Page 43 of Now to Forever

I couldn’t stop thinking about Ford on day thirteen; my dad got drunk, picked up Zeb’s ashes, crashed into the creek, and died while Zeb’s cremains wash away.

Somewhere in that timeline I never quite placed, Ford left; we never spoke again.

When I came out of the woods, the only things waiting were guilt and grief. Ford was gone, my brother was gone. I refused to go to whatever sham of a funeral my uncle planned for my dad.

Ford clears his throat, cutting his paddle into the water and bringing me back to the canoe and him.

“Anyway, after that, I came back to Ledger, hellfire in my veins, and went right to the crematorium. I sat on the front steps until he told me exactly how my brother was treated. I nearly punched him in the face when he showed me the process.‘Bodies without directions are sent in naked and with a sheet,’he told me. You can imagine the words I had for him.”

I turn around in my seat to fully face Ford now. His intense expression is wholly fixed on me. His paddle is on his lap; any movement of the canoe is now a drift.

“Turns out, I’m annoying enough, because he gave me a job. He said in that uppity voice of his—you remember him? Mr. Garth?”

Ford lets out a soft laugh. “I do.”

“He said,‘Ms. Armstrong, if you think you can do so much better, why don’t you do it?’So I did. I dressed them so they looked like who they were and started playing music they liked. Did it the way Zeb would have wanted, ya know?” Ford nods again. “And then I just . . . never left. What would I have done, anyway? Only a year and a half of college credits on my resumé. I couldn’t bring myself to go back to school. Seemed pointless. The next few months . . .” There is so much to say, so much Ford hasno idea about, but the narrowing of my throat tells me not today. Not yet. “The next few months were difficult. And Glory—” I blow out an incredulous breath and give him a look that explains that shitshow. “That woman had every excuse in the book for what happened and why she didn’t try and find me. Mr. Garth gave me the apartment over the crematorium and paid for me to go through crematory training. I did that for years. The Death Liaison, he called me.” I smile fondly. I annoyed the hell out of that man, but he was good to me. “He retired about ten years ago and I took out a loan and bought it from him.” I shrug. “I changed the name to Happy Endings for shock value.” Ford chuckles and puts the tip of his paddle in the water, steering us away from the tree line. “And here we are.”

Stories like mine never get easier to tell, but in that canoe, for the first time, I feel a hint of relief. Like a deep breath after being under water for too long.

“I didn’t know,” he says as I start paddling again, steering us toward a floating dock in the middle of the lake. “That nobody could reach you. June and I talked. And I called you—not that it matters. It went to your voicemail, and I didn’t know what to say—didn’t know how to explain any of it—so I didn’t leave a message.”

“And never called again for twenty years,” I add.

“And never called again for twenty years,” he echoes, voice quiet.

At the floating dock, Ford ties off to a cleat with a small rope, and we climb onto it, taking in the lake around us in silence.

“After that, everything crumbled,” I continue, the words falling out of my mouth like a line of dominoes. “It’s like I had tried to escape who I was, and this town and the universe felt it—sucked me back in like a damn vacuum and reminded me of my place. Like God got pissed I was trying to act too big for my britches. Had the nerve to hope for a better life. If I never would have gone on that hike—or gone to college at all—maybe it wouldn’t have happened.” Three ducks fly by; we both watch them. “Anyway, twenty years seems like a good amount of time to try again. Get out of here. Nobody left to get wrecked if I’m gone except Glory.” I laugh an unamused laugh. “Way that woman bitches she’ll probably throw me a party.”

He stares at me; I stare at the water.

“You’re different,” he finally says.

“Well, I’m forty-one, so, that’s a given.”

He shakes his head. “Not that. You . . . you used to have this look when I’d pick you up from your house. Almost smug, you know? Defiant. Like, where you came from and what everyone else in your family did had nothing to do with what you were. Like it was the least interesting thing about you.”

“And now?”

His eyes squint just enough that lines web out around them as he looks at me like he’s seeing every truth that lives inside of me. “Now it seems like it’s the only thing you think of.”

I scoff. “It’s not.”

“Really?” He takes a wobbly step toward me as the dock bobs in another wake. “Why didn’t you show up for a drink?”

At once, anger starts to swirl and collide against itself within me, and I don’t mask it in my voice. “I told you I was busy.”

“Why are you still single?” he presses.

“You’re single!” I argue, louder.

“Why are you alone?” He doesn’t wait for my answer before rapid-firing his next questions: “Why is there nobody in your life? Why do you want to sell the house? To move to the damn desert? Why won’t you look at me? Why are you dating guys like math-man Dean? Why can’t w—”

“Because you left!” I shout, silencing him as the angry words bounce around us and ricochet off the water. “Because you left,” I repeat, voice lower and more controlled. “And when you did that, you took everything with you, whether you knew it or not or meant to or not, you did it just the same. So stop the investigation, Officer, there’s your answer. I am the way that I am because I gave everything away a long time ago and never got it back.”

My heart slams beneath my ribs. He has the audacity to look ruined.

“I left because I thought you’d blame me,” he finally says. “Because I blamed myself.” He’s close enough to me now that we could touch but don’t. “BecauseIdidn’t do enough to save Zeb. BecauseIlet him go into that house. Because—” He stops suddenly, as if there’s more, but he’s not ready. The only sound I hear is my own blood rushing in my ears; the tension between us is strong enough to produce electricity. “Because I thought you’d be better off.”

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