Page 56 of Love Notes & Lifelines
The second I step back she runs her little legs to push herself back as far as she can go then she lifts them and swings through the extra-wide doorway. Daisie lays on the floor in between them with her paws crossed, watching them both.
This is home to them. It’s home to Beck too, but he’s still standing in the doorway. One foot on the porch and one on the threshold. He’s frozen, but his gaze darts from the ceiling to the walls, landing on nothing. I can’t decide if he’s trying to categorize it all or forget it ever existed.
“Beck?” I ask hesitantly.
He blinks feverishly before focusing on me in the center of the room.
“I’ve—I mean. I don’t know where their rooms are. Or where anything is. Can you get them settled? Do…whatever they need. Okay? That’s what you’re here for. Can you do that?”
His words push me back a few steps, but I nod so he can’t tell how he’s affected me.
“Good.” He steps into the house, closes the door, then stalks down the hall away from me—from us. He takes a sharp turn into a room and slams that door closed, but it bursts open a second later. He reappears, his expression wild as he spins in place.
His chest heaves for oxygen, but when he catches me staring, he points, obviously ready to yell, then turns and storms off. A second later, a third door slams, and because we’re surrounded by windows, I catch him stomping toward the beach.
Curiosity gets the better of me. I take a quick peek at the girls to ensure they’ll be safe for thirty seconds, then quickly slide down the hall to the door that spooked Beck.
The second I open it, my heart trips over itself in my chest. It’s a study, or an office, perhaps it even served as a library, but it’s most recently been used as a makeshift hospital room. An IV bag still hangs in the corner from a metal rack, and a freshly made hospital bed sits waiting for its next patient.
The room is cloaked in death. The scent of it permeates the walls and weighs heavily over me.
“That’s Mommy’s room,” Emmy says quietly. “The water.” She points to the wall of windows that overlook the ocean.
“Your mommy liked the ocean?”
She nods, heartbreak covering every inch of her expression. “When she could see it.”
Her little hand slips into mine and she leads me back to the family room where Ruby’s still running and swinging.
That’s where their mom died, and Beck knew it the same way I did—you never forget the scent of death.
I glance toward the open ocean, unable to fathom the depth of his emotions. I can’t console him, but I can be there for these girls, so I surround them with love while they give me a tour of the house.
In Emmy’s room, there’s a note on hot pink paper taped to her nightstand.
Remember, Emmy. Even when you’re sad, Mommy loves you always.
Without turning my head, I find six more love notes scattered throughout the room.
Cally filled this house with love so her girls would feel it even after she was gone.
She didn’t want them to forget her, and after witnessing my mom slowly lose her memories of me, I understand why. It’s the most painful thing to be wiped from someone’s life as though you never existed.
I vow then to make sure these girls will always remember their mom. For as long as I’m around, Cally’s memory will be kept alive.
Hopefully it doesn’t break Beck in the process.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BECK
The house isdark by the time I lift myself from the damp sand. Night fell when I wasn’t paying attention.
Standing at the threshold of that house wasn’t what I was expecting. Though if I’m honest, I really hadn’t given it much thought. So when my mind flashed with a story—one that may be a memory—I froze.
“Get him out of here. Your mother is such a fucking mess. Get him out of here, and call an ambulance.”For the first time in years, I remembered my father’s harsh tone and harsher words. I remembered the fights and why the only memories I’d clung to were ones of Cally and me. It was all too much.
Then I went into that room—the one I spent my childhood loving, the one that stole my mother’s last breath when cancer finally set her free—it spooked me after that. But seeing it that way again, for my sister, with the scent of death still clinging to every fiber of it broke me wide open.
