Her eyes shied from the framed photographs hanging on the walls of Lincoln and him growing up, and then went back to them anyway. Her breath shuddered as her throat tightened. Sara covered her face with her hands, unable to cry, which should have been a relief, but it wasn’t because she was overflowing with grief and had no way to release it.
How could he be gone? Agony had wrapped its arms of heartache around her and wouldn’t let her go. Sara understood how her mother had died of a broken heart. Why wasn’t she worthy of the same? She didn’t want to live without him; she didn’t want to exist when he didn’t.
The stairs creaked, alerting her Lincoln was near. Sara dropped her hands from her face. Seeing his grief-stricken eyes pulled a choking sound from her. He didn’t speak for a long time. And when he did, Lincoln’s voice was gruff with emotion.
“I got the bed ready.”
She nodded, her throat tightening.
Lincoln blinked his eyes, angling his body and face away from her. “I sat in his room for a while.” He inhaled sharply. “I remember one time when I was five, I had a bad dream. I woke up screaming, scared. Cole came in, told me a story about baseball until I wasn’t afraid anymore. He always did stuff like that. He always looked out for me.” His hands fisted and opened, fisted and opened.
“Lincoln—“
“A part of me is gone, Sara. A part of my childhood, a part of my world is just…gone.” Lincoln stared at her, not really seeing her, but maybe seeing enough. “I thought he would get better, at first. How stupid is that? I really thought he would get better. Why wasn’t he strong enough to get better? And then…and then I knew he wouldn’t and I was so pissed at him. I was so angry at him.”
Sara slowly rose to her feet. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes narrowed as his lips thinned. “It’s not your fault. I never said it was your fault. I never hinted it was your fault. It’s not your fault, Sara!” Lincoln slammed a fist into the wall beside him, knocking a picture loose and causing Sara to flinch. The glass shattered as it hit the wood floor. “Fuck.”
Lincoln fell to his knees, hanging his head. She looked down at him, feeling helpless. He was so strong and so fragile at the same time. She had to do something. Seeing him like this, it hurt. Lincoln’s pain on top of her pain was devastating. Sara went to her knees beside him, staring in misery at the toothless gray-eyed boy grinning at her from a picture with shattered glass over it. That boy was gone; that boy would never come back. She put her hand on his back, feeling the muscles tremble beneath her fingers. Lincoln turned to her, burying his face in the crook between her neck and chin, wetness trickling from his eyes to dampen her shirt.
She wrapped her arms around his shaking frame, her cheek coming to rest on his soft hair that smelled like lemons. She let her eyelids slide shut; listening to Lincoln’s pain, wishing there was no reason for it, wishing she could somehow remove it from him and from her. His hands grabbed fistfuls of her shirt near her back and clenched, holding her, clutching her, as though afraid she would disappear if he let her go. Chances were she would have. It was impossible for her to disappear with Lincoln holding her. He seemed to know that.
***
Sometime during the night, Sara awoke; sweaty and trembling. She couldn’t remember the dream that had awakened her. She could only remember the agonizing sense of loss that stayed with her; that was real and could never be imagined; not loss that profound or inescapable. She sat up in the bed, wrapping her arms around her knees and placing her hot cheek to them. The room was black; a void of space. She closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing. Moments ticked by and still her heart pounded and her pulse raced. The room was suffocating and too warm.
Before she was aware of it, Sara was walking from the room. The hallway was dark with only the glow of a nightlight to offer respite from total blackness. It cast a dim radiance to the area, giving it a surreal, dream-like state. Am I still dreaming? she wondered, hesitating near the door to her in-laws’ bedroom. It appeared the wood burning stove was in full working order. Only a pink nightshirt covered her and even that was too much. Sara shoved her long bangs dampened by perspiration from her face and inwardly warred with herself.