The farther I get from him, the more his amusement fades into something that looks more like panic. “I know it’s not…normal to be so worried.” He rubs the back of his neck. “But I don’t know how to stop.”
Sympathy rocks me. My instinct is to cancel, but I can’t do that. I wouldn’t be doing Jason a favor by giving in to fear on his behalf. And I would be doing myself a disservice by setting aside what I want for someone else. I came to Florida to do the exact opposite. “Everything is going to be fine,” I say. “I’ll check in later, okay?”
His anxious expression stays with me on the whole drive to Daytona Beach.
*
Jason
Something is on my sister’s mind.
A more pressing something than usual.
We’re driving to the marina and she’s chewing on her lip, fidgeting in the passenger seat. Granted, we haven’t really hung out like this since I came home, a fact that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But she shouldn’t be nervous about going somewhere with me, right?
“What’s up?” I nod at her bouncing knee. “You’re going to wear a hole in the foot well.”
“Oh. Sorry.” She tucks her hair behind an ear. “I’ve just never been scuba diving before.”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “I’m sorry about that. All my dives have been business related lately, but that’s no excuse. I should have taken you out.”
“It’s no big deal.” After a moment of silence, she turns to me with a half-smile. “Natalie would have nagged the shit out of you. Given you the silent treatment until you took us. Then she would have sent Google calendar alerts to everyone’s phones and had T-shirts made. Bristow Diving Day 2018.”
My mouth turns down at the corners, even though I’m trying to smile. “She did tend to make an event out of everything. From what I remember.”
Birdie nods. “What do you remember about her?”
This is the second time today Birdie has brought up Natalie, and I think she needs to talk about our sister. That’s what she’s trying to tell me, in her own way. “I remember she hated getting her hair cut. She would scream bloody murder if they brought the scissors anywhere near her. Was it long…at the end?”
“Yeah. She was watching these braiding tutorials on YouTube obsessively. A new type of braid every day. There would be ribbons threaded through and…” She trails off. “She made us all watch them and I complained, but I kind of liked it. The way we’d all smoosh together on the couch and zone out, listening to her chatter and critique everything.”
We’ve reached the marina now and I pull into my usual space, leaving the engine running so the air conditioner stays on. “She used to make color-coded lists on Christmas morning,” I say, pulling memories out of the basket like strings of yarn. “Columns and all. Just to keep track of which presents came from who.”
Birdie’s smile spreads and ebbs. “How can someone like that just…not wake up one day? How is that possible?”
I swallow hard and stare out at the water, remembering how confused I was to get the news. And how that confusion gave way to frustration over how a healthy, seventeen-year-old girl can go to bed feeling fine, then experience cardiac failure overnight. No pain, no warning signs. An irregular electrical impulse upset the rhythm of her heart. Her heart stopped. Sudden Death Syndrome. I didn’t even know it was a thing. So easy, yet impossible to come to terms with. “There’s no good answer for why it happened, kid. I just know it isn’t fair.” I’m not sure where it comes from, but suddenly there’s this expansion inside of me. It’s like a bubble with tough outer skin, pushing at the inner corners of my chest and venturing toward my throat. My mouth is the only release valve for the pressure and it escapes in the form of a hoarse gasp. My little sister is gone. “I’d have taken her place. In a heartbeat.”
“I know.” Birdie rubs at her knees. “I know, Jason.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
I hear the click of Birdie’s seatbelt and then she’s scooting across the seat, laying her head on my shoulder. She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t tell me it’s okay or try to make me feel better. And I’m glad. I’m being hit hard for the first time since I got the phone call that Natalie was gone. I’m finally processing the reality of never seeing her again and acknowledging the gap she left in the atmosphere. The lack of her has been obvious every waking hour of the day, but I’ve kept my head down and plowed through. She deserves better than that, though.
In the front seat of my truck, with the air conditioning rumbling and Birdie’s shoulder, I close my eyes and give Natalie what I’ve been resisting. I grieve.