We made it out just in time. Within minutes, we heard the roar as the side of the mountain gave way, destroying the outreach clinic instantly, and I remember that we glanced at each other then, unable to believe how close it had been.
I wish I could tell you what went wrong after that, but I can’t. He was driving carefully and we’d almost made it back. I could even see the lights from the clinic in the valley below. But suddenly, the Jeep started to skid as we rounded a sharp curve, and the next thing I knew, we were off the road and tumbling down the mountain.
Other than breaking my arm and several ribs, I was okay, but I knew immediately that my dad wasn’t. I remember screaming at him to hold on, that I’d go get help, but he grabbed my hand and held me in place. I think even he knew it was almost over, and he wanted me to stay with him.
Then, this man who had just saved my life asked me to forgive him.
He loved you, Adrienne. Please don’t ever forget that. Despite the short time you spent with him, he adored you, and I’m terribly sorry for your loss. When things are hard, as they are for me, fall back on the knowledge that not only would he have done the same thing for you that he did for me, but because of you, I was given the chance to get to know, and love, my dad.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, thank you.
Mark Flanner
Amanda lowered the letter to the table. It was almost dark in the kitchen now, and she could hear the sound of her own breath. Her mother had stayed in the living room, alone with her thoughts, and Amanda folded the letter, thinking of Paul now, thinking of her mother, and, oddly, thinking of Brent.
With effort, she could recall that Christmas so many years ago—how quiet her mother had been, the smiles that always seemed a little forced, the unexplained tears that they’d all assumed had something to do with their father.
And, through it all, she had said nothing.
Despite the fact that her mother and Paul hadn’t had the years together that she’d had with Brent, Amanda knew with sudden certainty that Paul’s death had struck her mother with the same intensity that Amanda experienced when sitting beside Brent’s bed for the very last time—with one difference.
Unlike her, her mother hadn’t been given the chance to say good-bye.
When she heard the muted sounds of her daughter’s sobs, Adrienne turned from the window in the living room and made her way to the kitchen. Amanda looked up in silence, her eyes filled with unspoken anguish.
Adrienne stood without moving, watching her daughter, then finally opened her arms. Instinctively Amanda rose, trying and failing to stop her tears, and mother and daughter stood in the kitchen, holding each other for a long, long time.
Eighteen
The air had chilled slightly, and Adrienne had lit a few candles around the kitchen to warm and light the space. Sitting at the table, she had put Mark’s letter back in the box with the note and the photograph. Amanda watched her soberly, her hands in her lap.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said quietly. “For everything. For losing Paul, for having to live through that alone. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to keep all of that inside.”
“Neither can I,” Adrienne said. “There’s no way I could have made it without help.”
Amanda shook her head. “But you did,” she whispered.
“No,” Adrienne said. “I survived, but I didn’t do it alone.”
Amanda looked puzzled. Adrienne offered her a melancholy smile.
“Grampa,” she finally said. “My daddy. That’s who I cried with. And I cried with him every day for weeks. Without him, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“But…” Amanda trailed off, and Adrienne went on for her.
“But he couldn’t say anything?” Adrienne paused. “He didn’t have to. He listened, and that was what I needed. Besides, I knew there wasn’t anything he could have said that would have made the pain go away, even if he could speak.” She lifted her gaze. “You know that as well as I do.”
Amanda pressed her lips together. “I wish you’d told me,” she said. “Before now, I mean.”
“Because of Brent?”
Amanda nodded.
“I know you do, but you weren’t ready to hear it until now. You needed time to work through your grief in your own way, on your own terms.”
For a long moment, Amanda said nothing.
“It isn’t fair. You and Paul, me and Brent,” she whispered.
“No, it isn’t.”
“How were you able to go on after losing him like that?”
Adrienne smiled wistfully. “I took things one day at a time. Isn’t that what they tell you to do? I know it sounds trite, but I used to wake up in the mornings and tell myself that I only had to be strong for one day. Just one day. I did that over and over.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Amanda whispered.
“It wasn’t. It was the hardest time I ever went through.”
“Even more than when Daddy left?”
“That was hard, too, but this was different.” Adrienne flashed a quick smile. “You were the one who told me that, remember?”
Amanda looked away. Yes, she thought, I do. “I wish I’d had the chance to meet him.”
“You would have liked him. In time, I mean. Back then, you might not have. You were still hoping that your dad and I would get back together.”
Amanda’s hand went reflexively to the wedding band she still wore, and she twisted it around her finger, her face a mask.
“You’ve lost a lot in your life.”