Page 71 of Smoke and Roses

I close my eyes.

“Joey called you Sarge,” Marisol says. Her voice is shaking. “In every letter. Sarge says this. Sarge did that. Sarge is the only one who watches all of Sofia’s dance videos.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You pulled the others out. They came to the funeral. They told me.”

“I didn’t pull Joey out.”

“I know.” She’s crying quietly now. “They told me you went back for him three times, and they had to drag you off that truck with your arm on fire.”

I can’t talk. My chest is burning. Lindsey squeezes my knee.

“Ma’am,” I finally say. “I’m sorry. I should have called six years ago. I should have come to the funeral. I couldn’t. I couldn’t face you.”

“Travis.” Marisol says my name like she’s known it a long time. “I don’t blame you. I never did. Joey would kick your ass for thinking I did.”

Her soft laugh is full of tears. “He loved you. You know that? He used to say if anything ever happened to him, Sarge would take care of it. That’s what he said. Sarge will take care of it.”

My hand is over my eyes. Lindsey’s arm is around my shoulders holding tightly.

“I have something for Sofia,” I say. “A picture. Her first recital. Joey gave it to me. And I owe him twenty bucks.”

Marisol laughs again, harder this time. “Oh, God. The twenty bucks. He said she’d freeze up.”

“She didn’t freeze up.”

“She never freezes up.” Her voice softens. “She’s twelve now. She still dances. She has a recital in December in San Antonio.”

A pause, then she says, “She’d like to meet you, I think. The man who watched all her videos.”

Lindsey has her face against my shoulder and a fistful of my shirt.

“I’d like that,” I choke out.

We talk for an hour. When I hang up, it’s dark outside, and the fire in Lindsey’s woodstove has burned down to coals, and something I’ve carried for six years is sitting on the floor of her living room instead of on my back.

Man.

I feel physically lighter. But I don’t move. Lindsey gets up and puts another log on the fire. Then she comes back and climbs into my lap and puts her arms around my neck.

“You did that,” she says.

“You told me to.”

“I said you could. You did it.” She leans back and looks at me, her eyes soft and warm. “You know what I was afraid of, when you first came here? Cassia said you came to Eden to disappear. Rob said you were about to stop living. Not the dead kind.”

I wait because my throat is locked up.

“And then I found out Danielle disappeared too,” she says raggedly. “On purpose. To keep people safe. And I thought, what if he does that? What if he decides one day he’s too much, or too broken, or too sad, and he just goes, to keep me safe from it?”

Christ.

“You don’t get to disappear on me, Travis,” she whispers, holding me tighter. “I mean it. I already lost one person who thought leaving was the brave thing to do. I’m not losing two.”

When I take her face in my hands, her eyes are damp.

“I’m not going any damn where,” I promise. “I unpacked.”