Swear (Landry Family 4)

I feel Ford’s hand clamp over mine as my body heaves. The buzzers now wailing, they shatter the silence of the night.

“Daddy,” I say. “Daddy!”

The corner of his lip turns to the heavens as he sucks in what becomes his final breath.

“Daddy!”

I’m shoved out of the way by the flurry of doctors and nurses swarming in. They talk to me, explain why I have to step out like I don’t already know. I let them push me into the hall as I watch through the glass as my father lies quietly on the hospital bed.

Ford’s hand is on the small of my back as I watch as they do what they can.

“Don’t leave me,” I choke out, my body racking as the sobs come faster than I can keep up with. “Don’t leave me, Daddy.”

My palms are pressed against the window as I watch, hope, beg for some sign that he’s still with me. Even as I pray that somehow a miracle will send him back to me, I know the truth: he’s already gone.

Ford

I’VE LOOKED FOR HER EVERYWHERE.

“Ellie?” I call again as I enter the kitchen.

It’s just like we left it. Everything in its pla

ce like Bill could walk back in and settle down in his chair, flipping on an old Western. She doesn’t want to disturb it yet and that’s fine with me. It’s her call. But this disappearing act she has going on has to stop.

I’m about to head back into the living room when something catches my eye. Moving over to the window that overlooks the backyard, I see her. She’s sitting on a makeshift bench overlooking a garden that was probably a productive scene a few weeks ago. Everything is sort of overgrown now, some vegetables clearly rotting as they hang on their vines.

She’s sitting with her back to me, facing the setting sun.

The last day has been hard for her, harder than I can imagine. I’ve not lost a parent and she’s lost both. Camilla suggested I just stick around, offering to help in any way I can. It feels like not enough. Especially as she cried herself to sleep, finally, in my arms this afternoon.

The door squeaks as I go through and make my way around the corner of the house. If she hears me coming, she doesn’t move.

I give her shoulders a soft squeeze as she rests her head on my arm. “The sunset is pretty tonight.”

“Yeah.”

I take a seat beside her and watch the streaks of pink and purple blaze across the sky. “Are you okay?”

“I will be,” she says resolutely. “He’d kill me if he knew I was sitting here crying.”

“I think he’d understand.”

Her shoulders lift and fall. She toes a rock with her shoe before looking at me. “A lot of people looked at him like he was just another old man,” she says. “He didn’t finish high school. I’m not sure how well he could read, really. He used to have me spell the words when he’d work the crossword puzzles in the papers.”

She smiles to herself at the memory. “I get now why he was so chatty the last few months. He knew he was dying.”

“I think he wanted you to keep living your life and not feel like you had to baby him.”

“Probably.” She kicks another rock. “Speaking of babies, what are we going to do about ours?” She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, a little grin sneaking up on her lips.

“I don’t want you worrying about anything, Ellie.”

“Fine.” She turns to face me. “I’m scared you’re going to leave me.”

My laughter fills the garden. “There’s no way I’m leaving you and you sure as hell aren’t leaving me.”

“But what about Barrett?”