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  2. Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

  3. Severed Heart: Chapter 60
Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

Severed Heart: Chapter 60

SPRING 2016
BLINK.
Zach tightens the bolt as I watch on, pride filling me for his progress, even as the gnaw that’s been tugging at me since we left for King’s this morning threatens to again set in. The two of us ordered to march by our general, thrust away from her bedside after pancakes, and her insistence we get ‘sun on our faces.’ A sun which remains concealed under the blanket of clouds hovering over the garage outside of the bay.
Batting down the unease that’s been threatening since we left her, my solace is found in Zach’s answering grin when I commend him, knowing he finds the same satisfaction in fixing things the way I do. Another commonality we’ve been bonding over recently while doing maintenance on the equipment at the farm. This spring fighting for every bloom as winter temperatures continue to linger. Over the long, cold season, and as Delphine started to take more frequent, lengthy naps, I taught him the ins and outs of hunting, which also had us gravitating more toward each other.
Though his grins have become scarcer in recent months. Fewer and far between, as have mine because of said nap frequency while Delphine began to dissolve before our collective eyes. Every smile between us now hard-won while rewarding in its own right. The kid I collided with months ago in this garage vastly different now in demeanor and appearance than the one I’m stealing glances of this morning. A kid who speaks so little, yet knows so much, as I marvel at the changes in him, and the knowledge Delphine was right.
Zach is a genius.
According to his first staggering aptitude test results, as well as his fifth—which annoyed him—he’s got the potential of becoming a Rhodes Scholar and beyond. Not that we ever doubted his intelligence, it was just the opposite, and it’s now confirmed.
Delphine had known he was special, that he had potential we probably hadn’t realized, but he’d tested off the charts. For weeks now, I’ve been pondering big decisions when it comes to him. Along with having lengthy conversations with Delphine about how to move forward in raising him. Daily, I’m becoming more impatient to start the conversation I’ve been mulling over, while growing more eager to pose the question.
“Are you happy living at the orchard, Zach?” I blurt outright, while marveling over the truth that some things work out for the better—no matter where they stemmed from. Or how they might work out if Zach agrees to claim the place Delphine and I have made in our home and our hearts. Now unable to imagine what these past months would have been like without him. The idea of finally having the talk staving off the gnaw that’s trying to sneak its way back in.
Pausing the tool, he looks over to me for motive to see my inquiry is genuine before releasing an easy reply. “Yeah, I am. Your family is awesome. I love Barrett and Charlie, but Jasper and Jessie are a trip,” he laughs.
It’s your family too, if you’ll have us.
But instead of voicing my thought, I keep it light. “I’m ashamed to admit I don’t know my younger cousins very well,” I tell him honestly.
“Because you never come to the Sunday baseball games,” he reminds me.
I nod. “I’ll make it a point to come to the next one.”
“They would love it. They ask about you all the time.”
“It’s crazy that you know my family better than I do.” I grin. “But I’m glad you know that—” The premonition takes over mid-sentence, the gnawing crashing over me in a tidal wave a nanosecond before my cell phone buzzes in my pocket. Or maybe it’s simultaneous. Either way and without looking to see who’s calling, I identify the gnawing. Knowing it to be a certainty because I feel it in every fiber of my being now—she’s leaving me.
She’s leaving me.
“Tyler, what’s up man? Tyler,” Russell sounds, jarring me from the darkness shrouding my vision as Zach’s eyes dart to mine.
“Fuck.” I lower my eyes to my watch to buy time, summoning the expertise of the liar within for my biggest trial yet. “I just forgot I had to pick up that part from Spellman’s by ten this morning. Shit. Russell, can you take me? I’m going to let Zach stay back and work on my truck.”
Reading into my lie instantly, Russell pulls out his keys, an easy “sure” leaving him as Jeremy, standing a bay over, speaks up, following as well. “I’ve got him, bro,” he assures, giving nothing away as I glance back at Zach.
