Again, there was nothing but silence until Daisy plodded into the room, shaking off and lying at my feet. Like she always did. Then she put her head on her paws and stared at the same picture I did.
"I don't know if I can keep my promise, Danny. Seeing her hurts, man. I see her, and I want to run in the opposite direction. How do I tell her it's my fault? How do I tell her that I couldn't stop you from dying?" I'd told Danny a hundred times, maybe even a thousand, since he died that I couldn't keep my promise.
But still, I wrote letters to Parker that I never sent while I was overseas. I called my parents to check in on her. I called her uncle to check on her. I drove by her house to make sure everything was okay.
As much as I wanted to break my promise, I couldn't.
"We miss you, Danny," I told him. "I miss you, and it doesn't ever really get any easier. People I love keep dying, and it hurts, man. First you, then Cassie. I don’t know how much more I can take of this."
Daisy whined at my feet, and I fought to keep my emotions in check.
"Come on, girl." I rubbed between her ears. "Let's go to bed. The dead will stay dead for another day."
I finished my beer and then brushed my teeth.
Climbing into bed, I had to shove Daisy off my pillow, which she would try to commandeer every night since I'd come home. "Move over, you oaf."
She groaned, if that's what a dog did, before moving about six inches off my pillow and plopped back down.
"Fine," I told her, "I'm not sharing my blankets with you."
The glare she gave me said very clearly that if I didn't share my blankets, she'd piss on my floor.
Which she did in the middle of the night when I shoved her off the bed.
3
Parker
There would never be enough coffee in the world to get me through the morning after Boo died. I lay on the couch, eyes on Danny’s dog tags, until the sun crept into the sky.
"I hate you," I whispered, unsure of whether or not I was talking to him or myself.
I never really knew anymore.
That's the way it went every night. I thought about the life I was supposed to have, and every morning, I cursed the life that I'd ended up with. I hated living in town and I hated everyone in it that turned their backs on me when I needed them most. I cursed everything and everyone except Nox. He was the only good thing in my life.
When the first knock came promptly at 8:02 in the morning, I knew that when I opened the door, it would be to see Danny's mother standing on my stoop. However, I didn't expect to see her along with Danny's sister and his brother, Lincoln.
The mirror image of Danny caught me off guard, and for a brief second, my mind didn't connect the dots. It really had been a long night. I hadn't mistaken Linc for Danny since the morning of the funeral, when I thought and hoped that they'd played a terrible joke on me. The same blond hair his brother had, cut short and faded down the side like every other Marine I’d met. The same harsh blue eyes, watching everything around him with suspicion. They even had the same dimples when they smiled. But Linc wasn’t Danny. Linc hadn’t broken my trust that night six years ago—that had been Danny—and I’d never mistaken them again.
He was the first person to reach for me, though, moving around his mother and sister to pull me into his arms.
"I'm so sorry, Park."
My shoulders trembled as I tried not to cry anymore. I knew my eyes were swollen and red. I'd wiped away my tears all night and into the morning. I didn't even think I cried that much after Danny died. But Boo? Shit, I couldn't keep the tears in.
I sobbed, letting Linc comfort me.
I stole every bit of strength he was willing to give me, too, holding on for dear life.
Meanwhile Rose and Emma moved into the living room around us, and Mama started to clean. I could hear her from the warmth of Linc's embrace. Emma started to bang around in the kitchen, no doubt going to cook something. Linc was a hugger. Mama cleaned. Emma? She cooked and baked all of her emotions into food. Food that no one in their right mind ever turned down.
"Sorry about Mom," Linc whispered mischievously. "I held her off as long as I could."
"Yeah." I sniffled against his chest. "All two minutes of waiting."
Mama Rose, as she'd demanded I call her when she found out I was pregnant with Nox, believed that eight a.m. was a perfectly acceptable time to start harassing her children. I expected to see her at exactly then, which meant that Linc had put up a good protest, or pretended to at least.
Linc kissed the top of my head before letting me go. Then he moved to Danny's dog tags and kissed his fingers before pressing them against the metal. "Love you, bro."
He did the same thing for Boo's collar, shocking me into another bout of tears.
"I'm sorry, I can't stop crying," I told the room as a whole right before I wiped my eyes and blew my nose loudly into a tissue.
"Stop that apology nonsense," Rose chided gently with one of my decorative pillows in her hands. "You cry as much as you want to. Boo was family. And us Hayes never mourn alone."
"Gigi!" Nox sprinted into his grandmother's arms, wrapping around her tightly, and I watched her crouch down like she wasn't about to tip over to return his hug. "Boo died last night." He spoke low, his voice cracking on the last word.
"I know, my love." She ran a hand down the back of his head. "But I bet he's always going to be here for you, isn't he?"
"Ghosts aren't real, Gigi." Nox rolled his eyes and I almost snorted at his sass. "But I'm gonna put him with Daddy." Nox dropped his voice to a whisper. "Just in case. So he can have some company."
I never thought I'd see the older woman cry like I did at Danny's funeral, but for a second, I could have sworn that she was going to lose it. Somehow she didn't. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes with her lips pressed together tightly for a second, and then she sniffled. "Your father would love that, I bet."
This was my life. One never-ending session of fuckery that always left me feeling broken and defeated.
At least I had tasty food, though, which was proven another minute later when Emma handed me a pile of French toast.
"Eat, Parker." She eyed me suspiciously. "You look like you haven't eaten."
I didn't tell her that she was right, nor did I tell her that I'd cried so hard that I'd practically thrown up everything I'd eaten for the last week. At least, that's what it felt like.
"Thanks for coming," I told them. "You didn't have to." I didn't bother asking who had told them about Boo, either.
I knew I hadn't been lucky enough for Remy not to notice me. When his cruiser followed us home after leaving the vet, I knew for a fact he'd tell Linc and Rose before I could.
"You're family." Linc shrugged his shoulder as he watched Nox and his mother sit on the couch, quietly talking among themselves. "I know you don't feel like it sometimes, but you are."
He nudged me with his shoulder.
"You working at Lucy's today?"
Lucy's was the best bar in town. Calling it a bar wasn’t doing it any justice, though. It was so much more than that. During the day it served as a diner, in the afternoon the bar opened and it became more of a restaurant. Then after the rest of Birch closed, it became the place to be for everyone looking to have a good time. I’d managed Lucy’s since Nate decided he wanted to retire a few years ago.