Page 20 of For Fox Sake

“I know. I know it’s important, and I’ll try.”

I never took the time to grieve. As a result, emotion tends to slap me in the face or crush me like an elephant sitting on my chest out of nowhere.

I need to deal with her death, confront it, not forget it, but move past it, otherwise the whole reason behind my drinking problem still exists. I don’t necessarily miss alcohol.

What I miss is numbing the pain.

When the session is over and we sign off, I lean back and rub my face. Therapy is like running up a slippery hill on roller skates. Self-improvement is exhausting.

I grab a notebook from my bag, then go to the kitchen, pour a cup of coffee, and head out the front door.

Sitting on the wicker chair on the porch, I open the notebook and stare down at the empty page.

How the hell am I ever going to be able to do this?

A door slams across the street.

Ryan’s little girl skips down the porch steps and grabs a scooter leaning against the fence, pushing it onto the sidewalk in front of her house.

“Hi.” She grins at me, waving.

I lift my coffee mug in a salute and then take a sip before setting it on the blue mosaic table next to my chair.

She rides her scooter up and down the sidewalk, back and forth.

I drag my attention back to the page in front of me.

Focus.

The little girl is singing something softly, the sound barely audible.

It must be lonely, being an only child. It’s not an existence I can imagine, being one of six, not to mention one part of two halves.

My bones ache with the loss.

Tires skid across pavement.

She’s on the move, crossing the street to the walkway in front of my rental. “Do you know how to ride a bike?” she calls out. Her hair must have been clipped back at some point, but now the pink bow lists to one side, her curls waving around her head.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t.” The words aren’t remorseful, more direct. “Momma said I could have a bike maybe for my birthday. But I don’t know how to ride it, so I don’t know if it’s really what I want.”

“That’s very pragmatic of you.”

Her nose wrinkles. “What’s prag-man-tic?”

Before I can correct her, or give her the definition, her head whips back toward her house, like a gazelle sensing a nearby predator.

The side door opens, and Ryan tosses a bag in the trash before the door slaps shut.

The little girl—I don’t think I ever got her name—pushes away from my house, riding her scooter frantically back across the street.

I grin.

And a memory surfaces.

Aria and I were four, maybe five, and spent most of our days following Taylor around when she got home from school because she was a year older than us and Aria worshipped her. She was incredibly jealous of Taylor spending all day in first grade while we were stuck in part-time kindergarten.

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