Page 45 of Carson

The very next day it’s more of the same, except she’s not afraid. Nothing seems to be chasing me today. We seem to have gotten past that part of her vision. Her hands wave excitedly as she describes the sunflower garden to me.

“Our granddaughter loves it there with him,” she tells me.

The him she’s been talking about is my father? That confuses me. We haven’t talked about him since the day she pulled up in front of his trailer and decided not to let me out. I never saw my dad again after that.

It confirms that all of what she’s envisioning is not real. Because I’d never in a million years let my child anywhere near that man.

Her hand goes to her heart, and she smiles while staring at the ceiling. “He’s teaching her how to sign the word for sunflower,” she says, signing the word herself.

An irrational fear hits me at the possibility of my future daughter inheriting my mother’s deafness.

“Daddy doesn’t know how to sign,” I remind her gently.

She turns toward me. “Not him.” She shakes her head adamantly. Her brows pull together as she signs. “This grandfather loves her more than life itself. He’s a big man.”

I laugh as she draws her hands over her cheeks as she describes him.

“He has a beard, huh?”

She nods, a small giggle leaving her lips. “That little girl loves to tug on it. She’s healing his broken heart.”

“Why is his heart broken?” I ask, playing into her imagined reality.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

A few moments later, she’s back in the present, and we continue our conversation without any more talk of sunflowers or big men with beards and broken hearts. She listens quietly with a smile on her face as I tell her all about the van I bought and how I’ve mapped out the things I want to see. You know, normal things. The things she made me promise her I’d do once she left this world.

“We both have a lot of exploring to do,” she signs.

Our plans were to do some traveling together, but cancer became a fork in the road, splitting us in different directions.

“Oh, it’s my turn to hold her,” my mother signs, suddenly. Her hands rise to the ceiling. “She’s beautiful.” She smiles serenely and then her arms abruptly fall to her sides.

“Mama.” I stand quickly, moving to her bedside. When I look into her eyes, I know she’s no longer here.

Big Dan reaches over and touches my leg lightly. “How did she describe me?”

I shake my head, clearing the worst day of my life from my mind. “She said you had a beard,” I laugh lightly, not telling him more than that. He’d never believe me.

He chuckles with me. “There might not be as many bearded men in the world as there are sunflowers, but I have to tell you, you’ve stumbled across the best of both.”

We laugh together, and I decide not to tell him the entirety of the story. No use dragging him into the delusions of a dying woman.

“Anyway, it just took me back. But I promise you, I wasn’t running from Carson.”

“No, I don’t suppose you were,” he says, his gaze going to the truck that’s just pulled in. “But if there is a darkness chasing you, I want you to know that she sent you to the right place.”

We watch his son and an older man walk toward us.

“One of the last things my mother said to me was to keep my face turned toward the sun,” I tell him, not taking my eyes off Carson. “When I look at him, a warmth settles across my cheeks.”

“Because he is your sun.”

“But what if I can’t be that for him?”

“Even the moon casts a glow. It’s just a bit gentler.”

Carson pulls me from my seat when he reaches us. “Pack your bags. We’re going to Ireland.”