Page 5 of A Bond Beyond Blood

“Oh, honey,” Muriel said, her voice laced with sympathy as she entered the living room.“I thought I heard you come in.”

Lifting my head, I met the hospice nurse’s gaze, and the look of pity in her eyes broke my resolve.The tears slipped free, but I locked my jaw and tried my best to keep my composure.

In a blink, she was on me, pulling me into her arms and pressing me against her bosom like a scene out of a Hallmark movie.She soothed me with quiet murmurs as she ran her hand over my long hair.“It’s okay, honey, let it out.”After a moment, she added quietly, “You’re allowed to grieve.”

And something about that statement did it.

I broke.

The agony of grieving a man who still lived and breathed right there down the hall felt somehow even more profound than the knowledge that I came here to say goodbye to him.

Grievehim?

The man who raised me.Loved me.Drove me crazy more often than not.

The man who did his best as a widowed single parent of three young hellions.

The man who somehow ran the butcher shop and this household without giving up on either—even when doing so would have lightened his load tremendously.

In the arms of this stranger, I crumpled to the ground and she lowered with me, rocking me as I cried.

“I should have come home sooner,” I sobbed, my hands clenching around her cable knit cardigan.

“No,” she whispered, “he wouldn’t have wanted you to miss your studies.He wassoproud of you going to that big ol’ school upstate.His brilliant baby, he called you.”

Her statement gutted me and I shook with a deep wail as my heart ripped in two.The acknowledgement of his pride meant little when he’d called me home to take over the store.He was proud that I pursued higher education, just not proudenoughto let me complete my four years and move forward into achieving my goals.

Her words felt like a slap in the face, but I knew that was not her intention.

And I knew it wasn’t his intention either, to make me feel like my dreams didn’t matter, and the guilt brought on by even thinking such a thing squeezed inside my chest to make itself at home between grief and agony.

My father built that shop from the ground up, and he did it forus.Every ounce of his blood, sweat, and tears went into creating something my brothers and I could depend on long after he was gone.It should have been an honor to step into his shoes...

Dad just didn’t account for the fact we might notwantthat honor.

So, in Muriel’s arms, I cried for the loss of my father.And I cried for the loss of my dreams.

Because, over the next few days, I would move back into my childhood home and step into my father’s shoes.

I would carry onhisdream instead of my own.

And the tremendous weight of my grief was overwhelming.

Moments or maybe hourslater, when the tears dried out and my throat was hoarse from crying, Muriel smiled sadly in that sympathetic, knowing way that made me feel like maybe the tear ducts hadn’tquitedried up just yet.She gently swept her thumbs beneath my eyes to wipe the mascara streaks from my cheeks.“When you’re ready, you can go on back and sit with him...”

She didn’t say the rest, but her unspoken words settled over me anyway.

Say your goodbyes.

And so, with a heavy heart, I rose to my feet, made my way down the hall, and prepared to do just that.But when I stepped into his room, he was lucid, staring right at me with bright eyes.My pulse stuttered.I looked over my shoulder, but Muriel hadn’t followed me.Had I misunderstood what was happening here?I’d anticipated him comatose, or at the very least in a deep sleep, the cancer having finally claimed victory over his mind, but—

“Jackie,” he said, and the childhood nickname brought a fresh rush of tears to my eyes.“Come, we haven’t much time.”

Bile rose in my throat at those words, but I hurried to his bedside, fighting to ignore the scent of death hovering around him and twisting my stomach.Struggling to ignore the weight he’d lost in just a short matter of weeks, evident in his sunken cheeks and the way his clavicle stuck out from his body like the craggily roots of an old tree.

“The vampire will come for you,” he said, lowering his voice as his gaze flicked frantically around the room.“You have to be ready.”

My shoulders deflated as hope left me in a rush.He wasn’t lucid at all.

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