Page 55 of The Making of Mila and Blake
“No!” I yell, but Blake is too strong for me.
He backs us out of the room together, trapping my arms to my chest and dragging me out of the house, down the porch steps, and out by the ambulance with its lights still flashing against the starry sky.
Tears flow relentlessly down my face and every single piece of my heart feels broken, the sharp edges wedged into my chest, sucking the air out of me. I break out of Blake’s hold and spin around to face him, completely distraught as he extends his arms toward me. I smack his hands away.
“I was supposed to be here!” I scream. “I was supposed to be with him tonight, but I was with you! I wasted what might have been his last night withyou!”
Blake forces himself forward, enveloping me in a secure, protective embrace, but I can’t take it. The guilt tears me apart from the inside out, and I pound my fists into Blake’s chest until I no longer have the energy. My legs give way and my ankle throbs as I collapse into him in defeat, my muffled sob filling the night air of what should have been a beautiful night on the Harding Estate.
22
A resounding silence has settled around the house. Our hearts have been ripped to shreds, leaving behind a gaping hole that makes its unbearable presence known every second of every hour. Every breath I take hurts. This ranch doesn’t feel like home without Popeye.
Dad sits at the kitchen table with an untouched bottle of beer, hidden behind the mountain of foil-covered dishes that the local community has been dropping at the gate since Popeye’s obituary was printed in the Fairview newspaper yesterday morning. The food remains uneaten. I don’t know when we’ll ever get our appetites back. The thought of continuing life as normal is unfathomable to me. Dad stares ahead at nothing, his expression terrifyingly empty, and he touches the unshaven stubble lining his jaw.
How cruel it is that after the years of fighting for a diagnosis, it wasn’t even the Huntington’s disease that mattered in the end. Popeye was supposed to still have many years ahead of him despite the gradual deterioration of his mind and body. How were any of us supposed to predict that we would end up losing him to cardiac arrest? The rhythm of his heart just went out of sync, the doctor told us. “It happens.”
Bouquets of fresh flowers cover the counters behind Dad. The box of pale pink carnations is signed with a note of condolences from Blake; the blooming lilies are from LeAnne Avery; the fresh orchids were dropped off on the porch by Teddy. I fill a jug at the faucet and carefully water each arrangement.
Blake has been immensely supportive. He texts several times daily; he calls even though I don’t have the energy to answer and leaves a comforting voicemail each time. He understands that I just need to be with my family right now. He knows I’ll talk when I’m ready.
I find Sheri where I’ve constantly found her the past four days. She sits on the floor of Popeye’s bedroom with one of his flannel shirts gripped between her hands, clutching it to her chest as she holds onto the familiarity of his scent. Her sweater hangs from her body, her cheekbones hollow with grief.
On Popeye’s perfectly made bed, his old, tattered green army jacket from the early seventies is laid out on display alongside the medals he was so honored to have received. I touch the gold of the National Defense Service Medal, the bronze of the Vietnam Service Medal. Popeye was a proud veteran.
“I need to take these to the funeral home,” Sheri says, her tone void of any emotion. We are past the point of being able to feel anything but a numbness in the very depths of our hearts.
The preacher from church sits on the couch with a dainty cup of hot tea. A tray of sandwiches that one of the neighbors dropped off sits on the coffee table. I hobble into the room, unsteady in the walking boot the orthopedic fitted my foot into. My fractured ankle is the least of my agony right now.
Dad is shaking his head, his hand on Sheri’s arm. “I can’t write the eulogy. You should be the one to do it.”
“You’re the oldest, Everett. You’re the son.”
“But I don’t. . . I have no right to.”
