Page 8 of Cherry Picking

“Then why the hell are you here?” I snap.

“Because being fine and being okay aren’t the same thing, Briggs. I know the difference with you. I always have.”

My heart clenches, a sharp jitter under the skin. “I don’t need your help. I don’t want it, either.”

“Fine, I’m going.” She holds up her palms in a gesture of defeat. “One day, the hockey is going to be finished, you know? It ends for everyone eventually. And you’re going to look around and realize you spent the whole time keeping people at arm’s length. There won’t be anyone left standing close enough to you when the lights go out.”

The hit lands clean, right where she aimed it. It’s a perfectly aimed strike, and worse, it’s entirely true. I quickly shove the recognition down into the dark where I don’t have to look at it.

“That’s hilarious, coming from you,” I say, my voice going flat. “Spare me the sermon.”

She shakes her head, then turns and walks away. It didn’t take much to send her packing; I should’ve expected it. Flight over fight, every single time. Just like my brother.

I watch that strawberry hair bounce until she disappears behind the gate, waiting for a relief that never arrives.

Left to the silence now, I sit on the concrete border and stare at the new granite. The earth hasn’t even settled into its boundaries yet. ZIGMUND KEANE MAXWELL. Loving son and brother. Gone too soon.

Well, fuck. The reality of it pushes back harder than I can shove it down.

The pressure arrives in my chest, a crushing weight that refuses to move. My throat closes, and my eyes start to burn. I press the heels of my hands against them until I see static, because if I let the gap open, the whole machine is going to fail.

So I do the trick. I breathe. I count it down.

Ziggy and I hadn’t had a real conversation in nearly two years. After the stroke, we managed two phone calls total. That was it. He moved into the house. I mailed the checks. We figured out the logistics and stopped there.

Before that, I’d stopped counting days and started counting seasons. Last offseason, the start of this one. I should’ve flown back to the valley when I had the chance, knocked on that door and stayed until the air was clear.

But I was very busy being fine.

Now, I’m three days late and a whole lifetime short.

I stay on the cold ground until my knees start to lock up. When the sound of soft footsteps lands on the grass behind me, I don’t bother looking.

If this is another woman here to weep about what my brother meant to her, she can do it in the next section.

“I’ll save you the trouble,” I say gruffly. “Zig told you you were special, you probably believe him, and maybe you were—I genuinely don’t care anymore. But I would really appreciate five minutes alone with my brother.”

Silence. Then a laugh, short and surprised.

I whip around to find a woman standing ten feet back with a clipboard under her arm. Her hair is a chaotic blend of red, copper, and white threaded all through it, like a calico cat.

She’s not one of Zig’s. I know because she’s looking at me without an ounce of pity. No careful handling, no mourning-period mercy.

She’s looking at me like I’m a fucking nuisance.

“For God’s sake, I wasn’t sleeping with him,” she snaps. “I’m the one who dug the hole.”

I stand up from the border, my brain scrambling to catch up. “The funeral home sent you?”

“Sutton and Sons. Yes.” She gestures with the clipboard. “I’ve got the paperwork. You’re listed as the payee.”

“Right.” I cross the grass toward her. Up close, she has a jagged cut healing along her brow and dirt smudged down the sleeve of a mint-green coat. “You dug this this morning?”

“Yesterday, actually.” She gives me a tight, professional smile. “Started bright and early.”

I frown, stuck on the image. She’s five foot seven, slender all over. And she was out here on a Saturday morning, digging a hole in the desert for my little brother.

I’d have expected someone burlier. Someone with forearms like tree trunks. She looks more like she should be in a coffee shop with a sketchbook than standing in a cemetery.