Page 90 of Warrior's Walk
“Am I speaking with Rhett Marsh?”
Cold dread settles over my skin like an icy blanket. “Yes.”
“My name is Barbara. I’m calling from Mission Hospital. I’m sorry to have to tell you, but your mother passed away about thirty minutes ago.”
I hear her, but the words don’t make any sense. They’re not penetrating my brain. “What happened? Is she okay?”
“Sir, your mother is gone. She passed away.”
“Gone?” I shriek. “Gone where?”
“Sir, she passed away.”
Mandy’s dark shadow appears in my doorway.
“W-what happened?”
“She had a brain aneurysm. A blood vessel ruptured. She passed away in her sleep. In fact, she never woke again after you left.”
I can’t process it. Although I’ve been waiting for this news for days, felt it coming like an unwanted visitor stalking me relentlessly, I refuse to believe what I’m hearing. Not until Mandy comes to sit beside me. Somehow, his presence anchors me back in reality, and her words slam into me like a wrecking ball. From out of nowhere, a flood of emotion breaks me in half, and I shatter apart. It starts with silent tears streaming down my cheeks as my shoulders shake, and then ugly, gut-wrenching sobs break free of my throat, and I drop the phone and cling to Mandy’s broad chest.
He picks up the phone from the mattress and wraps his arm around me as he takes over for me.
“What do we need to do now?” he asks. “Thank you.” And then he hangs up, tossing the phone to the bed. His other arm comes around me. “We need to call the funeral home and have them pick up her body.”Funeral home? I haven’t even made arrangements for her yet. What funeral home?“But first, we need to have a good cry.”
I wasn’t there! She died alone. I fucking hate that I thought I needed a good night’s sleep when my mother was having her very last night. Why did I leave!?
Mandy’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, just stop. You can cry, you can grieve, but you can’t beat yourself up. There wasn’t a fucking thing you could do to save her. I know you know that, Rhett.”
“I could have at least been there to hold her hand.”
“It’s easy to think that now, but you can’t sit there twenty-four seven holding her hand. Your body needs to eat and sleep.”
“I bet she knew I wasn’t there,” I sob. I’ve made a disgusting snotty mess of his T-shirt.
“Of course she knew, that’s why she finally slipped away. She was waiting for you to leave because she didn’t want you to see it. Didn’t you tell me she didn’t want a funeral because she wanted her life to be celebrated? You told me she didn’t want to move back home because she didn’t want to die in that house and taint the good memories you both made there. She refused to die in front of you because she doesn’t want you to remember her that way.”
“You think?” I raise my head from his chest, struggling to take a shaky breath.
“Yeah, Rhett. That’s exactly what I think.”
He’s probably right. It’s exactly what my mama would do. “I can’t…” I lift the hem of my T-shirt to wipe my eyes and nose. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I guess I have to make calls, but…I can’t right now.”
“Go take a shower and then I’ll make you some coffee. While you’re in the shower, I’ll make some phone calls. You said you wanted to have her cremated?”
All I can do is nod as tears continue to stream down my face.
“Go, I’ll take care of everything,” he assures me, pulling his snotty shirt over his head.
It’s the first glimpse I’ve ever had of the skin beneath his shirt. His shoulder and part of his back are covered in puckered red scars. It looks painful. It looks like he’s suffered ten thousand tragedies. Never once in all the months I’ve known him have I ever heard him complain, not when his face was sandblasted, not when his skin was grafted, and not when the object of his desire friend-zoned him. Mandy is a true warrior. He fights a battle every single day, and he does it silently, with a smile on his face.
I’m lucky to call him my friend. I’m honored to call him my brother.
In the shower, I don’t even bother scrubbing my body with soap. I stand stiff as a statue as the hot water pounds over my face, washing away my tears and opening my clogged sinuses.
Riggs, I need you. I need you so badly right now. Please come home.
When the water runs cold, I step out of the shower and dry my body, dressing in jeans and an old hunter-green Henley. My mama used to say how it would highlight the color of my eyes. Then I laugh, thinking how when I first met Riggs, I was covered in blood, and he told me the red brought out the color of my eyes. God, I miss him. The thought brings fresh tears to my eyes.