Chapter Sixteen
Greta
“WE SHOULD BE BACK BY Thursday or Friday,” Bear grunted into the phone.
I reached for the bag of Cheetos and popped one into my mouth.
Bear and I were one hour into our fifteen-hour drive to Colorado.
Last night, we had stayed in the recliner, just holding each other.
My instinct had been to talk, but I could tell that Bear just wanted to be. All the crazy and off topic things I could have blurted died on my tongue, and instead, I tried to be strong for Bear.
He had been strong for me so much the past three weeks, it was time I returned the favor.
I couldn’t even imagine what he was feeling. Just the idea of losing Mom or Dad, or even anyone from the club, was too much for me to even think about.
The death of the six girls had left the Grim Reaper hovering around the club, but I always felt that it wasn’t personally touching me.
Now, I knew how foolish I was for believing that.
This morning, I had packed my duffle bag and hopped into the Bronco with Bear. I left a message on the voicemail for the vet clinic that I would be gone for a week, then called Mom and Dad to let them know where I was going.
Of course, they both offered to help anyway they could, but there wasn’t anything they could really do. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was doing.
All I knew was I just needed to be there for Bear.
I knew he was used to being alone most of the time, but there were times in people’s lives that they shouldn’t be alone.
Dealing with the death of a parent was one of those moments you needed to be with someone and lean on them.
Bear ended the call with Ransom and tossed his phone in the cupholder.
“Okay?” I asked.
Bear grunted.
He had been doing that a lot more since yesterday.
It was like he didn’t have anything to say. Not even to me.
“What a Cheeto?” I offered.
Bear shook his head and put on his blinker. He merged onto the highway and set the cruise.
“I don’t know what to do, Bear,” I blurted. So, yesterday I was able to keep my mouth shut, but about twenty-four hours was the longest I could go. “Do you want me to hug you? Kiss you? Leave you alone? You could get a bottle of vodka, and I could drive while you get drunk?” I suggested. I wasn’t sure the last one was a good idea, but I would personally pour him shots if that was what he wanted.
He changed lanes and upped the cruise. “You don’t need to do anything, mama.”
At least he had called me mama. I felt like he was a shell of the man I had known yesterday. That was okay, though. He had lost him mom and could do and feel whatever he wanted. I just wanted to have something I could do for him.
I felt like a tool sitting in his passenger seat munching on Cheetos. “Bear,” I whined.
He grabbed my hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “Greta, you don’t need to be doing anything.”
“Then why am I here?” I was happy that Bear had wanted me with him, but I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be doing.
He glanced over at me. “Because I don’t want to be alone.”
And my heart shattered. “You’re not alone, Bear,” I whispered.
He held my hand to his chest and stared straight ahead. “I just want you to be Greta, mama. That’s they only thing I need from you. You don’t need to sit there and be quiet.” He chuckled and shook his head. “God knows that it’s probably killing you right now.”
“I am dying inside,” I gasped. “We passed a field of cows ten miles back and I had to fight back the urge to moo at them because I didn’t want to offend you.”
Bear laughed and shook his head. “Do all the mooing you want, mama. That is the reason I wanted you with me. I didn’t want to drive fifteen hours by myself on the way to bury my mom. I drove around the past five thinking I was ready for this, but I’m not.”
“Five years?” I asked.
He nodded and lowered our joined hands to his lap. “Yeah, mama. About six years ago, I started noticing my mom was getting forgetful and would even forget my name sometimes. I tried not to think anything of it, but it just kept getting worse.”
“Oh, no,” I whispered.
Bear glanced at me. “Mom had me when she was forty-five. By the time she was seventy-one she had no idea who I was, and she couldn’t live on her own anymore.”
“Oh, God,” I gasped.
“For the past five years she has been living at Hills Park Assisted Living. Even though it killed me to do it, I didn’t have any other choice. She got to the point where she was scared of me when I would come visit her at home, and she would try to call the police on me.”
Bear needed to stop talking because I couldn’t take any more.
I don’t know how he was even sitting there telling me this without crying.
I was crying for him.
“Hills Park was good for her, though. They helped me, too. I struggled for a long time thinking this was all my fault.” Bear gulped and nodded his head. “I thought if I hadn’t been gone all the time for work and spent a little more time with her, she would have remembered me. I wouldn’t have been a stranger to her.”
“That’s not true, Bear,” I whispered.
“I know, mama. Now I know that.”
“You did everything right, Bear. You took care of her every way you could,” I pleaded.
He squeezed my hand. “I visited her every month. Most times, she didn’t even talk to me because I didn’t want to scare her. I would come when it was dinner, or they were doing an activity. I would just watch her and know that even though she didn’t know who I was anymore, I was there for her.”
Oh. My. God.
I couldn’t handle this.