This follows Branson Gulch Blues, Part IV, Part III, Part II, and Part I…
Rory woke up in a panic, strangling in his own sheets, mired in the octopus-like constriction of untucked sheets, blankets, somehow coupled to his own clothing. He angrily pulled the wrapped corner of his sheets from around his neck. It flickered away like a dismayed python.
Sweat beaded at this forehead and the back of his neck, and his heart rate was running a mile a minute.
The nightmares had gotten worse. He would wake up and then couldn’t remember what they were about. Just flashes of impressions that provided nothing more than a fleeting glimpse of something… wrong. Something that he could not fix no matter how hard he tried. He squeezed his eyes shut, fiercely attempting to pry something loose from his mind, some clue as to why he was on his second straight week of shit sleep.
He had his last final tomorrow. It did not matter nearly as much as his SAT had, but they were still important to close out the senior year of high school. Not getting the rest he needed was going to take its toll. Rory sat up, freeing more of his body from the wrath of the unintentional slumber knot that used to be his bed. He pulled his leg free and a sock stayed locked up in the sheets.
“Fuck it,” Rory mumbled, yanking the matching still attached sock off his other foot. He stood, lengthening his frame upwards, feeling the muscles stretch and hit their limit, their release flooding his nerves with some form of remotely felt satisfaction of their own. His heart finally had slowed, and the sweat was evaporating quickly. His well-tuned runner’s constitution at least made recovery fast.
The clock on his phone attested it was 2:17am on Thursday, May 14th, and Spotify had a new release from one his followed artists.
“Great. Thanks Spotify,” he mumbled.
There was a missed phone call too. His grandmother. Fifteen minutes ago?
Rory felt his stomach drop. He hadn’t been able to get his Mom or Dad to spring for a visit to see Nana and Grandpa. There was always an excuse. Some reason they couldn’t visit. Some other trip or vacation always took precedence. As a result, it had been literally years since he had seen his Nana and Grandpa. But Rory had made a habit to call them every week. Every Sunday, after dinner, religiously.
Grandpa had some sort of injury at work a couple years back and had been forced to retire. He had been sick the last few weeks? Right? Not the flu. Not covid. Something else? Nana had been dismissive two weeks ago, and they had not answered their phone this past Sunday. Rory had thought it odd, but sometimes they missed each other. It happened. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Rory rubbed his eyes, cracked the door to his room to look for signs of activity in the house. Something that would assuage his gut feel or at least confirm it? Something? Anything? But the house was silent as a crypt. His parents were not pacing the house, Mom was not calling anyone, and Dad wasn’t sitting at his customary position at the end of the kitchen island furiously tapping on his laptop.
It was eerie, actually. Like time had stopped. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound. Not even the typical house noises of a fan running or the furnace cycling could be heard. Rory shook his head, attributing the weirdness to the nightmare. He closed his door slowly, letting the latch catch its home silently and then he paced back to his phone, unplugging it from its charger.
He flipped to Nana’s contact and hit dial. It did not even ring once.
“Rory? Is everything alright?” Her voice was far away. Tinny. Like she was in a tunnel of aluminum foil.
“I’m fine, Nana. It’s two in the morning? You called me.”
A sigh at the other end. A heavy sigh. Then silence.
“Nana?” Rory tried.
“Your, uh, Rory, your grandfather passed.” Her voice was solemn, but not a sound of emotion. Her voice was carved from granite.
Rory realized what that meant. Nana had cried every tear she could harbor at the moment. She was exhausted. This was the sound of his strong, powerful Nana exhausted. Something he had never heard or seen before.
“Did you call Mom?”
“I…” Silence again, like Nana was trying to think of how to say something that she knew had to be said. “Your mom. Yes. I will call her later.”
“You called me first?” Rory felt his heart pick up its pace again.
“I had to know. I mean, uh, I have to know. Did you… did you feel it? The tear?” Nana’s voice was low, like it was secret that would be made real if spoken to loudly. “The last two weeks?”
“What are you talking about?” Rory said. “Tear?”
Nana ignored his question. “Have you felt… off? Sick? Bad dreams?”
Rory felt a chill climb his arms and turn into a shiver that made him want to curl into a ball under his messy covers. “I… yes… I have been having nightmares. Bad ones. For about two weeks. I thought it was end of year crap. How did you know?”
“You have your finals tomorrow, right?” She asked tentatively, uncertain with her own words.
“Yes. Nana, are you ok?”
“Rory, dear. I have lost the love of my life and the father of my only child, so no, I am not ok.”
“Nana, you know what I mean.” Rory smiled over the phone as best he could.
