Page 25 of Lighting the Lamp
I can’t respond right away; my throat tightens at the sound of a familiar voice across the line. I squeeze my eyes shut, drag in a breath, and force out, “Momma, who’s with you?”
“Ramona. She came down to pick me up. Say hello to Beau, sweetheart.”
I blink, thrown for a second. I’m not sure I heard her right. Ramona?
“Hey, Beau.” Her voice is soft—barely above a whisper—but there’s something frayed beneath it, like she’s been holding her breath and just let it out.
“Hey… Mona.” My voice comes out rough, scraped raw from too many emotions I haven’t figured out how to name yet. I swallow around the lump lodged in my throat and try to steady myself. “Is Darius with you?”
Please say no. Please, God.
“No,” she blurts out too quickly. “He stayed at the condo with Cole and Michele.” There’s a beat of silence before she adds, quieter, guilt bleeding through, “We didn’t want to scare him… but I’m sure he knows something’s up.”
My stomach twists as I drag a hand down my face in relief. “Yeah, that boy notices everything, especially when we don’t want him to.”
Another pause—this one thick with all the words we’re not saying.
“Sorry you had to go all the way down to Redwood Falls,” I say, trying to shift the focus off the rising panic bubbling under my skin. If Darius had heard me, if he’d caught even a piece of that conversation with Momma…
“It’s no—” Ramona cuts herself off with a breath that sounds like it might shatter her. “I shouldn’t have listened in. I didn’t mean to—your mom had you on speaker, and then she started talking about Darius and…” Her voice breaks. “I shouldn’t be crying, but Beau, you scared the hell out of us.”
I close my eyes, guilt punching through my ribs like a fist. “I didn’t mean for anyone to hear any of that, but I couldn’t do it anymore. It’s been so hard trying to hold it together. For Cooper. For Momma. For everyone.”
“You don’t have to hold it together for us,” she whispers. “We love you, and that means we get to be scared, too.”
A sharp breath catches in my lungs. I don’t have the words. Not the right ones. So I just whisper, “Thanks for being there and going to get Momma.”
Momma’s voice breaks in then, warm and fierce and sharp with love. “You really think I was gonna sit around while my son was in the hospital?”
She exhales hard, like she’s been holding her breath for hours.
“We won’t crowd you. Cooper and Alise are already there, and the last thing you need is a full house of stubborn women fussing over you. We’ll go to your condo, pack up what we can fit in the car, and be waiting when you get home.”
“Okay.” The word tears out of me, raw and uneven. “Thank you.”
My throat tightens the second I say it. Not just from everything I’ve tried to hold in, but from everything I couldn’t.
I can hear her smiling through the phone. That steady smile only a mom can give you when you’re bleeding on the inside. “You just focus on getting better, sweetheart.”
There’s a knock on the door, and my head lifts as Alise steps in without a word. No hesitation or awkward pause like she’s unsure if she should be here. She just is, like always, and it breaks something in me.
She catches my eye with a quiet nod—simple, steady, and sure—crossing the room with a kind of gentleness that makes me feel more undone than any sharp word ever could.
“I gotta go,” I say hoarsely, still watching her. “I love you.”
“We love you, too,” my mom and Ramona echo, their voices laced with something heavier than worry as I end the call.
I lower the phone with slow, deliberate movements. If I move too fast, the brittle shell I’ve built around myself might crack wide open. Alise doesn’t say anything as she crouches beside the bed, her presence quiet but unflinching. One hand slips over mine, warm and solid, and that’s all it takes. The trembling starts in the fingertips, then my jaw, and then my chest caves in.
A choked sound claws its way out of my throat, sharp and ugly, and I double over. My forehead crashes into hers like I’m trying to hold on to the last solid thing I’ve got, and then I break. Sobs tear through me before I can stop them, ripping straight from my chest. There’s no bracing anymore. No pretending, just the wreckage of everything I’ve tried so hard to hold in, pouring out like floodwater.
Alise doesn’t flinch or shush me and tell me it’s going to be okay. She just stays right there, breathing with me. Grounding me. Her hand over mine, her forehead pressed to mine, and her quiet strength wrapped around the edges of my chaos like a net.
“I didn’t mean to lose it,” I rasp, words barely getting past the sob stuck in my throat. “On the phone, I just couldn’t fake it anymore. I can’t keep pretending I’m okay.” My voice shatterson that last word, and still, she doesn’t let go. Her fingers tighten just enough to remind me I’m not alone. Her other hand comes up and cups the back of my neck, thumb brushing slow and sure against my skin like she’s rewiring me piece by piece.
“You don’t have to. Not with them or me,” she says the quiet truth, solid as the earth beneath us.
Something twists in my chest, relief and fear all tangled up. I squeeze my eyes shut as another sob breaks loose. My whole body shakes with it. It’s not pretty or brave, but it’s real. And by some miracle, Alise stays through the storm. Her breath syncs with mine until the edges of my grief soften just enough to let a little air in. There’s no fixing this. No making it neat or manageable, but for the first time in days—maybe weeks—I’m not carrying it alone.
