Page 67 of Silver Player

“It makes me feel closer to Mom.”

I have all kinds of questions, but Sadie stretches her arms forward and surprises Roxie and myself by giving an explanation. “Mom’s buried so far away, and I feel like if I go to the cemetery here, she might hear me, see me, find me somehow.” Her head lowers, and her hair falling over her face a second before she brushes strands behind her ear. “That’s weird, right?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Roxie asks, her tone returning to her more normal cadence while addressing her niece.

“I moved to Blue Ridge, and it didn’t hit me until I’d been here a while that I didn’t have any way to talk to Mom.”

My eyes finally met Roxie’s over Sadie’s bent head.

“So in missing your mom, you ran away to Atlanta?” Roxie questions.

“It’s Thanksgiving. The local cemetery wasn’t enough.” Sadie’s voice is so small, that cracked feeling returns, and I’m ready to turn this truck around and pitch a tent in the Atlanta cemetery if it makes Sadie happy. Roxie reaches her arm over Sadie’s shoulder, and her niece falls against her.

“I’m sorry I made you worry,” Sadie says, and Roxie closes her eyes as she shakes her head. All is forgiven when her lips press to the top of Sadie’s head.

“How did you get to Atlanta?” I ask, the one question remaining this evening.

“Christian gave me a ride.”

Roxie’s expression shifts to puzzled, and I take a deep breath.

“Christian Grady?” I question. Then another thought occurs to me. “Tell me you didn’t ride a motorcycle down here.”

Sadie doesn’t answer, and Roxie pulls her tighter as she moans, “Oh Sadie, no.”

With how her mother died, I didn’t think Sadie would ride a motorcycle unless she had some kind of death wish. I’ve heard about these things. Putting one’s self in harm’s way to prove she’s immortal or in hopes of joining those deceased. My stomach feels sick.

We don’t speak anymore, each of us with heavy thoughts filling our heads, and Sadie eventually dozes against Roxie. I struggle to keep my emotions in check as I think about the mortality of both Sadie and Roxie and realize that the most important people in my life are sitting in this truck. I blink at the blurring road before me as horrible visions fill my head, removing them from my life. The void they would leave if they disappeared hurts and curiously, I question why it’s taken so long for me to find them.

+ + +

Sadie wasn’t a baby, and I certainly couldn’t carry her up the back stairs, so she had to walk like a drunken sailor, stumbling into her room and collapsing on her bed. I laughed as she fell face-first.

“When did things get so mixed up?” Roxie stated, staring down at her niece.

“I don’t think anything’s mixed up. She’s just missing her mom.”

Roxie turns sad eyes on me, glancing at me like she’d forgotten I was in the room with her. She looks lost herself, and I want nothing more than to hold her again. Reaching under my chin, I scrub at it.

“It’s late or rather super early, so would you mind if I stayed? I can sleep on the couch…I just…I don’t want to be apart from her.” From either of you. I didn’t know how to process my feelings, which seem to be slowly catching up to me now that we are back in Roxanne’s apartment. The thought of losing them both still haunts me hard, and my leaden feet couldn’t carry me out of this place without a fight.

“Sure,” Roxie says, exhaling, and for a brief second, that release of air sounds like relief. Did she want me to stay as well? Maybe I could stay in her room and hold her like I want, but when she heads to a linen closet and pulls out sheets and a blanket, I learn my desire will not be met.

“It’s been a long night,” she says, her voice weak as she works the sheet over the cushions. Her hands shake, and I reach for her forearm, stilling her frenetic movement.

“I can do this,” I say, not certain if I’m assuring her I can make up the couch or I can be a father. I didn’t react the way Roxie wanted in the police station. Perhaps, I was supposed to rant and yell and accuse like she did, but I’d been on the receiving end of such negative attention a time or two, and I didn’t want to do that to Sadie. She didn’t deserve it. Not yet.

Roxie turns tired eyes on me and nods. She’s hardly spoken to me since we picked up Sadie.

“Well, good night then,” she whispers, sweeping back her hair and then leaving me with too many thoughts in her living room.

26

Misgivings

[Roxanne]

When I finally hit the bed, I should have slept. It has been nearly eighteen hours of panic and fear, and my body should have crashed, only my thoughts refuse to let me be.