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“I love you too. Tell me something, though.”
“What?”
“Do you see things with Graham ever getting more serious than they are now?”
“He asked me for a second chance, Melissa, but he pushed pause on it because he wants me to heal my Zac-wound first. It’s only fair to Graham that I do.”
“Yourself too.”
“Yeah.”
“And how is your Zac-wound?”
I blew out a heavy breath. “Still very much open and raw. Zac haunts me in every way. I still feel him on my skin and sometimes, I hear his voice calling out to me like he’s in the next room. It’s that clear. I know it’s just my memories of us that are making all that happen. They constantly replay like a movie inside my head. I also see things that remind me of Zac whenever I’m out and about, running errands. And if you only knew the number of times that I’ve gotten into my car and turned on the radio only to hear a song that Zac and I both love. We used to always text songs back and forth to each other. I still have every one of them on a playlist on my phone, too. All except for one. It was the last one that he texted to me after we said goodbye.”
“Okay, you’re about to make me cry.”
“Myself, as well.”
“Stevie, I don’t think you’re ever gonna get over Zac.”
“I know I’m not.”
“So where does that leave things with you and Graham?”
I shrugged. “Today, I don’t know. Tomorrow, I might. For now, I’m just gonna take in the blessing of this day, which includes getting to see Graham tonight and probably kissing those soft lips of his again. I’m gonna ride this thing out and keep waiting for a door to open that will show me beyond any doubt what I’m supposed to do concerning my heart. I can’t take it being broken again by anyone.”
“Hey, Dad! I’m home,” I hollered as soon as I opened the front door of the parsonage.
He didn’t say anything like he usually did, so I walked into the living room but he wasn’t there, or in the kitchen, either. After setting down my purse and briefcase on the counter, I started walking toward his bedroom and called out for him again. He still didn’t answer me. His bedroom door was closed so I cracked it open quietly, thinking my dad was probably taking a nap—but I was wrong. I was so damn wrong.
“Dad!” I screamed, running over to him.
He was laying on the floor, his eyes were closed, he was non-responsive and his skin was cold. I started shaking him and screaming his name over and over because this could not be happening. My oh-so-sweet dad could not be dead. He could not leave me like this.
I looked up and saw his cell phone on his nightstand, grabbed it and then dialed for help.
“911. What’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.
“I-I need an ambulance at the First Methodist Church parsonage on Oak Street.”
“Ma’am, please tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s my dad, the pastor of the church. He’s not breathing. He’s not doing anything. He’s dead—he’s dead—he’s dead.”
I didn’t know how long it took for the ambulance to arrive but it didn’t seem like it was very long. Ten minutes maybe. It really didn’t matter, though, because my dad was gone and there was nothing that anybody could do about it.
When the paramedics rang the doorbell, I got up from the floor and looked back down at my dad laying there, with a pillow underneath his head and the blanket that my mom had crocheted for him covering him up to his chest. I couldn’t standseeing him in the shape that he was in when I first found him, so I’d provided the last little bit of human comfort that I could give him despite the life in his body no longer being there.
As the paramedics were checking for any trace of life in my dad, I stood back and watched them in a daze. After carefully loading Pastor Steven Sinclair onto a stretcher and then completely covering him with a white sheet, the paramedics began rolling him out of his bedroom. I followed them down the hallway and out the front door of the parsonage to the driveway, where some of my dad’s neighbors had already gathered. They came running up to me and were moving their mouths, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I could only see them. My head started spinning and then I felt someone grab me from behind. When I looked to my right, Graham was looking back at me and then everything went black.
56
#dusttodust
Zac
BROOKE, BASH, ANDI arrived at Mr. Sinclair’s church thirty minutes before his funeral was to begin. The building was packed with people who, I was certain, were church members, longtime friends of Mr. Sinclair’s, and even new friends that the man had recently made.
