated only by the faint glow of the moon and starlight streaming in through my window. He was right, of course. Waking up tangled together wearing very few clothes—it wasn’t a good idea. Not if I was planning to walk away when all this was over and return to my life in Chicago.

Maybe that’s why I’d woken up so suddenly with a hard feeling in my belly. Maybe my brain and my stomach were in cahoots, trying to warn me against my heart.

The thought made me sad and flustered, so I quickly left the room without another word and took two steps toward the bathroom, but then stopped. I stood motionless in the upstairs hallway until the count of ten, because a sense of foreboding was nagging at me.

Impulsively, I changed courses and descended the stairs, walked down the hallway to the den, and pushed open the door.

It was quiet except for the sound of Cletus’s gentle snoring and the beeping of Momma’s machines. Of course, I knew the name of the machines and what their beeps meant from my schooling, training, and years as a floor nurse; but now, attached to and monitoring my mother, they became just beeping machines.

I inspected the room for some sign or source of my disquiet, and I realized that Momma was awake.

I crossed to her, smoothed the hair back from her forehead with one hand, and reached for her fingers with the other.

“Momma,” I whispered. “Are you okay? What can I get for you?”

Her eyes were wide, but she struggled to swallow. I released her for a quick minute and opened the cooler by her bed where I kept her ice chips. I filled a cup and brought it to her lips. She accepted a few gratefully, closing her eyes and sighing.

I felt a stab of guilt that I’d been upstairs snuggling up with Drew, and she had been down here thirsty and awake. I vowed that I would sleep only on the cot from now on.

“I’m so sorry, Momma. I should have been down here.”

She shook her head, her voice barely above a whisper. “No, baby. I just woke up. Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“I know that look.” She paused and inhaled. I could tell that she did this with effort; she then said, “You’re feeling guilt about things you can’t control. Never feel guilt for things beyond your influence.”

I gave her a brave smile as I smoothed her hair. “All right. I won’t do that anymore if you promise to eat a slice of pie. Drew made your lemon meringue.”

Her eyes closed as though she couldn’t keep them open, but her mouth curved slightly at my words. “That sounds great, baby. It’s a deal. You go get me a piece.”

I set the ice chips down on the table and turned to leave, but then stopped when I heard her say, “Ash, wait.”

I walked back to her. “What’s up? Do you want something else with it?”

“No, baby. I just wanted to tell you I love you.”

“Oh.” I nodded, gave her a little smile, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead. “I love you too, Momma, to the stars and beyond.”

She gave me her little smile again, her eyes still closed. “Just like always.”

I squeezed her hand and whispered, “Okay, I’ll be right back with the pie.” Then I turned to the door and made my way to the kitchen.

When I opened the fridge, I found that only two pieces of pie remained. That irritated me. First of all, I hadn’t had a piece of pie yet, and the pie was my idea. Secondly, those charlatans I called brothers knew that the pie was meant for Momma.

I scooped a slice out and placed it on a plate, then decided to hide the rest of the pie in the back of the fridge so she could have a second piece later.

Pleased with my efforts to conceal the last slice, I grabbed a fork and the pie, walked back to the den, and crossed to her bed.

“Momma, I have your pie,” I whispered. “I haven’t tried it yet, so I don’t know if it’s as good as yours, but it sure is pretty.”

She didn’t move.

I watched her for a minute, wondering if I should wake her, then noticed that the machines weren’t beeping.

I didn’t come to the realization all at once.

Rather, I stared at the flat line on the small monitor for several seconds…maybe even a minute before I recognized what it meant. When I did, the world went silent.

There is a stillness that accompanies the death of a loved one. Everything becomes quieter, but it’s not just sound that is dimmed. Movement, action, perception, emotion—everything is distant and removed.

Maybe the stillness was because I’d been so busy leading up to this moment. After waking up from the shock of her diagnosis and facing reality, I’d thrown all of myself into her care and the care of my family.

But now—reality being the flat line on the monitor—she was gone. The subjects and tasks that had filled my waking hours for more than a month went with her. The pie in my hand was meaningless, and the world felt like a strange and foreign place.

I was at the bottom of a lake. I was drifting. I felt like I could hold my breath for years. And I was beyond the reach of all the things that mattered before, but suddenly seem so trivial in the face of death.

CHAPTER 20

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”

? Albert Camus, The Fall

We all did a lot of staring that day.

The point that struck me as most interesting about our collective staring was the objects at which people stared.

Jethro stared out the window. Billy stared at the fireplace. Cletus stared at the front door. Beau stared at the kitchen table. Duane stared at the refrigerator. Roscoe stared at Momma’s sewing desk.

I sat in my recliner and stared at the spot where the hospital bed had been.

I kept looking for and trying to assign symbolism to everything: the den’s emptiness and bigness; a sudden rainstorm that started right after they took her away; the book The Neverending Story that Drew had been reading to her the night before.

Drew kept us all moving.

He made us breakfast and told us to eat. He made us sandwiches and told us to eat. He made pheasant soup with biscuits and told us to eat. He saw to it that everyone showered and dressed. He turned on the TV in the living room and streamed all the Pink Panther movies, one right after the other.

After dinner, we were all in the kitchen helping with the dishes, and I had the thought, Someone should go check on Momma.

And that’s when I started to cry.

Jethro was nearest. He wrapped one of his big arms around my shoulders and pulled me to his chest. I cried on his flannel shirt as he shushed me and held me close. My mind was a jumbled mess, so I didn’t protest—or even think to protest—when I was picked up off my feet and carried out of the kitchen to the family room.