Page 72 of Into the Mountains
“So, what happened?” Sky says hesitantly like she’s afraid to even ask the question. I take a deep inhale, because it’s my turn to finally talk about everything that happened after that.
“She had a heart attack. They had found out she had some kind of heart condition, Atherosclerosis. It can cause heart attacks, strokes, a lot of different things.” I pause for a moment, thinking of the day my parents finally told me everything. Hurt and confused, I lashed out at them and left. I just remember feeling the dire need to get away. To be anywhere but there. The feeling of betrayal ran so deep, it was difficult to be in the same room as them.
“It’s what caused her dementia and it’s why it rapidly progressed. The doctors said it was rare for dementia to take hold as quickly as it did with her. But it happened. And a few weeks later, she was gone.” A tear slips down my cheek. I’ve never fully talked about this before. To anyone. I dug a hole, tossed all the pain and heartbreak down into it and buried it as deep into my soul as I could.
“I’m so sorry, Charlotte. I had no idea,” Avery says.
“How could you? It’s not like I’m an open book about that stuff.” I shrug. “Anyway, after she passed, Dad was heartbroken. We both were, but she was the love of his life and a few weeks after she died, he had a massive heart attack. I came home one night and found him on the living room floor. Dead. Poetic, they both had heart attacks in the end,” I try to say it with a lighter air, but it comes out flat.
“Shit, I can’t imagine that,” Jacob says softly. I never understood that phrase. Can’t imagine. Because I can imagine just about anything. I could imagine all of us running through the woods, jumping off a cliff and flying with pixie dust if I wanted to. Truth is, people can imagine, they just don’t want to.
A warm hand grabs mine and I look over to see Elias, his head turned toward me with tears in his eyes. “I’m really sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“I didn’t let you.”
He smiles sadly and squeezes my hand. We all sit in silence for a few moments before Hudson speaks up for the first time. “So, if you left after they died and eventually worked for the paper with Avery, does that mean the house—”
“Still there. Still mine. I actually still have their ashes too. Two urns still sitting on a shelf at the house. I just…left them there.”
“You never spread them anywhere?”
“No.” I bottled them up just as I did with the pain that spread through me like spilled ink seeping through a page.
“You should,” Hudson says. “Spread them, I mean.” He straightens like part of him is uncomfortable sharing, but the look on his face says he’s more determined than anything to help. “It took mea long time to come to terms with Sarah’s death. And it wasn’t until I visited her and really acknowledged that she was gone that I was able to heal. I’ll never be fully healed, but it’s a start.”
Would anyone ever be fully healed? “I don’t even know where I’d spread them.”
“Is there a place back home?” Elias asks.
“Even if there was, I haven’t been back since I left. I’ve never visited or anything. The house could have been burned down for all I know. Or it could be infested with rats or mold or something.” The truth of the matter is I’ve thought about going back to close down the house and sell it. But the mere thought of going back there was too much.
“You should go back,” Hudson’s quiet voice carries over the crackling of the fire. “You won’t get the closure you need by avoiding it.”
“Spoken from experience,” Sky adds. “He’s right.”
“Hold on,” Hudson reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his phone. After tapping the screen a few times, he says, “Say that again and move closer to the phone so I can get it clearly.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“An idiot who you just said was right.”
“I regret that.”
We all laugh at the two of them, the air feeling a bit lighter than it did a few moments before. Elias’s hand is still in mine and for once, I don’t feel the urge to let it go in our present company. So much has happened between the two of us. Now and then. Maybe it’s time to grab a shovel and dig up everything I shoved down and face it. At least maybe this time I won’t be facing it alone. Could I face it at all?
The guilt of not visiting my town after so many years has kept me away. Not visiting Andy or Meredith. I disappeared and I was a shitty friend. Elias isn’t the only one who is looking for some kind of redemption from that summer.
“What about your house, Eli?”
“Yeah, Eli,” Sky starts with emphasis on the nickname. “Wait, what house do you have besides the one you just bought from Jacob?”
“None,” he says looking down at his free hand, picking at the nonexistent lint there. A distraction I know all too well.
“What happened to the one you grew up in?” I ask.
He lets out a soft grunt. “You mean the pit of hell I basically raised myself in?”
No one answers. We allow him his space to gain his composer to answer our questions. “I sold it a long time ago. Dad died a few years after I left. Cancer.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a shaky exhale. It must be weird. Losing a person you loathe and another person you love so much to the same disease. The feeling of relief and sorrow tangled together in a complicated web.
