Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20653 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 103(@200wpm)___ 83(@250wpm)___ 69(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20653 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 103(@200wpm)___ 83(@250wpm)___ 69(@300wpm)
“No partners?”
“None that ever truly loved me. None who even pretended.”
“What about your love? Who have you loved, Tallie?”
“My mother. My sister. Lucy. That’s it. And again, that’s familial. That’s way different than you, Graham.”
I laugh. “What if I want to become your family?”
“Phrase that wrong and we’re talking about something way different!” She’s shaking her head, and has a bit of a mad smile, in disbelief at what’s going on and trying to use humor as a shield.
“Have you no space in your heart to love anyone else, Tallie?”
We’re very alone where we are on the trail. Usually it’s only populated by joggers in the morning and evening. So there’s no one here besides me to see her break down in tears.
Besides Lucy, of course, and she won’t tell anyone.
“Does the idea of me loving you bring you that much pain, Tallie?”
“I just don’t understand. How could you love someone like me, Graham?”
“There is no how. I just do.”
She falls into my chest, tears rolling down her cheeks, wetting my shirt with their thickness.
“I’m a total charity case,” she says. “I’m a homeless woman. I have a baby I can’t care for. I have no job, and no immediate hope for one worth a damn. I have nothing to my name. I’m worthless, how could anyone possibly want me?”
I place my hands on her shoulders and hold her steady. “It’s not about money. It’s not about what you have. Love isn’t about keeping score, Tallie. It’s not a transaction. Family doesn’t keep track of who does what, who pays for what. As long as you’re bringing what you can, as long as you give me your heart, that’s more than enough, Tallie. You’re more than enough.”
She’s fully crying into my shirt now. I just hold her tight, embracing her until she comes to terms with the truth in front of her.
I basically do that for the rest of the day. Through dinner, and even into my bed. No sex, just love, Lucy still in Tallie’s arms as she’s in mine.
I’m never letting go of her. I’ll give everything to her, and she’ll give everything back.
How much everything is from each of us doesn’t matter.
It never matters.
10
TALLIE
“Dear sister, how will I go on without you?” I begin, feeling nervous as hell as I read what I have prepared. “Your heart was as wide and deep as the ocean. Your guidance saw me through many a dark night. You were the only soul I could navigate this world by. Fate could not let us defy it though, and now I must see the future without you, and what a dark place it seems to be. I will forever miss you, my dear sister, and with what time I have left, I hope to make you so proud.”
Good, bad? I have no idea. But it was suggested I eulogize my sister, and I gave it my all. There’s some polite clapping as I finish, but I guess a lot of people don’t know how to react at a funeral. Would huge, raucous applause be appropriate? Julia might have thought so, knowing her.
But I’ve heard it said that funerals are for the living, and I can’t help but feel it’s especially true in this case.
The entire Rough family is here, all dressed up respectfully. None of them ever met Julia, but I don’t take their presence as hollow. I know they’re here to support me, and Graham, and it means the world to me.
Truth be told, a funeral attended solely by people who knew Julia would be an empty one. Maybe a few of our acquaintances would show, but when I said Julia and I had only one another, I absolutely meant it.
I step away from the podium, and a preacher takes my place. My thoughts are too conflicted to even hear what he’s saying, and I imagine this is only the first of many sermons he’ll give today.
Graham and his family arranged all of this, are paying for all of it too. And they refused to let me be cheap in planning. They gave me input, yes, but they wanted to be sure that my sister was given the proper respect with her ceremony.
We’d traveled back to Hobson to bury her. The cemetery was untouched by the mudslide, which made me laugh from the cruel irony. Julia is being laid to rest next to our mother, and I still can’t believe she’s gone.
She was a few years older than me. Twenty-seven. She should have had another sixty years at least. Hell, maybe another one hundred with how good modern medicine is nowadays.
She deserved so much better than what she got. She suffered through the same feelings of worthlessness that I always do. I guess the world has worked hard to instill those feelings in us.