“You good for twenty?”
Zach nods, his eyes lingering too fucking long as I will myself the strength to pull this off, keeping my steps measured as Russell and I stalk toward the parking lot. It’s when the reality of what’s happening registers a mere step outside of the garage—the truth of it far too debilitating—that I trip up, stumbling between strides.
She’s leaving me.
Russell catches my slip instantly, hoisting me against him. A heartbeat later, Zach speaks up with a “Can I come?”
“Next time,” I call out from Russell’s passenger door before I snap it closed, managing to clip out my order. “Get me home.”
Within a blink, Russell is whipping us out of the parking lot and has us idling roadside. As a car passes, blocking our quick exit, my eyes dart to Russell’s rearview—to the kid now running towards us before Russell stomps on the gas, turning in the direction of the orchard. As we take off, Zach’s shouts and pleas seep through the passenger glass, and straight into my seizing heart.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to his reflection, “I’m so sorry,” I choke out as Zach piles his hands on his head, face twisted in anguish. Knowing he feels betrayed, I try to make peace with our future fallout, to protect him from one of life’s biggest cruelties. To keep his last memory of her as one of us departing her room, smiling as she shooed us away, her own attempt to protect us both. That truth setting in as Russell races me toward the orchard. Toward home. A home that’s disappearing as the seconds tick by and a mental image of our front door shutters in, as do dozens of images of her on either side of it. Of the first time she raced to it with the key in hand. As she grinned over at me while lining the kitchen shelves with paper. Of her meeting me at the tractor with tea. Of the two of us bundled on the porch swing to watch the sunset last night, squeezing one another’s hands tightly—knowing. Knowing today was coming. All those memories reflecting in eyes of silver, in the call of my name. The call of home. One I can hear so clearly now.
“Soldier,” she summons, finding me as she always does in the dark.
“I’m on my way,” I whisper back. “Please don’t go.”
“Soldiers don’t stay,” I hear eighteen-year-old me echo back through to the first time I asked her to wait—just as she asked me to stay.
“Tyler,” Russell says in a steady voice, “talk to me.”
“Delphine’s about to die,” I deliver point-blank to both of us.
“How do you know?”
“I just do, please,” I croak, “get me home.”
“Jesus, man, I’m so—”
Shaking my head adamantly to cut off any condolences, I issue my first order. “Call Tobias and Dom—” I cut my words as he stares over at me, realizing just how far I’ve already slipped as agony lances through me. I’m already traveling to the place the sensible me can’t reach. Dom’s not here to call. He’s not here. Dom’s gone too. Everything feels gone . . . feels wrong. She’s dying. She’s leaving me.
Go.
GO.
GO!
Russell’s words filter in from somewhere in a faraway place. In response, I grip the handle of his door and clip out my order. “Repeat that.”
“I’ll call Tobias . . .”
“Soldier,” Delphine summons.
“. . . hold everything down. Don’t give it a second thought,” Russell assures. “Don’t lose a second worrying about us, brother.”
I nod as a tidal wave of awareness crashes into me. The next time I see Russell, she’ll be gone. The next time I drive my truck, she’ll be gone. Everything will change. Everything has already changed.
Darkness threatens to engulf me, but I order its release just as quickly, refuting its ability to claim me. It’s Russell’s curse before he barks my name that brings me somewhat back to. His words becoming more muffled as my ears thunder, filling with my pulsing heartbeat. Spinning, I’m fucking spinning out, and she needs me. As I fight to keep myself upright in my seat, Russell presses his palm into my chest. “Tyler, you good? You just blacked out, man.”
“Get me to her,” I beg, “please,” I add, knowing I need to gather myself to be there for her, for Zach, but I can feel my ability to balance has already left me.
