As She Fades(60)

Oh.

Oh.

I blinked several times and my face heated.

He chuckled and the sound was nice in the quiet sadness of the room. “You were exactly like I imagined, too. Maybe even better.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. So I reached for the doughnuts and took one out, then held the box toward him.

“Doughnut?” I asked.

Then he really laughed. And my heart did a silly flutter in my chest.





CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

SLATE

AT TWO FIFTY-FIVE that morning, my uncle took his last breath. I was watching his chest rise and fall … and then it didn’t anymore. I stood up, numb, and although I knew it was coming, I still couldn’t believe that he was gone. The only thing I felt was Vale’s arms as they came around me and she held me. She was so small, but her little body was comfort. She stayed like that when the nurses came in and pronounced his death and the time. She didn’t let go when they covered him and rolled him from the room.

When we had to get his belongings and leave the room, she stayed close to my side. Her parents and her older brother Dylan were in the hall when we walked out. It was like I had a family. People there that I never expected.

Uncle D must have known I’d have this. This was why he liked Vale so much. He could go and know I’d be okay.

Vale slipped her hand in mine as we went out to her car and followed her parents to their house. Her brother Dylan drove my Jeep to the house and then I was offered food I couldn’t eat before being shown Knox’s bedroom.

When Vale left me there alone, I finally let the tears I’d been battling fall.

The man I had loved since I was a kid was gone. I wouldn’t hear him curse anymore, I wouldn’t eat burned biscuits and gravy when I came home from school, and he wouldn’t beat me at Texas Hold ’Em and brag about it for days. I would miss every one of those things. I’d give anything just to have him back.

Sleep finally came and I was thankful for the darkness.

*

THE FUNERAL WAS two days later in Huntsville at the small Baptist church my uncle had gone to since he was a boy. His parents had been buried in the graveyard in the back, and so had his wife and child over thirty years ago. She’d died in childbirth, as did their baby girl. He had never remarried or even dated.

He told me once that when you find the woman you can love forever, you don’t get over her. I didn’t believe him then, but I wondered as I grew older if maybe that was true.

Vale, Knox, their two brothers who lived in Franklin, and their parents were there beside me. The people from town who had known Uncle D and the church folk all stood around his grave as he was lowered into the ground. Vale’s hand stayed in mine through it all. It was like she knew I could fall apart if she wasn’t there to help me.

Knox stood on the other side of me, and it was like I had a family. I couldn’t help but feel like Uncle D had orchestrated this all before he left. I wasn’t alone. If he could watch things from up there in the beer-drinking, cursing, poker-playing heaven he was in, he was smiling. This would make him happy.

Especially the roses on his grave with the deck of cards fanned out in a circle as the centerpiece. That had been Vale’s idea. He’d think that was a riot.

Knox’s hand was on my shoulder as the first shovel of dirt covered the grave. Uncle D was really gone. But I would live a life that would make him proud of me.

Lifting my head toward the sky, I said a silent thank-you for the life he’d given me. The little boy who needed a home was given not only that, but also the love of an old man who needed someone himself. We had been there for each other and it had worked for both of us. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.





CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

VALE

AFTER THE FUNERAL, Slate decided to stay at the farm a few days and help the older couple he had hired to take care of things get settled in. They’d get to live rent-free and they would earn twenty percent of the profit from Uncle D’s beef cattle, pigs, chickens, and vegetable garden.

The town had gotten the word out that Slate was looking for help, and he had takers within days. That had been one worry off his mind. My dad had helped him some, too, until he was able to head back to school.

It was a week later when Slate walked into the coffee shop at eight on a Saturday morning. He smiled at me when our eyes met, and although we had been texting daily, it was good to see him. I’d missed him.

“Hey,” I said, wanting to run around the counter to hug him but feeling as if that time was over. Hugging him when his uncle had just passed was okay, but now it seemed … different. So I stayed put behind the counter.

“Morning. Just got back and I need a black coffee with a chocolate-chip muffin.”

“Coming right up,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him from getting out money. “This is on me. A welcome-back breakfast. I can’t cook like my momma, but I can buy your coffee and muffin.”

“I sure am gonna miss your momma’s cooking,” he said. “And thank you.”

“You can come home with us anytime. And you’re welcome.”

Isla walked out of the back and paused when she saw Slate. She knew about his uncle now and she wasn’t so focused on his man-whore ways. “Hey,” she said, blushing as she spoke to him.

“Hello. Isla, isn’t it?” he said, smiling at her. I wondered if he was aware of what that smile did to women. Probably.