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He filled the next box with books and papers. His hands hit something all the way in the back that must have gotten pushed there to make room for all the medication bottles. He pulled out his father’s thick-rimmed black glasses.
He had sat down with the glasses in his hand, holding them and unable to move.
Olive showed up at his house unexpectedly like she often did back then. He didn’t know how long he’d been on the floor holding the glasses.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I’m so sorry. God, Derek. You should have told me you were doing this. I would have helped you.”
His voice shook. “I shouldn’t need help. This was my responsibility.”
He wasn’t a child anymore. He should be able to handle everything.
Olive shook his shoulders violently to force him to look at her. “Just because you’re capable of doing something by yourself doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.” Her next squeeze practically cut off his oxygen.
Jake showed up later. He packed the bags and boxes in his truck while Olive led Derek back to his room. He was still cradling the glasses, and his dad was still fucking dead and all he could think about was Anna Chlumsky screaming about Macaulay Culkin not being able to fucking see in his fucking coffin.
That afternoon was the only time he cried for his dad. That afternoon the day before his dad’s birthday, he wept on Olive’s shoulder for hours, never letting go of those busted, old, cheap plastic frames.
Olive slept over, never leaving his side. When he’d woken, it had been the middle of the night. Olive sat up and held his hand. It had been his idea in the end. He knew what he needed to do. He grabbed a spade from their shed. They went to the graveyard, dug up a small patch of ground next to the headstone, and buried the glasses inside.
Every year afterward, Olive had met him at that tree at dawn for this small ritual that was all his own. Every year she brought a pair of glasses, and he left them on top of where he left the other ones, not knowing what happened to them. Every year he wanted to walk up to the grave by himself, but he just couldn’t. She always asked the same question at the gate.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Every year he said yes, because being alone with the grave would make it all more real. It was easier to clutch her hand and bring her with him because he couldn’t think of anything worse than losing control and feeling the grief.
Now, Olive stood in front of him again, holding another pair of glasses, while the first blush of morning fanned out from the horizon.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
On that long walk after seeing Michelle, he realized he’d been trying so hard to push down his feelings that he never could heal. He tried to do so much alone that he’d messed shit up. But in other ways, he’d clung so tightly to what he knew, to what was safe, that he never opened himself up to new things. And that’s what he’d been doing all these years when he wanted to sit and talk to his dad alone, but he’d been too terrified to take that step and open himself up to feeling all of it.
Because if he broke down, how could he still be the one who fixed things?
He needed Olive to be here at this tree because she loved him and believed in him even when he screwed things up. He needed her to hold him until he could breathe again so he could take these next few steps by himself.
“I think I’m going to go talk to him alone this year, but do you mind waiting for me?”
She nodded and kissed him on the cheek.
He walked to the grave and set the glasses in front of the headstone. He’d never been here completely alone before. He came with his sisters or Mom with flowers and incense in April. But now it was silent as he faced the gray granite engraved with his father’s name.
He sat and began to talk.
The sun was up when he walked back out to the gate.
Olive crushed him into another hug. “You okay?”
“No.” His voice was hoarse. He must have spent at least an hour talking to his dad. He hadn’t talked this much in days. He hadn’t seen anyone in days.
“Good. Sometimes it’s okay to not be okay, I think.”
“I think I might need help with this. I think I should’ve gotten h-help a while ago…” He could barely get the words out. He broke down like he had when he was eighteen. There was something cleansing in letting your body give way to every bit of stifled grief. He’d read a theory about this once. Instead of trying to ignore the pain or distract yourself, you focus on the pain itself. And it allows your mind to pick it apart and experience it in a more functional way.
With every shudder and sob in the shadow of that big maple, Derek dove into the pain until he almost drowned in it. Every breath was jagged. Every muscle screamed. He felt that profound lack. That emptiness that came with death. All those moments that had been taken from him.
Because his dad was dead.
Exploring those vacant spots seemed to fill them slightly. As if the act of acknowledging them made them easier to bear.