“Tyler!” Russell shouts as I blank out again, feeling myself sink in the seat. In the next second I’m focused on the asphalt we’re consuming as Russell races us toward the orchard, somehow already engaged in a phone call. I pull my own cell out of my pocket, unsure if I want to know if she’s already gone. Utterly helpless, darkness again threatens to cloud my vision as my psyche begs me to allow it in. To blink myself out of the state I’m in. I kissed her before I left. Told her I loved her. Palmed her head and whispered my fingers over her crown. Did she feel it? Did she feel my love? Would what I left her with be enough? My chest rages with the answer as I speak to her God.
Please, please don’t take her yet. Let me say goodbye. It’s my one ask. One. If you’re there, this is all I’ll ever ask of you.
“Peter, listen to me,” Russell rattles off as my own cell rings in my hand. Sheila, her hospice nurse’s name appearing on screen. Whatever words she has for me having the power to dismantle me within the length they’re spoken. I can still feel her. She can’t be gone. She can’t be.
“Soldier,” I hear her call as if she’s right next to me.
“I’m coming,” I whisper back.
I stare at the phone as it rings in my hand and swipe as the seconds start to tick by, reminding God of my one request.
Please, God, just this one thing.
“Sheila,” I whisper.
“Tyler, she’s fading—”
Thank you.
“How long?” I ask.
“Within the hour, maybe less,” she replies.
Fighting the urge to yell at her for not alerting me sooner, I knew the risk in leaving this morning. Of complications that can arise in the final days. The touch and go. I was always going to lose her. I haven’t slept in days because of that knowledge. The idea of sleep beckons me, and selfishly I allow that fatigue in. Maybe if I let it take me under, this pain will subside, and my heart will give out. Or maybe life will be merciful enough to complicate that sleep so I can go with her. Knowing that mercy isn’t an option, I lift my phone and manage to catch some of Sheila’s words.
“. . . Tobias just arrived.”
He must have been close or going to see her. He’s been haunting our house for months. Haunting because he drifts in, stays mere minutes, and drifts right back out. As if he can’t handle anything more. As much as I know it hurts Delphine to see him in that state, it would have hurt her more without his ghost visits.
I stare out the window as the trees blur, and flinch when I see snow flurries start to drift toward me as my one ask backfires.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I snap at the clouds, at her God, “don’t you dare do this to her,” I say as Russell jerks his head in my direction.
“What? What is it, brother?”
“Pardon?” Sheila asks.
I shake my head, the story too long to tell. Her life story. She’s lived so much life, a lot of it I’ve been witness to, but not enough.
“She’s only forty-one,” I whisper, lowering the phone. “She’s only forty-one,” I release in exhale, disbelieving that’s the truth of it. That I came into her life when she’d already lived half of it.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” Russell emits low, and I know it’s my state that’s making him emotional. None of the birds really know her. They don’t know how incredible she is, or of her true nature. Most of them only glimpsing the formidable alcoholic she was. Which was only a mask and shield she held in place—that she fought to hold. But my life with her, my whole relationship with her took place behind both. It’s as I reflect on that truth that Tobias’s words from our conversation drift back to me.
“Do we ever really know people?”
We do, the people we truly love and memorize, and God, how I memorized her.
“Russell,” I prompt, my unspoken request immediately answered as he floors the gas, using every bit of horsepower beneath his hood to get me to her. It’s then I realize I’m still on the phone, the seconds ticking by as Sheila patiently waits. Inside these seconds, I find life irrevocably cruel to take her this way, on this day. A day without the sun she so loves while hoping she hasn’t seen the snow. She’ll think of Matis. I don’t want her mind there when she takes her last breath. Her final thoughts to be on the man who started the slow break of her heart, only for me to do everything to try and seal it, to mend it, to soothe it.
She’s finally whole, she’s finally . . .
“Sheila, close her drapes right now, do you hear me? Close them. Don’t let her see it’s snowing.” This year, winter was charitable, only granting us a few inches that didn’t stick. While it snowed, I kept her in our bedroom to watch a Star Wars marathon.
“She’s not very cognizant—”
“Close them,” I snap, more determined than ever to protect her from it. “Sheila, it’s important,” I beg. “Please.”
