Covers

Chapter Sixteen: Numb

We give ourselves one more day to settle. My dad always has Mondays off, so I ask him to come pick us up then. Which means that the entirety of Sunday was left to us. Evan wanted to get a jumpstart on applying for jobs, but I told him it would be a better idea to wait until we came back so he's available for interviews. Instead, I suggested he make money another way.

We spent the day at Riverfront Park. I watched while he busked, completely enraptured. His tone of the day was love songs. Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Alicia Keys, John Legend. My heart swelled with every strum of his guitar.

He attracted quite a crowd, even in the cold weather. People offered him tips for specific song requests, giving the songs as gifts to the partners whose hands they held.

Joke's on them. Every love song he plays is all mine.

As the hours passed, I worried that he was tired of standing there, that he needed a break. But my sweet, beautiful man has an iron work ethic and an undying passion for music. He took only one water break over the course of five hours.

After the five hours, I stood up from my spot on the grass. He thanked the people gathered around us. Cash and coins showered into his guitar case. I waited until the last of the stragglers had left, then gave him a long kiss on the lips.

"That was fantastic," I said with a smile.

Despite my insistence otherwise, he used some of the tips he'd earned to buy us a nice dinner. We looked out at the icy gray tumult of the Willamette River as we ate pasta and breadsticks in a cozy restaurant. We held hands the entire tram ride back home, and made love until we were too tired to move a muscle.

Yesterday was wonderful and I have every confidence that today will be the same. Evan, however, is more nervous than I've ever seen him.

"Evan," I say, rubbing his back as he checks his expression in the mirror again. He keeps fidgeting with the cover-up on his temple. I told him it looks perfect, but he keeps trying to adjust it. "He already knows you have tattoos there. He won't judge you because of tattoos."

I am interrupted by a knock at the door. Evan inhales sharply like he was slapped, his blue eyes wide as he looks out the bathroom.

"It's okay," I say for what feels like the millionth time today. I squeeze his hand and walk over to open the door.

My dad smiles at me from the hallway. I greet him with a hug, which he returns freely, but his brow furrows as he looks around the apartment.

"You moved in?" he asks, his gaze on Evan.

"Yeah. I, um... I made Audrey write me a roommate agreement. And I'll pay half the rent," Evan promises, his eyes as earnest as a child's.

My dad considers this, gives me a loving look, then waves his hand. "No need. Spend it on her. Good to meet you properly, Evan. You can call me Will."

I try not to sigh too loudly as relief cuts through me. Evan smiles and shakes my dad's hand. He ends up getting pulled in for a bro-hug. I smile at the sight of my dad's arm around Evan.

"He's been taking good care of me," I say, tapping my temple.

"It seems like it," my dad says. He gives me another affectionate look, but there's a shadow in this one. A bit of darkness. A bit of pain.

His hesitance to object to Evan moving in suddenly makes a lot more sense. He seems too tired.

"Dad?" I ask, reaching for his arm.

He chews on his lip. "Audrey, honey... I... I got some news this morning."

I know. Deep in my heart, I know. I've been expecting this for years. I know what he's going to say.

I don't think that means I'm ready to hear it.

"Mom died this morning," he says softly, reaching for my cheeks. "I... I wanted to tell you in person. When I got here. I..."

I feel numb. "What- what happened? Did she overdose?"

"They aren't sure," he says. I see the layers in the pain in his eyes. He's mourning for the fact that his daughter will live a life without her mother, but he's also mourning for the woman he loved, if only for a short time.

My dad has always told me that I am the most important thing in his life. Now he is mourning for the woman who gave me to him.

I guess I always kind of half-hoped my mom would pull herself together at some point. Be there for my college graduation, my wedding, the birth of my child. But she'll never smile at me as I am handed my diploma. She'll never see me in a white dress. She'll never get to meet her grandchildren.

I didn't think I was capable of crying for her anymore, but I feel hot water drip down my cheek at the thoughts.

"Come here," my dad whispers, pulling me into a hug. "It's okay, Audrey."

I close my eyes and rest my cheek on my dad's shoulder, trying not to think of the happy days. When she was sober long enough to take me to the park, or come to my birthday. The time she took me shopping for school clothes.

Evan says nothing, but I feel his hand on my back. I can't think of him. I can't think of anything besides her.

"If you don't want to come down today, that's okay. I can come back," my dad offers.

I shake my head and pull away from the hug. I wipe my eyes on my sleeves. "No. Let's go. I... I'll be okay. I've been expecting this."

"That doesn't make it any easier, baby," my dad says. Evan nods silently.

"I'll mourn her. But this time is for you, dad," I say, looking into his brown eyes. There, for the first time in my life, I finally see my own. I suppose because never before has my mother's face been this fresh in my adult mind, and I never truly understood how much I look like her. The features I had always thought belonged to another man don't belong to a man at all.

"This time can be for both of us," my dad says softly. He looks up at Evan and puts his hand on his shoulder. "All three of us. And for you, too. If you need to cry, we can cry. If you want to talk, we can talk."

This openness touches my heart, but I recoil from the thought of ruining what was supposed to be happy time with my own need to talk about my mother.

"I'm okay," I say. "Let's go."

I insist that Evan sits in the front seat so the two can get to know each other better. Plus... I don't want to be touched right now. I don't want to be distracted by sensations when I need to reflect inwardly. I don't want to wallow in the sadness of losing my mother; that's pointless. But I do need just a bit of time to myself to make sure I'm beginning to process her death.

The hardest part is that this loss will not destroy me. This loss doesn't shatter my world or flip it upside-down. This loss is mundane, expected. I will survive this easily, and this feels like an insult to her memory.

I wonder if everyone would still think I'm a good person if they learned that I had nothing but a few stray tears and some hours of reflection to offer my mother when she died.

Evan and my father talk nearly the entire ride home, and this comforts me. They trade stories of odd jobs and compare fishing and hunting stories. My father was raised in Salem before moving down to Douglas County, and Evan references living there for a while after he graduated highschool. The two of them realize they share a favorite donut shop in the state's capital and decide to stop for a few boxes on the trip back up.

I talk with them. I join my father's stories and listen to Evan's. I chuckle and joke when they do. But I can't help but feel disconnected from these happy moments, like I'm only pretending to be at peace now.

I can't help but feel that my body is in this car, driving to my hometown, with the two people I love most in the world, but I left my heart back in a studio apartment in Portland.

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