Side Trip(25)

“Please eat,” her mom had begged.

Joy heard her mom’s worry. She was wasting away. But the thought of food soured her stomach.

“Leave her alone, Jen.” Joy’s dad picked apart the layers of spinach lasagna. He couldn’t eat either.

“I’m not going to leave her alone,” her mom argued. “She’s not eating because she’s grieving. We’re all grieving for Judy, but keeping it bottled up only makes our grief worse. It robs us of our appetites and steals our sleep.” She laid a hand over Joy’s and looked her in the eye. “Grief builds and compounds and if we’re not careful, it can break us.”

Joy looked down at her mom’s hand. So did guilt.

“Please, sweetheart, talk to us,” her mom begged.

“What’s there to talk about?” her dad interrupted. “Judy drove while drunk. She broke the law and disobeyed my direct order. Both kids did. I said, ‘no passengers.’ I never should have bought that car.” He shoved his plate away and stood. “I’ll be in my study.”

“Doing what? It’s dinnertime.”

“We have a couple hundred grand of college funding sitting in our accounts. We need to reinvest that.”

“Now?” her mom exclaimed. “We’ll use it for Joy. Please, sit down and eat.” She pushed his plate back.

“Joy isn’t going to college, not with her grades.”

Joy flinched, the verbal slap a reminder that she’d never be as good as Judy in their eyes. Her dad left the kitchen, and a moment later, a door slammed.

Her mom touched her shoulder. “He didn’t mean that, honey. He’s just sad about Judy. We all are.”

Joy pressed her chin against her collarbone. A single tear traced down her cheek.

Her mom looked at her own plate and sighed. “I’ve lost my appetite. Finish up, Joy. I’ll take care of the dishes later.” She excused herself from the table, lost in her grief as Joy suffered with her own.

The accident played on repeat in her mind. Judy’s final request recycled nonstop, words Judy would never tell anyone. Joy sat at the table alone, staring unfocused at the empty space across from her, until she couldn’t handle the solitude.

Without any real thought to what she had in mind, she went out back and stood at the edge of the swimming pool. She stood there for a very long time. The water beckoned. So did the chance to silence the shame and guilt that had tormented her since she woke up in a crumpled car, sisterless. The water would wash it all away.

She took a step forward, her foot hovering over the pool.

“Joy, no!” her mother screamed. She was suddenly behind her, and turned Joy around to pull her into her arms.

Joy gasped, startled, then burst into tears.

“How could you do this to us? We can’t lose you, too.”

Joy sobbed. How could she have been so selfish? She had a flair for disappointing her parents. But guilt was a cancer she needed to cut out before it killed her. There had to be another way to absolve it, a solution that wouldn’t harm anyone she loved.

Dylan tossed his map on the table and sank into the seat across from her. Joy jerked at his sudden arrival. She hadn’t heard him approach. Her heart started racing and she breathed through her distress. It had been a long time since her mind took her down that rabbit hole. She’d almost forgotten she’d tried to end the pain.

Dylan spread the map out on the table. “Don’t ask what we’re doing. I want to surprise you. But here’s where we’re going.” He pointed at a spot on the map, the Navajo Bridge. He then traced the route, describing the road, showing her landmarks, and pointing out a construction zone that had shown up on Google Maps when he’d looked up the bridge. Would she be okay driving, and did she mind if he slept on the way? He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.

Joy regarded him with new interest. In less than a day he’d picked up on her driving anxiety and had wasted no time to put her at ease. She felt the burn of tears and the desire to pay him back in kind.

Dylan looked up. “You okay?”

Joy nodded, trying to discreetly dab away the moisture.

“Excellent.” He grinned, then signed the check and glanced at his watch. “We gotta go.”

By the time Joy inputted the address in her maps app and memorized the directions, Dylan had fallen asleep, passed out before Joy could remind him to buckle his seat belt. But he’d remembered. She gave his belt a gentle tug, satisfied that he was clipped in.

Dylan slept the entire two-and-a-half-hour drive, only briefly waking up when she’d turned into the bridge’s parking lot. He’d asked her to wake him when a black truck with a DESERT ADVENTURES logo arrived. He also told her to change into something more suitable for what he had planned. Workout clothes would be great, he offered.

Joy changed in the restroom, and when she returned, Dylan gently snored in the passenger seat. There was nothing else for her to do but wait. She rubbed her damp hands together, feeling amped and anxious. What did he have planned? She didn’t like being spontaneous, and it had been years since she was, not since the night she’d planned to meet Taryn at her family’s cabin so that they could hang out with Kevin. And because Judy had been on her mind so much lately, Joy was immediately swept back, drifting through memories of her sister’s last day. Memories she’d replayed in her head countless times, and they always ended the same.