Page 13 of Always in Watch Hill
Justin nodded, a heaviness in his shoulders that wasn’t there before. “We were really close. My mother died when I was twenty, and my dad... well, he was never around much. And in the last few years, my uncle Charles stepped into sort of... a parent in a way. But when it came down to it, I couldn’t be there with him when he died.”
I gasped. Of course, he couldn’t have—in the early days of the virus people across the country weren’t able to be with their loved ones as they died. It was a horrific, unimaginable tragedy that only compounded the cruel reality of the disease. I’d struggled to understand it, or to accept that fact, but no one that Iknewin my daily life had experienced this kind of pain. My small circle of friends was spared, and so were my family members.
But here was someone who’d been hit hard with the indignities of it all.And my guess is that he suffered very much alone.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I tried, then blanched at the words, which sounded so hollow and empty of what he’d just told me. “What’s the thing you remember the most about him?”
Justin angled his chin, pausing. I wondered if he’d spoken to many people about his uncle, especially since he’d died. I had friends, family I was close to. I’d never been so truly... alone. He took a deep breath and a small smile graced his lips.
“When I was about thirteen, we started going fishing at East Fork Lake. We’d go a couple times a year, just me and him. He had this old pickup truck with rust on the bumper, and we’d load up the back with everything we needed. He’d get me at six in the morning, and we’d stay out there all day. I used to come home redder than a tomato, and half the time we wouldn’t catch much of anything. But it was fun. Really fun.”
“Did you at least get a chance to memorialize him?”
Justin shook his head. “Not yet. At some point I will, but not yet.”
“I hope you do,” I replied, my heart breaking for him a tiny bit more. How hard it must have been to go through something like that alone. How unfair. “Everyone deserves the chance to mourn, and the opportunity to remember the people they cared about in life. And that is certainly what your uncle deserves too.”
He nodded. “Thank you for letting me talk about him. It’s been so easy to keep it all hidden inside or the last few months. I shut myself away and focused on my work... it became easy to stay inside my little bubble. Almost felt like it was normal, and that’s not the case at all. There’s nothing normal about any of this, nothing okay at all with the way that we’ve been living.”
“No, you’re right, there isn’t.”
He moved closer and my breath caught in my throat. Something glinted behind his eyes.
“Well,” I tried, “I guess I should go inside and take another look at the edits. Need to maximize my time.”
“You should, Lynne.” Justin rocked back and forth on his feet. “You absolutely should.”
I gave the bike a careful shake to make sure it wouldn’t fall out of the bike rack, then turned and headed toward the cottage, the short pathway growing longer with each step I made. When I arrived at the front, I couldn’t resist any longer—I turned and looked back at him.
He still stood in the same spot, stating after me.
“Goodnight, Justin,” I called.
“Goodnight, Lynne.”
I gave him a small wave, took another reluctant breath, and went inside the cottage. It was still early in the evening, and I had plenty of work waiting for me. And working was the point of my visit, after all, not making friends with the hot owner of the rental.
Even if he was charming. And grieving. And in need of a friend.
I needed to focus on my edits.
