There was always tomorrow.
Or so I thought.
Getting to sleep was easy. I had her in my arms and everything was perfect.
But then I woke up with my chest heaving, memories dancing behind my eyelids that I swore I had forgotten. There was the sound of an endless heartbreak for person you were meant to be with forever.
I hadn’t had a nightmare in years, not since I was a kid. I used to run to Mom and have her stay with me, but she wasn’t here.
I should have woken up Grace, but I already felt guilty that she was so exhausted from her long walk. And I knew there was something about her that was the center of all of my fears.
Standing, I tried to walk through the house to work it off. When that didn’t work, I walked up and down the driveway.
And then I knew I needed to bring out the big guns.
I left a note for Grace, saying I needed some space. And I drove off.
I didn’t know where I was going, only that I needed time to think. Roads stretched out before me. They’d gone from interstates to highways. I didn’t realize I was in Shady Acres until I was at the old stoplight I used to sit at when learning how to drive.
Mom would sit in the passenger’s seat, yelling at me to stay in the lane and to hit the brakes way before I felt like I should. In the end, she would always apologize and say she wished Dad were here to teach me. He’d been calmer than her, apparently.
I wasn’t sure how I ended up here, but there was something about the weight in my chest that made me continue on. I turned right, just like I always had when heading home from school.
Then, the roads became one lane each way with fields on either side. One parcel had been sold for the first strip mall.
Now all of it was developed.
Every bit of what I knew had been razed to the ground in favor of shops and manicured perfection.
Why the fuck had I come here? Was I a glutton for punishment?
I ended up in front of Mom’s house. A lot had changed. The field where I picked flowers for Julie was even gone. Houses had inched closer to hers, and it wasn’t the same place I grew up in.
It was the middle of the night, and the last thing I expected to see was the lights being on. Mom had never enjoyed late nights when I was a kid, but then again, I hadn’t spent a lot of nights with her ever since I’d grown up either.
I avoided this place and, by proxy, her, like the plague.
I got out of the truck before I could drive away. What was she up to?
And before I could think twice about it, I walked up and knocked on her door.
“Dean?” she said as she opened it. “What the hell are you doing all the way out here in Shady Acres at this hour?”
Her shock made sense. I’d driven hours to be here.
“Just ... checking in.” My eyes roamed over all the walls, which for the first time in my life, were bare. “What are you doing? Are you painting?”
“Um, something like that,” she said. “Come in.”
When I did, my gaze traveled to the living room where I saw even more things were gone. “Why are there boxes everywhere?”
She swallowed. “You never answered my question, you know.”
“Are you moving?” I asked.
Her lips pressed together. “Dean ...”
“Mom . . .”