“Already done,” she assures.
A weak French curse sounds, and I’m slapped back into reality by her voice, remembering my promise not to mourn her until she’s gone and she’s still here. She’s still here. “Please put the phone to her ear.”
“Doing it now.”
“Soldier,” Delphine utters weakly. “I am okay.”
“Hey baby,” I croak, hearing the gutting taking place inside of me. “Can you try,” I utter, “t-to wait for me?” My eyes burn as I try to hold in the ache that wants to leave me. While also silencing any condemnation for her order to take Zach out of the house this morning. An order to leave her side. Because she knew, of course she knew. But I don’t dare condemn her for it. If I could protect her from this, I would. And I’ve just done it to Zach, who will probably never forgive me. Staving that down to concentrate on the precious seconds remaining, I speak what I can manage. “If you can’t wait,” I release in a pained exhale, “it’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”
An empathy-fueled grunt sounds from next to me as Russell torpedoes us through the backroads. His effort feeling futile because we’re too far out. We’re still too fucking far out.
“You did so good, General,” I relay as my heart starts to hemorrhage, “do you hear me? You fought so well. You made us safe again. We’re all home now because of you, and sleeping more soundly. You’re the reason we’re okay. All your strategies paid off.”
Russell’s head snaps toward me because, to this day, my birds, her birds, and army know very little of her involvement. Of who their true leader was and is. Because she’s always been an unsung hero in her story and never wanted the credit, only the journey of a soldier.
“Through you, I fulfilled my dreams,” she proclaims, “and I will wait, Soldier, as long as you promise me something in return.”
“Anything,” I manage through the burn in my throat.
“Ne me pleure pas. Promis moi. Do not mourn me so long it hurts you, Tyler. Steal your life back the first chance you get. Win again. And when you find her, or when she finds you, let yourself love her as you loved me. Live as both man and my soldier. Win again.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Promise me you’ll try,” she insists.
“I can’t,” I counter brokenly, as my heart starts to muddle its beat, utterly confused in rhythm.
“Please try,” she urges softly. “You are so young.”
“You are my forever,” I declare, knowing this is our last fight and one I can’t let her win, and I fucking hate myself for it. But I feel its truth to my core. No woman will ever be able to match her. It’s pointless to conceive of it.
“You haven’t seen it yet. But you will. That is why I’m okay to go.”
“Are you . . . in pain?” I rasp out, unable to mask my own.
“Not bad, Soldier,” she assures. “I promise.”
“Okay. Give the phone to Sheila.”
When Sheila comes on the line, I don’t bother with anything other than my order as precious seconds tick by. “Give her as much as she can handle while keeping her as cognizant as possible.”
“I’ll administer now.”
“Thank you. Please put her back on the phone.”
A few seconds pass as I try to find worthy words for the woman on the other end of the line, and miraculously, they begin pouring out of me.
“I first took notice of you at fourteen. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t recognize how beautiful you were. But in my eyes, you were just another parent. Someone’s mom—” I crack briefly but muster the strength, refusing the hurt to deny me any confession.
“The way you spoke. Jesus, you did not mince words. At times, it was ruthless, but it was addictive hearing the truth from someone who voiced it so often—in every conversation. I respected you so much for it. Because it’s so fucking brave. You were no saint, but I could tell you were trying with Dom. After so many failed attempts, I couldn’t figure out why you kept trying so hard—until one day, it dawned on me. I realized that your normal wasn’t your normal at all. I don’t know when I finally grasped it, but I understood that you hadn’t been yourself in years.” I grip the passenger handle as Russell takes a dicey turn before rocketing us forward.
