He bought another Harley three months later. Not because he wanted to ride. Because the silence in the house was killing him slower than the cancer killed her, and at least on the bike the wind drowned it out.
His daughter, Maddie, was eighteen when her mama died. She held it together through the funeral, through the move to college in Knoxville, through the first Thanksgiving where Cole burned the turkey because Sarah had always done it and he’d never paid attention to how. Maddie was the one thing in the world Cole was scared of disappointing. He’d been a hell of a husband. He wasn’t sure he knew how to be a father without an interpreter.
For two years, he slept on his side of the bed. Right side. Always the right side. He’d lie there with his hand resting on the cold sheet where Sarah used to be, and some nights he’d talk to her out loud, and some nights he’d just close his eyes and pretend he could feel her breathing.
He never moved to the middle. Couldn’t. His body wouldn’t let him.
Part 3
Maddie called on a Wednesday. Said she was driving up Saturday morning, staying through Sunday. First overnight since the funeral.
Cole spent Friday cleaning the house. Not the kind of clean a man does — the kind Sarah used to do. He scrubbed the baseboards. He bought fresh flowers for the kitchen table because Sarah always had fresh flowers and the house felt wrong without them. He washed the sheets in the guest room and made the bed three times because the corners kept coming out wrong.
Saturday she came. They hugged on the porch and held on a beat too long. She’d grown up to look exactly like her mother — same dark hair, same eyes that saw more than they let on. Cole had to turn his face when he hugged her because he could smell Sarah’s shampoo in her hair.
They spent the day doing nothing much. Drove out to the lake. Got barbecue from the place Sarah loved. Came home and watched a movie neither of them was paying attention to. Around 11, Maddie kissed him on the cheek and said, “Night, Daddy. I love you.”
He went to his side of the bed. Right side. Hand on the cold sheet.
He didn’t sleep. He never really slept anymore. He drifted in and out, the way a man does when his body has forgotten what rest is supposed to feel like, and somewhere around 5 a.m. he heard the bedroom door open.
Soft footsteps. Bare feet on hardwood. He kept his eyes closed.