Letting Go (Triple Eight Ranch) - By Mary Beth Lee Page 0,38
main waiting area alone.
When the door shut behind them, Clarissa closed her eyes and breathed deep while saying a quick prayer asking God for courage. Maybe he’d answer this time.
“Miss Dye,” the doctor said gently, “You know your mother’s organs shut down.”
She nodded. Jed reached out, and she took his hand.
“What I have to tell you isn’t easy.”
She clutched Jed’s hand tighter.
“Your mother died today.”
Time stopped.
Clarissa saw the man’s mouth moving, but everything around them blurred.
She felt herself shaking her head no and wondered what she was answering and why.
And then everything rushed in at once and she could breathe again.
The thing she noticed first was that she held Jed’s hand entirely too tightly. Second, the flowers in the room were fake. Third, the doctor’s lab coat looked new.
“Can I get the hospital chaplain for you?” he asked and Clarissa shook her head. Paul Dillon was in the waiting room. She didn’t need the chaplain. She needed….she didn’t know.
“Can I see her?”
The doctor assured her she could then told her they’d take care of everything needed with the funeral home.
And then he asked her if she was ready to say goodbye.
Jed walked by her side, and the doctor handed her off to the nurse who’d told her her mother could hear her.
The nurse patted her hand like she was a child and said she was sorry for her loss then led her into the room where her mother’s body lay motionless on the bed.
No more machines. No more pain. She was a little paler than before, but other than that, she looked completely at peace.
“Oh, Momma,” Clarissa bent and kissed her mother’s forehead, then brushed her hair back.
“Momma,” she said again, her heart breaking this time for what never would be.
“Goodbye, Momma,” she said, and then she whispered words she hadn’t said in years because they could be used against her. “I love you.”
“You don’t need to stay in the bunkhouse,” Jed said, but Clarissa wasn’t budging.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m not some fragile, little doll that needs protecting. It’s not going to hurt me to stay in there just because I shared it the last week with my mother.”
He pulled in front of the big house and stopped the truck. He could be so obstinate sometimes.
Furious she pushed the truck door open, slammed it shut and started the hike down a gravel road to the bunkhouse.
“You don’t need to stay out here alone,” he said, and some part of her knew he was only doing what he thought was right. It didn’t matter though.
She turned on him, anger pouring from her body in waves.
“I don’t need you telling me what I need or don’t need, Jed Dillon,” she yelled. “I’ve lived on my own my whole life. I don’t need you or anyone else.”
Only as she said the words she realized something inside her had changed. The Dillons had made her soft. She didn’t want to be alone. Didn’t want to keep going through the day to day business of life without connections.
Dangerous. The Dillons were dangerous.
Jed’s face exuded shared sorrow and worry. “Clarissa, I’m not…”
“Stop,” Clarissa said, holding out her hand to emphasize the words. “Just stop. You’re not the problem. I get that. I just…I need to be alone now. Okay?”
“You don’t even have a flashlight,” he said. “If the holes don’t cripple you, a snake might bite.”
He took the phone out of his shirt pocket, handed it to her. “The flashlight’s under utilities. I’ll get it from you in the morning.”
Clarissa swallowed her grief and her initial response. She desperately wanted to tell him she was sorry, that she wanted him to walk with her. That she needed him to hold her and tell her it would be okay.
But she couldn’t give voice to any of that because that kind of thinking would lead to a whole new world of hurt. It wasn’t worth that.
So instead, she simply said thank you and started up the road to the bunkhouse she’d shared with her mother. She didn’t miss the fact that Jed waited and watched her until she got to the door. He stood alone, a dark silhouette under the moonlit sky and beautiful stars, proof that good men existed in the world.
Chapter Ten
Walking into the empty bunkhouse was one of the hardest things Clarissa had ever done. Strange how much of an impact Tammy Jo had had when she’d been here such a short time.
The muffins Susie sent down that morning were still in the