Burn for You

I didn’t mean for it to sound like a dismissal, like a decision had been made by a committee that he’d performed well under pressure but should now be on his way, but somehow it did. He flinched a little, slouched lower in his chair.

A minute passed in silence. Then Jackson cleared his throat. “You’re staying here tonight?”

I hadn’t thought about it, but the moment the words were out of his mouth I knew I wanted to do exactly that. “Yes,” I said, strangely relieved.

He nodded. His jaw was set. My engagement ring caught a ray of light and reflected it around the kitchen in a million prism sparks. I couldn’t imagine a more awkward moment had ever occurred.

He asked, “Is there anything I can do? Anything you need?”

When I said no, he visibly deflated.

“Okay,” he answered quietly. “Then I’ll just . . . I guess I’ll just go.”

I couldn’t look at him. A chaos of wingbeats filled my chest. Did I want him to go? Did I want him to stay? I didn’t know anything anymore, only that it was hard to catch my breath. I feared if I looked up into his face, I might shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.

He stood. “Call me if you need anything.” His voice had an edge of sorrow, like he already knew I wouldn’t.

He kissed the top of my head, his lips the barest brush of pressure, fleetingly there, then gone. Then he walked slowly to the front door, his shoulders slumped in a way I’d never seen before. When I heard the door open, my lungs filled with breath, as if I were about to shout, but then the door closed, and I was left alone in silence, the awful reality of the day settling into my bones.

Somewhere off in the distance, a dog howled. It exactly matched the sound inside my head.

That day passed. Heartless how the sun has the nerve to rise and set and rise again, witness to so much ruin.

I awoke in the morning with no idea where I was. I bolted upright on the sofa, staring around the small parlor in confusion, in my clothes from the day before, blinking against the glare of sun streaming through the curtains. Then I remembered, and felt a thousand years old.

Everything looked different without Mama in the world. Even my own face in the mirror. I looked older. Harder. Something had extinguished in my eyes.

I couldn’t eat but desperately needed coffee. I made myself a cup and almost dropped it when the phone rang, my nerves were so shredded.

“Hello?”

“Bianca,” said the Colonel, sobbing. “Oh, Bianca, tell me it isn’t true!”

I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the wall. “I can’t believe it, either. It’s impossible that she’s gone.”

Listening to a man cry is one of the most terrible things in the world. Their tears seem so much more devastating than female tears. Maybe because they so infrequently shed them.

“Was it a heart attack?” the Colonel asked, his voice choked with shock.

“I don’t know. She didn’t want an autopsy, so we won’t know the exact cause of death, but the chemo was really hard on her system.”

There was a stunned silence. “Chemo?”

“She had lung cancer,” I whispered. “She’s been on chemo for weeks. She was scheduled for surgery on Wednesday.”

The Colonel’s small cry of distress pierced me straight through my heart. “Cancer? My God! She never said a word—I thought she had the flu!”

“I know. I’m sorry. That’s what she told everyone.”

It was a minute or two before he composed himself enough to talk. “You know what I think?” he said in a ragged whisper.

“No. What?”

He drew in a long, shuddering breath. I imagined him on the other end of the phone, wiping his eyes and pulling himself up straight into that ramrod posture he was known for. He said, “I think she was just tired of bein’ without your daddy, and now that you’re settled, she decided it was time for her to be on her way.”

A sob broke from my chest. Fighting tears, I clapped a hand over my mouth.

“I loved your mama, Bianca. She was a good woman, and I’ll miss her somethin’ fierce. But I always knew she’d given her heart away a long time ago. I knew she’d never stop loving your daddy, but I’m grateful for the time we spent together because she made me happy. She made the world a better place.”

I didn’t know how I was still standing. Strange, strangled noises gurgled up from deep in my throat.

The Colonel asked gently, “Is there anything you need, darlin’? Anything I can do for you?”

I managed to tell him no, but it was someone else’s voice who answered. Someone with a whiskey-soaked growl and a broken heart. We said good-bye and hung up, but before my coffee got cold the phone rang again.

It didn’t stop ringing for hours.

In between phone calls were the visitors.

They came in a constant stream, friends and neighbors and members of Mama’s church, bearing casseroles and weeping into crumpled-up tissues. Everything became a blur. All the faces began to blend together. I was simultaneously exhausted and energized by all the people who came, their grief piling on top of my own, their voices like the angry buzz of wasps inside my head. I started to feel disconnected, numb again, and was grateful for it.

Numb was better than the alternative. With any luck, numb would get me through the rest of my life.

I spoke to the church and set Mama’s funeral for Wednesday at noon. So the day she was supposed to have life-saving surgery was the day she’d be buried. I didn’t want to examine the coincidence.

When Jackson called, I told him I needed to stay at Mama’s house for now to deal with everything that had to be done. When he asked if he should come over to help, I said no. After the awkward pause that followed, he said he’d send some of my clothes over. I think he was hoping I’d say don’t bother, I’ll be coming to live at Rivendell soon, but I was so tired I just said, “That’s fine.”

When we hung up it felt like I’d been untethered. I was a little boat who’d lost her moorings and was drifting aimlessly out to sea.

For the next two days, I didn’t eat. I barely slept. I survived on coffee and adrenaline, forgetting to shower until Eeny told me I smelled like a goat. By Wednesday morning I was a wreck. I didn’t know how I’d make it through the funeral without collapsing.

But once again, Jackson’s strength shored me up.

Then he gave my little boat a hard push into rough waters and set me free.

THIRTY-SEVEN

BIANCA

It was a bracing fifty-eight degrees, the sky a clear, brilliant blue above our heads. Eeny stood to my left, crying softly into a handkerchief. Jackson was to my right, stony as the inside of my heart.

The church service was beautiful, attended by almost four hundred people. A gospel choir raised the rafters in song. Hoyt arranged for a jazz funeral procession from Saint Augustine’s to the cemetery. Two dozen musicians in black caps and white dress shirts slowly led the mourners on foot through the streets of New Orleans to the sound of hymns played on trumpets, drums, saxophones, and clarinets. At the grave site there were so many flower arrangements the bees came out in force, adding a gentle hum to underscore the priest’s final blessing of farewell.

Then Mama’s casket was lowered into the ground, and it was done.

Back at the house, the wake lasted for an eternity. Finally, well after nightfall, the house emptied, and I was left alone with my grief and a grim fiancé who looked exactly as wrecked as I felt.