What Love Is

Chapter 14

She should have been there. She should have never made plans with Kate, or stayed the night with Drew. There were so many things she should’ve done.

Seth sat beside her on the floor of Grandpa Jack’s room, looking around at the empty space in silence. Their breathing was short, synchronized, and barely audible. Rowan glanced over at her little brother; his face was shut down, impassive, and his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. She knew deep down that he wanted to cry, but wouldn’t. He was too manly to cry anymore.

They hadn’t spoken in hours. Rowan felt completely alone with her thoughts, despite her father downstairs, her brother beside her, and Drew ready to talk to her on the end of her phone if she so chose to call him. She needed to sort this out alone, since she had not been here for her grandfather a couple of days ago. It was a strange feeling to want to suffer since she had allowed him to die alone while she enjoyed a night of sex and happiness with Drew. What did Grandpa Jack have at the time of his death? His grandson relaxing in the living room, earbuds in at their highest volume, a horse in the barn that he was too weak to ride, and a bedroom full of memories of the love of his life?

Rowan stared at the floor, the palms of her hands, and her knees drawn up against her chest, realizing she was shivering. She’d never known just how cold it was in his room until now.

The door popped open, creaking on its hinges, and Rowan and Seth tilted their heads back at the same time. She looked up at her father, feeling as miserable as he looked. Peter’s raven-black hair was tangled, sticking off of his scalp in clumps, and a thick beard was forming on his face. It was strangely out of character for her father to be with facial hair, and it was still a little shocking every time she saw him.

“Shave, Dad,” Seth bluntly said, turning his head back around. Peter looked down at his back with a gleam of amusement and sadness in his eyes. Seth’s mouth was pulled down in a deep, creasing, frown.

“I think it’s okay,” Rowan shrugged, meeting her father’s gaze. “I mean, you pull off the caveman look sort of well.”

Peter Calloway rolled his eyes and leaned against the doorframe. Rowan looked at his shoulder, annoyed that he was rubbing his arm against something that once belonged to their grandfather, even if it was just the doorframe. She had avoided touching anything in the room besides the floor, partly out of respect, partly because she was too overwhelmed to put her hands on any of her grandfather’s things.

“Plenty of men have facial hair,” he scoffed, but his tone was void of its usual warmth. It depressed her further to know that her dad was suffering somewhere inside as well, even though Jack had been their mother’s father. Her mind did a complete 360 and she found herself looking at the worn carpet, images of her beautiful mother flashing across her vision.

To say Lee Calloway had been gorgeous was an understatement. She’d been the most radiant, lovely woman she’d met in her life. Rowan had been eleven when the cancer infiltrated her body, and Seth had been a mere two years old. She could still remember the endless trips to the doctor, holding her baby brother on her hip while her mother talked quietly with her doctor on the other side of the examination room.

She felt the tears burning the backs of her eyelids, and she blinked a few times, willing them to go away. Rowan recalled Oceanview’s sterile hallways, nurses hanging out in casual clusters, doctors wandering the halls while her mother fought for her life. She sharply, painfully, remembered a doctor explaining to her mother that there was nothing they could do for her; the cancer was too advanced, and she had a few months at best.

Rowan didn’t notice the tears slipping down her cheeks until Seth leaned over, his hand in her face. She leaned back, startled out of her memories, looking between his outstretched fingers and his stoic face.