“Somehow I knew the woman I originally met wasn’t exactly you. It wasn’t your beauty that day, but a shift. It was like seeing the sun for the first time. It was too bright to get a clear view of. That was what my first look at you was, getting a glimpse of the sun. I know now that I met the true you the day I wandered into your house, and you taught me how to breathe through my anger and pain . . . but fuck, baby.” I swallow. “When I finally did get my first real look at you, God, did I fucking ever lose myself in those seconds. And that’s what it was like staring at you after, what if felt like. Looking at something you’re not supposed to gaze upon for too long, something you’re not allowed to have. And fuck, how it hurt, but I just kept looking, kept falling. Your beauty overwhelmed me, though you tried so fucking hard to conceal it, so hard. But it was the day you wore that sundress and brought home those plants that you stole my forever.”
“I remember that day,” she rasps. “You were walking up the driveway. Tyler, I felt it.”
“When you looked up and smiled at me, I lost all the fight I had left. We’d been spending so much time together, but that day, in that moment, I knew I was just fucking done. Done searching the faces of any girl for what I had already found with you. Done searching for someone to share my thoughts with, my pain with. My heart had already decided, and though my mind fought me, that war was long over. You’d already captured me utterly because of who you were. With the playful glint in your eyes. I hung on every word you spoke. And when Dom dismissed your efforts that day without a thought, and didn’t spare you, I watched as your expression went bleak. Felt your defeat before you drank right from the bottle. As you did, I saw you miss her. The girl you were, the girl you were trying so hard to get back to. The girl who smiled at me in the driveway. It broke something in me that no one noticed your struggle, but baby, I did. Though I was enchanted, I respected you so much for fighting so hard to get back to her.”
Silence.
“Baby, you there?”
“I’m here,” she exhales in a shaky rush.
“From then on, you fascinated me. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I couldn’t understand how a creature so beautiful was so angry and defeated, but I never really pitied you. I rooted for you. I can honestly claim that because I fucking knew you were fighting to get back to yourself, even then. To become the woman you revealed to me, the woman I fell for, the woman you are now. It’s been a long, long battle for you, baby. Such a long road.” I crack a little as a sob bursts from her mouth. “But you have existed as that woman since the day I walked back into your house.” I swallow. “You need to know, Delphine, that building a true home with you, being with you as that woman, has given me the happiest months of my life. We’ve had years together combined, and I’m going to spend the rest of my days thankful for every sunset we had. You were worth waiting for. You were so worth waiting for. So fucking worth it”—my voice cracks—“so worth it.”
“I never thought I would know happiness, but I’m taking so many good days with me. Thank you for seeing me, Tyler.”
“Don’t thank me, baby, just wait for me there,” I croak. “I’ll meet you. We’ll be together in your place. I’ll try so hard to have faith . . . I’ll try so hard, I promise.”
“How . . . far are you?” she whispers.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She’s fading and fighting her hardest. “I’m with you. Do you feel me? I’m already with you.”
“I feel you,” she murmurs.
“Are you scared?” I choke out.
“Non. Nothing to be afraid of,” she utters instantly.
“Because you’re a true soldier. Always have been. Fearless,” I murmur. “I’m sorry—” My voice cracks on every word, and I hate the fact that Russell can hear every one of them as I turn away from him. “I’m so sorry I’m not there. I shouldn’t have left.”
“Hang in,” Russell utters in assurance as he guns us down a straightaway before Delphine sounds over the line.
“I watched you leave, Soldier,” she relays, as if each word is hard-won, “the day you left for Paris Island.”
“What?” Shock filters in, and my heart stutters in response.
“I followed Dom that morning . . . because I knew you were leaving. I watched you toss your pack over your shoulder. You paused, but you didn’t look back.” Her voice is barely audible now, and I can feel her fighting for every word. “I came to tell you . . . I don’t know what I would have said. Maybe ‘I’m sorry,’ maybe that I would wait, but I was there.”
“You were,” I rasp out. “You were there?”
“Oui. Because I believed you. I saw you, too. As the man you are now. The man I love. Maybe that is what I would have told you . . . I saw you too, Tyler, and always have.”
Implosion.
