Page 77 of Leah

She collapsed over me. Chest against chest, I could feel our heartbeats racing. Racing, just likeIwas racing for time. I wrapped my arms around her, kissing her softly.

Be with me.I wanted to say.

Just be with me.

She fell asleep on me like that, and I never got the chance to say the words out loud.

Twenty-Two

Carter

10 years old

She was supposed to be getting better.

And she had been for a very long time.

Until she started to complain about the pills.

“I don’t want them no more, Ron,” she pleaded to Dad. “Please, I don’t want them no more. They make me cloudy and tired. I can’t think straight or concentrate. I just want to be able to sing with Carter without forgetting the words because I’m not there mentally. Please. Please.”

That word had become the norm in our household.

Please.

Please.

Please.

I just wanted to give in and make her happy. My chest felt strained every time she begged, and I pleaded with Dad to just give her what she wanted.

I was weak because Mom had become my world and I just wanted to see her happy.

It broke Dad to tell her no. He hated that he was hurting her because she pulled away from him. She got angry and restless. She hit herself and cried in her sleep. She’d sit for hours in her chair and stare out the window, her eyes dull, her face empty.

“I don’t want to live anymore,” I heard her say to herself one day.

She was broken, and nothing we ever did was going to fix her.

“Be strong,” Dad would tell me when we were alone. “Be strong for her, Carter.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that.

“She’s not happy,” I told him glumly. “I just want her to be happy.”

My father paced a lot during those days when Mom reacted like this. He seemed lost, his patience hanging by a thread because she’d say things to him—hurtful things, and he would take it, and take it, and then I’d catch him sometimes sitting alone in the garage, nursing a beer with a faraway look in his eyes.

“I’ll be strong,” I’d tell him in those moments, hoping I might add a little light in his eyes.

He’d smile, but the light in my father’s eyes was gone.

Twenty-Three

Leah

Islept deep. His arms were like pillows, and I was in heaven with the level of comfort I was feeling. Until… I heard something.

I thought I was dreaming of it at first.

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