“Sara.”
She averted her face, pulling out a chair and sinking into it. “How do I feel?” Like death would be welcome. But he probably already knew that. Sara clasped her hands together and stared at the uneven nail of her left pinky. “Guilty. Betrayed. Angry. Sad. Horrible.”
“Horrible?” Mason pulled out the chair opposite her, placing his arms on the table as he scrutinized her face, drinking her coffee. “Why horrible?”
“Do you really have to ask that?”
“Yes.”
Sara leaned back in her chair and leveled her eyes on Mason. She couldn’t answer that. Not right now. He lifted one eyebrow in response. “Do you hear your brother in your head? Think he’s talking to you?”
Mason set the coffee mug down on the table, his gaze on the cup. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you said something about Derek talking to you and…” Sara’s face burned and she lowered her eyes to the table. “I hear him sometimes.”
“Who?”
“My husband. And sometimes…I think I see stuff.” Sara looked up, pain forming in her chest. Her eyes pleaded with him to tell her she wasn’t crazy, or maybe that she was. She just wanted to know, either way.
“Stuff?”
“I don’t know. It’s…nothing. Nevermind.”
Mason didn’t say anything for a long time, finally breaking the silence to say, “I think that’s normal, Sara. It’s how we cope.”
“So you don’t think I’m losing my mind? Imagining things? Seeing and hearing things that aren’t real?”
“Is it real in your head?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s real and that’s all that matters.”
“And you’re not concerned that maybe I’m losing my mind?”
“If you were, you wouldn’t know it.”
“Thanks.”
Mason chuckled. “Anytime.”
“I used to hear a voice, but sometimes, now, it seems like it’s his voice.” Sara fisted her trembling hands.
“Sara.”
She looked up.
His features were etched in somberness. “You’re not crazy. You’re not losing your mind. You’re grieving. Your mind only gives you what you can accept, what you can deal with, and maybe that’s what you have to see and hear right now to accept what’s going on. You’re fine.”
“Promise?” she joked weakly.
“I do.”
Sara saw how serious he was and gave a slight nod, looking at the table. “I go over all these scenarios in my head,” she began softly. “What if we’d left a minute earlier or later. What if we’d gone another night? What if he’d driven instead of me? Would he still be here? I’m tormented by the ‘what ifs’.”
“It’s normal. I went through it. Everyone goes through it. It does no good, hurting yourself like that. It doesn’t change anything, Sara. That’s the thing about ‘what ifs’; they don’t matter. They don’t change anything. All they do is make it unable for you to heal. You have to find a way to get past them.”
She exhaled loudly, her breath quivering as she released it. “Right.” Sara rubbed her forehead, nodding. “Okay. I’ll write in the notebook.”
“Sara.” Her eyes met his. “Sometimes when you think you have nothing, you realize you have yourself, and that’s something. That’s enough. I know you don’t think you are, but you’re strong. You’re strong enough to get through this. You’re stronger than you realize.” Mason paused. “You wouldn’t have jumped.”
Her eyes burned and Sara blinked them. “How do you know?”
“Because you already would have by then if you were going to.”
***
The three of them sat at her kitchen table, untouched cups of coffee before them. They wouldn’t meet her eyes. Sara looked from his mother to his father, feeling their blame pointed at her like a loaded shotgun, the trigger already pulled, the damage irrevocably done.
Henry and Ramona Walker had changed since she’d seen them last, although she couldn’t remember when that had been. The time since he’d left her was a blur; days, months meshing together until she couldn’t remember one from the other. The first six months she’d existed and that was all. Sara was honest enough with herself to admit she hadn’t progressed very far since then.
Their skin was tanned from the Florida sun, but it somehow had an unhealthy, pale look to it at the same time. Heartache did that to you. It did as much damage on the inside as it did on the outside. They visited their sons from time to time, but never for long, and never her. She knew they held her responsible. Sara didn’t fault them that. She blamed herself as well.
“I didn’t…I don’t know how…to do this. I didn’t want this,” she said softly, knotting her fingers together in her lap, her eyes down.