It’s the only way to describe it, and it happens so suddenly I can’t catch myself. I feel the weight of Russell’s stare as I grunt through the pain.
“Tyler?”
“I’m here, baby. Please try to hold on. I want to look into your eyes.”
“I will wait.”
Six of the most excruciating minutes of my life later, I fling myself out of Russell’s Mustang before it comes to a stop. Passing Tobias on the porch, I fly straight through the front door. A heartbeat later, I’m standing at the threshold of our bedroom, white-knuckling the phone still at my ear.
Terrified because she stopped speaking in the last few minutes, I take a step in as Sheila eyes me with trepidation. She’s seen this time and time again, the loss. Grieving families pouring out their goodbyes. To her, I’m just another widower. Probably no more memorable than the last.
Walking over to where Delphine lies, I lift her into my arms along with the patched quilt covering her and cradle her to me as Sheila hands me the IV bag attached to her arm. Too terrified to look down, Delphine remains utterly limp in my arms as I walk her out of the door, past Russell and Tobias who give me a wide berth, both their heads cast down. Stalking past a blur of approaching people—one I make out as Barrett—I head straight to the pasture filled with our wildflowers, which, to my surprise, have already bloomed. The colorful flowers vivid in contrast to the gray sky as snow begins to pour out of it.
Once on the ground, the flurries start to coat us both as I glimpse the surrounding hillsides. Oddly, the land has never been more beautiful to me. Surrounded by a strange sense of peace, I brave whatever fate awaits as I finally look down to gaze upon her face.
“You waited,” I gasp out in relief at seeing her silver eyes open. The look inside them taking my breath away.
Love, so much fucking love.
Knowing she no longer has the strength to speak, I lock our gazes, willing my own devotion through. Hoping she can see it even as my vision blurs, and I blink to clear it, not wanting to miss a second as I explain myself.
“It’s snowing, and I didn’t want you to miss it. I didn’t want you to miss it because I wanted the last thing you see to be the man who loves you more than any selfish need, more than himself, more than life, and take that with you as the absolute truth,” I say in hopes to finally mend the start of the slow break Matis started all those years ago. In hope of replacing all other visions she’s had of the pain-filled precipitation with one of the man who loves her with everything he has. Who never broke a single promise to her, abused her love, or took it for granted. To replace the images that have haunted her for so much of her life with the man who loved her as she hoped. To mend that hurt once and for all.
Despite my fear of not making it in time, she doesn’t fade away quickly or peacefully. She struggles for breath several times as I grip her tightly to me, talking her through it the best I can, doing my best to maintain and be the strength she needs during her very last fight. She keeps my eyes the whole time, every second, trusting me wholly to help her through it as I try to soothe any discomfort. Each unmerciful bout breaking me a little more until she stops struggling altogether.
Agonizing minutes later, as the snow-coated wildflowers whisper on the breeze around us, unexplainably, I feel her start to slip away. Grunting through the most painful moment of my life, I summon the last of my strength to say the words she deserves.
“I loved you through space and time before, and I’ll do it again. I’ll do it again. I’m with you, I’m with you, always,” I croak in promise. As her last breath leaves her, I bend to whisper in her ear. “Forever,” I murmur, her weight sinking further into me as she departs.
Agony rips through me when I pull back to see the telling, faraway look in her glazed eyes, my apology coming out in a rush for the one thing I couldn’t protect her from. “I’m sorry,” I cry as our war ends, and the illness that consumed her claims its victory. “I’m so sorry.”
Years of images start to cloud my vision as I clutch her to me. Images of her, of us, and of our short time in heaven. Reliving every blink as they come, I take precious inventory because I’ll never be granted another to add to them. It’s in living that knowledge that I break.
A roar of outrage erupts from me, echoing along the hillsides as my heart cracks clear in half without an ounce of fight. No slow shatter, or slow splintering, nor resistance. As my heart starts to clang with its new beat, my front door closes and begins to dissolve before it disappears entirely, once again leaving me a homeless soldier.
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