“I know,” she whispered, and her head fell on his arm, just below his shoulder. That’s all the contact they had yet the weight of her head through his sleeve seemed to anchor him to the earth. He had not lived his life yet. Maybe he had a reason and a purpose to fulfill. He was still connected to the earth even though Kate was not. He tilted his head and kissed the top of Daisy’s head. Something he hadn’t done in more than five years that he liked to do a lot. After a moment, he wrapped his other arm around her, and she squeezed him back. There they were, huddled together on the mountaintop, desperately clinging to each other in the dark.
Layers of clothes insulated them, but Daisy’s body heat finally restored Asher’s. His skin felt as cold as his deceased mother. Daisy reminded him of life. Her heart was beating and that was all he could concentrate on for now. He was more than relieved she was there. She might have been the only thing he could feel.
“I’ve been so numb all this time. Through her last days. It scares me.”
“That’s how you cope. Always. She knew that.”
“What if she mistook it and thought I didn’t care?”
Daisy snorted and her head came up even though he didn’t look down at her sudden gaze. “She wouldn’t have mistaken it. She knew you cared too much. Kate just knew. Like the way you dealt with us breaking up. And when you first came to live with them. They both knew how you were. You bury yourself with logic and keeping busy, avoiding your emotions so they can’t fully envelop you. You feel so much intense passion, the hot pain you’re experiencing now could set you on fire. She knew that from the start. When I tell you it’s okay, whatever you said or failed to say—then, now, and later on—it really is okay. Especially with your family. AJ and Cami and Charlie and Jack. Me too. You were just being yourself and that’s always okay.”
No one else could have said that to him and have Asher believe them. No one but Daisy… And he trusted her. She observed him and his family, from way back. She knew him so well, in ways only his family could. She was as much a part of him and his true family as his parents and Cami. Together or not. They were still connected and he doubted it would ever change.
But their love wasn’t enough. Even if they shared it.
Nodding slowly, he finally released her. “I need to stop being like that. I have to start dealing with it. Dad—he’ll need me. And Cami deserves my help. She lost her mom too.”
Daisy squeezed his hand with hers. He knew he made her very proud just then. Even if nothing else changed, he felt marginally less frozen.
Holding hands, they rose up together and walked to the ATV. He slipped into the passenger seat and stared out without seeing anything the headlights illuminated. They crossed the rough terrain and drove back onto the dirt road before starting down the hills. Daisy chose the more usual way to go back than the way Asher took to go up. Pulling into his family driveway, the significance of losing Kate struck him afresh.
She wasn’t there anymore. He wanted to run in there; then he wanted to run away. It was so overwhelming and both options had a strong pull on him. He wanted to find his dad and Cami to see how they were and ask them what to do next. At the same time, he wanted to run out, never being inside that house without Kate also in it. The mournful knowledge that Kate Reed would never be there again fell on him like a brick. The word never still bothered him, and he wondered what to do and how to think.
Daisy touched his elbow. “Asher?” Her tone was low, like a warning and a question. She probably knew how hard he was fighting his urge to leave.
He shook his head and blinked. “Right. Yes. I’m going in.”
They both leapt free of the vehicle and walked together up the path.
Entering the house, all heads swiveled their way. A weird, otherworldly hush pervaded the room and slammed into them with physical force.
His mom passed on. The words were as real now as his heart hurt. And his hand. And even his toes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, glancing at his dad. AJ sat on the sofa, looking unresponsive but met Asher’s gaze when he entered.
AJ nodded and his tears easily, without any embarrassment or concern, slipped from his eyes. “I know. Me too. Sit down. Or don’t sit. Whatever.”
Asher chose to come in and sit down near his dad, giving him plenty of space. “I don’t know what to do or say.”
His sister walked in from another room. “No one does,” Cami said as she sat beside Asher and started to cry. Gripping his arm, she leaned her head on him. He instantly put his arms around her.
“I’m sorry I ran away. I should have been here.”
Cami’s shoulders lifted up and down. “Why? You’re here now. We always knew you were coming back. What’s a few hours? Nothing changed. Mom’s gone and here we are.”
Jack and Erin were also there. So was Charlie, but not the kids. There were voices in the kitchen and Asher thought he recognized Daisy’s parents and the rest of her siblings and their spouses.
He shuddered when Cami said, Mom’s gone.
“So, what do we do?”
“Get high? Get drunk?” Cami replied. To Asher’s surprise, that made the smallest smile appear on his lips and he half-snorted; stifling the urge to cry.
“I wish that would make it stop hurting.”
“I wish I could stay drunk for the rest of my life if it stopped me from feeling this,” AJ said in his calm, quiet tone.
“Oh, Dad…” Cami sniffled and started to cry again. Then Asher teared up and AJ cried some more. Instead of suppressing it, Asher finally released the painful tears as he sat with his dad and sister. Everyone cried for his mother. Their mother. AJ’s wife. Her death came too soon and the reality of it was the cruelest hit for all of them to have to learn to live with.
After a while, AJ wiped his eyes and said, “Of course, she’d kick my ass for being so pathetic and tell me to man up and deal with it. Take care of my kids. Enjoy my grandkids. Live my life as she would have chosen to. That’s what she kept insisting. I just wonder sometimes… I’m not sure I’m strong enough. Not like she was.”
A smile at hearing his father quote his mother’s words, filtered into Asher’s head. Only Kate could put a smile on anyone’s face today. “No one could be. She was extra confident and strong.”
“God, I hated and loved her when I first met her. She was so often there for me all the time and I had no idea how to deal with it,” Asher said, remembering the moment when he met Kate Reed. They stood there, in this very room, when he was at the tender, sad, and vulnerable age of thirteen. Asher was scared out of his mind, fearing what these people could be like. But he never pictured how important and dear they would become to him.
“She confused me. I never met anyone like her,” AJ added with a small, sad smile.
Cami nodded. “She did the same thing to me the first night I met her and you. You were useless, Dad. A too quiet, too sweet guy I would have run witless with all of my games if Kate hadn’t called my bluff. Then she drew the line I needed to respect. She was right. But damn. Did she go all in.”
“She kind of did the same to me. I was looking for a mother, and she seemed to sense that I needed her authority to tell me what to do,” Asher agreed.