Dad and Sheri realize that neither of them has the strength to stand at Popeye’s memorial and eulogize him. Dad feels it would be wrong of him to speak at the service after the tumultuous relationship they have had over the years, and Sheri doesn’t think she can find words strong enough to summarize the love she had for Popeye. She knows she can’t hold herself together long enough to deliver a speech, so the task is delegated to the preacher. He scribbles into a notepad as we share little anecdotes and tales of the rich, full life Popeye lived. Sheri reminiscences on growing up with a hard-working father who poured his blood, sweat, and tears into maintaining the ranch his own father had built, but who always had time to kiss her goodnight at the end of every sun-soaked day spent in the fields. Dad remembers how Popeye had caught him drinking beer at the age of fifteen with his buddies at the park and dragged him to the car by his ear, but also how Popeye had sat up all night with him, offering fluids and chicken soup when Dad caught measles. I recall the time he and I danced together in this very living room to that old seventies’ song by The Carpenters. It’s the first time any of us show even a hint of a smile in days.
I rush outside onto the porch as fast as I can, given my injured foot, and my heart swells at the sight of Mom’s rental car making its way up the dirt track road. She couldn’t escape from work until this morning but has dropped everything and flown the two thousand miles to be with us as soon as possible. She runs to me from the car, deep lines of grief mingling with her tender expression, and she wraps her thin arms around me and pulls me in close. I break into tears and cling with every fiber to her loving warmth in the hope that I might just feel okay again one day.
She keeps an arm around my shoulders and helps me shuffle back inside the house. Dad steps before us in the hall. His features are so taut with anguish, he seems to have aged ten years in five days. He is almost unrecognizable. There is real misery, real sorrow in his dark eyes.
Mom steps forward to catch him as he grows unsteady on his feet. His entire weight falls against her, no strength left in his body, but it’s okay now. Mom is here. She is his safety net. Dad buries his head into the crook of her neck, and she strokes his hair in comfort, pressing kisses to his temple.
“It’s okay, Everett. It’s okay.”
Dad sniffs back his tears and moans in agony into her shoulder. “I just hope he knew I really did love him,” he sobs.
“He knew,” Mom whispers. “He knew.”
On the morning of the funeral of Wesley Harding, the sun shines through clear blue skies and the birds chirp overhead. The church parking lot is overflowing, vehicles left abandoned on the grass. Popeye was known and loved in the Fairview community, and that has been evident not only by the gestures of love extended to our family in the past week, but by the sheer amount of people who have come today to pay their final respects. It is heartwarming to know how loved he was.
Inside the church hall, every pew is full and it’s standing room only in the back. We sit in the front row, Dad, Sheri, Mom and me, along with some of Popeye’s extended family– elderly cousins, grown nieces and nephews. People I’ve never met. I pinch the silk material of the black dress Sheri let me borrow. I was here for a summer trip home; I didn’t need black formal attire. I glance along the row at Dad. He’s dressed in the all-black suit he rushed to order with a tiny badge of the US flag pinned to the breast pocket.
I cast my gaze forward. The polished oak casket is surrounded by flower arrangements and a large portrait of Popeye as a serving soldier back in his youth, with his beaming smile and a zest for life. A huge US flag is draped over the casket and an honor guard stands to the side, the four members of the armed forces dressed in uniform. As a war veteran, Popeye receives military honors. I know he would be proud to be put to rest wearing his army jacket and with his service awards by his side.
The preacher steps up to the podium, opens with a reading, then introduces the first hymn. The hymn sheet shakes in my hands and my throat aches so badly that I can’t possibly open my mouth to attempt to sing, but the church does it for us. I look back over my shoulder at the grieving faces of strangers behind me. There are of lot of the older generation of Fairview war vets here today, all in uniform, all here to pay their respects to a fellow soldier.
I spot Savannah. She’s here with her parents and Myles sits on one side of her, Teddy on the other. I’m glad he came. Popeye enjoyed having him and Savannah work on the ranch, and as the months passed Savannah grew fond of Popeye, always offering to fetch him a drink whenever she spotted him meandering through the fields. She is already teary-eyed and dabs at her face with a Kleenex. Teddy places a hand on her back in comfort.
