But letters I could do.
Letters could be my starting point. The first step in my rehabilitation to being normal.
However, just as words strangled my throat, they clogged up my pen too.
I sat for hours, searching for the right ones to apologise for my coldness, my remoteness, my lack of love. I sat in the glittery golds of dawn and wrote the shortest but hardest letters of my life.
I didn’t want to push them away anymore.
I needed their help if I stood any chance of solving the riddle in my heart and finding the courage to be vulnerable.
Vulnerable to their sickness and suffering.
Defenceless to their eventual death and burial.
Life would mess me up and leave me with yet more scars, but I would no longer be this freak who couldn’t afford the cost of love.
Before they were out of bed, I dressed in my jeans, steel caps, and a green T-shirt, and snuck into their respective houses. A letter was left on the table in Aunt Cassie’s place, and one was left on the kitchen bench in Grandpa John’s.
Was it weak to let written words do my apologising for me or brave to leave such permanency on paper? I couldn’t take this back. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t woken with a new determination and the undeniable need to be more.
I needed their accountability to ensure I didn’t slink behind well-constructed walls and gates.
Crossing the paddock between my grandfather’s home and my mother’s, my head whipped up as the front door opened and Hope appeared. Freshly showered, brown hair wet and glossy, she stretched out her spine before stooping to slip on well-used, dirty boots.
I broke into a jog.
She couldn’t leave.
Not yet.
“Hope, wait.”
She stilled as her eyes flew up, catching mine. The sun already painted her in a buttery softness that made my heart kick and body twist and all manner of courage evaporate.
“Jacob. Wha-what are you doing here?” She scooped her long hair back, pulling an elastic from her wrist and securing it around her ponytail. “I was heading to the barn. Didn’t you say we’re selling the extra hay we don’t need? What time will people arrive?”
My boots sounded loud and punishing as I climbed the steps to stand before her. “They won’t be here for another hour or so.” She never looked away. The anger she nursed for me. The hunger she cursed for me. The messy complications between us. My skin prickled with nerves as I looked at her mouth and swallowed hard. “Can you, eh, wait here? I just have to do something, but then I’ll be back.”
Her gaze widened. “Wait where? On the deck?”
“Or in the meadow. I don’t mind. Just…don’t go anywhere too far.”
“Okay…” She frowned as I brushed past her and darted into the house. I held her stare as I closed the door, sucking in a breath and doing my best to calm my panicked heartbeat.
Hope would be the last person I would apologise to, but first…there was someone else of utmost importance.
Striding through the family home that filled me with such comfort and tragedy, I slipped down the corridor to my parents’ room.
I found Mom making her bed, curtains open to sunshine, life beginning a new day. She fluffed a final pillow, smiling as I entered. “Jacob, what a lovely surprise.” Moving around the neat bed, she came toward me but stopped before giving me a hug. Even though every part of her screamed to be affectionate, she respected my differences.
One of these days, I’d be strong enough to yank her into a hug without thinking. But today, it took everything I had just to stand there.
Clenching my hands, I said, “I had a dream last night. About Dad.”
Her eyes traded her clear motherly look and shadowed into a lost widow. “Oh?”
“He told me to get my head out of my ass basically.”
She laughed. “Sounds about right.”
“He told me to apologise.”
“There’s nothing to apologise for.”
“There is, and we both know it.” I jammed hands into my pockets, curling the letter I’d written for her. “I’m sick of being so afraid. I’m sick of pushing you guys away. I miss you. I miss how it used to be before…” I looked away. “Before he died. I miss thinking everything would be okay. We lived in miracles back then. He kept surviving, and we kept loving, and I thought it would be that way forever. It’s time I grew up and realised that there is no forever, and that’s…that’s okay.”
Mom came toward me, resting her hand on my forearm. Even that small amount of contact threatened to break me. “It’s okay, Wild One. It’s okay not to want to accept such grief.”
“You’re saying you accept it?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll never accept that he’s gone. But I can accept that nothing I do will change that, and I’m only hurting myself by resisting the truth.”