Page 71 of Rootbound
I know that it’s such a simpleton thing to mull over, but I can’t bring myself to give it a Google search or ask anyone with a modicum of medical knowledge. It just seems unfair, and that’s all there is to it for me.
Mrs.Logan asks the family to head home, and this time everyone listens. Ava and Tait get back into my truck, and I listen to Ava’s quiet cries, and Tait’s gentle words of comfort the whole way home. I feel like a right idiot for inadvertently throwing them into that revelation, but I can’t bring myself to regret it. I know they’ll get to soak up valuable time with their grandmother, now. I only regret that either of them feels hurt or confused.
Tait’s eyes meet mine a few times in the rearview mirror before they dart away, though, and not knowing if she is angry at me is killing me.
I remain quiet while Emmaline tells all four of her grandkids what’s going on back at the house. Congestive heart failure, she tells them. She was diagnosed over ten years ago, and it’s been manageable since then, but she’s started approaching the end stages of it. Her fall is evidence enough, and she agrees to move in with Charlie and Grace for her remaining months. She tells them how she’s not in much pain, that she’s already lived with it so much longer than most. She just forgets that she can’t do as much as she used to, and she’s grateful to get the opportunity to know that her end is coming, to “really suck the marrow out of my days,” she says.
They all cry, gathered around her at the kitchen table, followed by some angry remarks from Lucy and Grady to their parents for not telling them. The anger fades quickly when Em chides them for it, and she laughs and exclaims how much she loves that she’ll get to use this to her benefit.
As the conversation dies down, Lucy surges up from her chair and shouts, “Oh my god, I have to cancel the party!”
“You most certainly will not, Lucy. This is the first time we will have a celebration here with all of my grandkids, and it very well could be the last. We will dance, eat, drink, and celebrate yours and Tait’s birthdays; I don’t care if I drop dead between now and then, I want to know we all got one party together.”
Lucy bursts into tears, but says, “Oh, thank God. Duke Wade is coming and Ihaveto dance with him.”
Em laughs, and says, “Oh, I’ll play up my frailty and make that happen, don’t you worry.”
“Grandma!” Grady admonishes.
But Tait and Ava both laugh, too, and that makes the whole room brighten. They remain holding on to each other, and Ava eventually starts to fall asleep on Tait’s shoulder.
“Hey, let’s head back, I forgot you were on a plane early this morning too,” Tait says to her.
“All my stuff is here, though. I met Grady and Lucy here this morning,” Ava responds. She looks up self-consciously at Duane.
“That’s okay. Let’s both go stay in our old room tonight,” Tait says, and they head upstairs. I never manage to catch Tait’s eye before she disappears.
I hang around until everyone leaves, with only Charlie, Grace, and Em remaining.
“I’m sorry that I disrespected your wishes, or if you feel I betrayed your trust. I should have, at the very least, given you all a heads up that I’d reached out to her,” I say, and move to leave.
“It was the right thing to do. We know that. I hope…” Charlie seems to struggle with something. “I hope todaygave you some explanation as to why I was the kind of father I was to them. It doesn’t make any of it right, but I hope it makes a little more sense now.”
“Charlie, I already knew the kind of father you were. That you are. Because I was the lucky one who got to live it.”
Charlie nods tightly and leaves the room.
Emmaline says, overly loud, “Don’t worry, dear, he just needed to leave the room to go cry again.” She and Grace laugh.
“And you?” I ask Em. “Do you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Henry. I love you. Forgive yourself, and don’t give up on our girl.”
She and Grace look at me knowingly, and I marvel at how I ever thought they might not be on to me.
I don’t hear from Tait that night, and I decide not to push her. The last thing she needs is anyone else to worry about right now, especially since she and Ava were hit with a double whammy.
I try to fall asleep without my top sheet, in a bed that I think already smells like her, and I wonder how I’ll ever convince her to stay, if I even can. If there will be room in her broken heart for anyone after this, all while mine is breaking too. It feels like a cruel joke, this bad timing, and after tomorrow I know I’ll need to give her space to process… everything. Aftertomorrow.
My eyes onlyjustfinally feel heavy enough to remain closed when the knock comes, singular and quiet enough that if I wasn’t fucking desperate for it, I may not have heard it. Belle barks excitedly, and before I know it the door is open and she’s there, tearstained and beautiful.
“Ava was talking to Casey. She said she wanted to be alone, but I know she said she wanted that so I would come here,” she says.
“So… you’re trying to say you came here because your sister wanted you to?” I’m confused.
“Yes. No.”
“Are you mad at me, Tait?” She searches my eyes, then, and the expression is so open and terrified that it scares me right back. “You’re scaring me, honey. Talk to me.”