“Did you get Cord? Tell me you got him. Please . . .”
“I’m sorry. We hit water.”
“No!” I wail, covering my face with the towel. “No!”
ELIN
“He’s in there.” Vernon points to a grey tent.
I start running, bumping into people, tripping over cables and wires, ignoring requests for me to slow down and questions about who I am. I run, my focus clear: to get to Ty.
Shoving the tarps open, I quickly scan the room. But I hear him before I see him.
My throat closes shut, my heart splintering, as I hear him sobbing from the other side near the ambulance.
Sprinting to the sound, I see him. He’s sitting on a chair, covered from head to toe in black mud. He’s leaned over, his face buried in a towel, his body shaking, nearly convulsing.
“Ty!” I scream and he looks up. I run to him and he stands, catching me as I nearly leap in his arms. “Oh, baby!” I cry, running my hands through his hair, burying my face in the crook of his neck.
I pull back and kiss his face, his lips, as he pulls me the tightest he’s ever pulled me into him before. His entire body is covered in some kind of oily grease. It’s caked in his hair, his ears, his eyes.
“Are you okay?” I ask, wiping the muck off his face. “Tell me you’re okay. Talk to me, baby. I need to hear your voice.”
“I’m fine,” he says. “But Cord . . .”
My heart stops. “Cord?”
“He didn’t make it.”
“No!” I gasp, my legs threatening to go out from under me. Lurching forward, my heart splintering into a million pieces, I reach for my husband.
His big, beautiful eyes fill with tears and our cries mix together, a haunting, lonely sound, as we sink to the ground.
“Cord!” I sob. “No . . .”
Those friendly eyes, his charming smile, his cheeky grin—it all flashes before my eyes. His voice drifts over my ears, not so much words, but the timbre. The ease of his spirit, the kindness in everything he did washes over Ty and I as we sit, entwined, on the dirt floor.
Ty breaks down in my arms, his body shaking violently. “I told him . . . I told him not to . . .” His words are barely able to be understood through his wails. “God, Cord. Why?”
Pulling my husband as close to me as possible, I soothe him the best I can in the midst of my own suffering. Just as I feel myself start to go over the ledge, I feel him. I feel Cord. Like a rush of warmth from a mid-afternoon sun, I know his spirit is here.
ELIN
His lashes are splayed against his cheeks, his skin cut and nicked from the ordeal. He’s clean now, lying in a hospital bed. I sit in the chair beside him and say a prayer of gratitude that it’s just for observation and a little hypothermia. That he’s going to be as good as new.
Jiggs is in the room next door, sleeping off his injuries too. Lindsay and I have switched rooms a couple of times over the past twenty-four hours, mostly because I didn’t want Ty alone and I wanted to get a visual on my brother.
Jiggs has been awake some and we’ve talked. He’s shared a little of what they went through, but I can tell it might be awhile, if ever, before he really wants to speak about it. The hospital said they’d send in grief counselors to help them talk it out, if they wanted.
Ty has slept almost constantly since we got here. The doctor said to let him rest, that it was the best way to heal. I’ve been able to sleep some, as long as I’m holding his hand. Even then, it’s a fitful sleep because he mutters Cord’s name and my tears fall again.
Like he feels me watching him now, he opens his eyes. It’s a slow, sleepy process, but one that makes me smile.
“Hey,” I say softly, bringing his knuckle to my mouth and kissing it. “How do you feel?”
“All right, I guess,” he says. “Better now that I see your face.”
“I’ve been here the whole time.”
He grins and I watch as it takes effort for him to manage the expression. The cut down his left cheek ripples, making him wince.
Even though he’s a little battered, a little bruised, I think his damage is internal. A broken heart. A scarred soul that may never be repaired. Like mine.
The loss of Cord still feels unreal. I expect his goofy smile, his warm voice to walk in the door at any minute and give me hell. I’d do anything to hear him call me a pit bull, to give Ty a hard time about playing pool, or Jiggs shit over the way he drives.
Nothing in our lives will ever be the same and I feel the loss of Cord McCurry constantly. We all do.
“How’s Jiggs?” Ty asks, struggling to get comfortable. I help him adjust in his bed before he tugs on my arm. “Will you lie with me?”