“Yes, I am ok. There is just so much to do. I thought I would have him longer. …That we would have him longer. I needed him, I needed your Grandpa, Rory.” Still no tears. No hitch in her voice.
“How?” Rory asked the dreaded question. “I know he has been sick… but he sounded good a few weeks ago.”
“That is why I need you to come stay with me after your finals are done. I… uh… I will think of something to tell your Mom. When are your parents dropping you off at Drummond?”
Nana was asking about drop off at his chosen college in the Fall. “Mid-August, sometime?”
“And your heart is… nevermind. We can talk about that later. When you get here. Love you, Rory. I am going to call your mom tomorrow. Later in the morning. Try to sleep. Good luck on your finals, dear.”
“I will try.” Rory did not sound confident.
A pause, no goodbye. “Take a deep breath,” Nana said instead.
“What?”
“Take a deep breath. Hold it. Do it. Now.”
Rory inhaled loudly and held it.
“Close your eyes. Imagine the dark around you is holding its breath too. Every corner of your room is collectively holding it, waiting for you to breathe. You are going to release your breath, slowly, counting to five. When you release it, imagine your breath filling the room and the ripples returning to you, reinforcing you.” Nana paused. “Now breathe out.”
Rory exhaled slowly, again loudly so Nana would hear it.
“Good. Now. When you lay down in bed, I want you to repeat that, think of nothing else. Understood?”
“Yes, Nana.”
“Promise.” She ordered.
“I promise.”
“Sleep fast, dear.”
“‘Night.” The call ended with a click in his hand. It was strange that his Nana did not have a smart phone. She had an old land line, and it clicked so loudly when she hung up. It always sounded so final.
He tried to not think about Grandpa. The final click had happened two weeks ago and Rory hadn’t known it at the time. He fixed his sheets and his blankets, tucking them at the corners like his Grandpa had shown him when he helped with chores all those years ago. He folded them tight, making sure the crease followed the angle it should. He could almost see Grandpa smiling in the dark.
Rory laid down, breathed in slowly, imagined what he was told to imagine, paused and exhaled slowly. He did this a few times and awoke suddenly to his alarm going off, its cascading volume getting louder with each pulsing tone.
He got up, got dressed, skipped his customary breakfast, instead grabbing some bars from the pantry, and immediately headed to school before his mom got the phone call that he knew was coming. He did not want to be in the house when that phone call came. His mom was an ugly crier. It was uncomfortable. His dad made it worse. He just hovered around mom like an uncertain pet, not knowing whether to run in for comfort or flee in terror.
As instructed, Rory left his phone in his locker with the ringer off and tried his hardest to focus on the last few official steps of high school. He went through it in a daze, as if he was on autopilot. He did what he was supposed to, took his final, then sat down with his counselor, signed off his paperwork, was made promises about transcripts and the graduation ceremony… and he knew he didn’t care. He knew that he wasn’t going to graduation, but he signed all the forms anyway.
Mr. Nunez shook his hand and made a comment. Rory smiled and replied, knowing that the real trial was about to start and not entirely sure his response matched what Mr. Nunez had said. It didn’t matter. His phone was sitting in his locker, waiting for him. The future was sitting in his locker, resting calmly on a shelf of bent metal, painted gray, with the small carved figures of someone’s initials nearby. Walking down the hallway towards his locker happened in slow motion, even his on-again, off-again ex-girlfriend Casey, in her short cheerleader shorts and her tight ribbed tank top, did not distract him. She probably didn’t even notice his lack of usual attention… hence the reason they weren’t together anymore. She was a bit of a bitch. Unintentionally, it was just who she was. Rory thought there was a chance she would grow out of it.
Rory’s fingers alighted on the dial to his locker. He turned it once, twice, then reversed it, and reversed that until the combo was in. He lifted the latch and paused.
This was the end of his high school life. This moment. It wasn’t walking out the doors. It wasn’t saying goodbye to friends or making empty promises to meet up at some point over the summer. It wasn’t getting in his car and driving off the senior lot for the last time. It was right here. When he pulled this door open, and picked up his phone, the next step would arrive like a specter on the wind. Blown in furiously into his life, ready to pick him up and carry him back to Branson Gulch. Back to the Blue’s house at the end of Fairview Lane, where Mr. Robert Ryanson Blue had lived, slept, had a happy marriage, raised a daughter together, and had passed away last night.
Rory knew him as just Grandpa. He felt the heat on his cheeks, the flush, the brimming of unbidden tears at the edges of his eyelids. He tilted his head down and let the silent drips fall. He pulled the latch, swung the door open, and grabbed his things for the last time.
He flipped his phone over and the screen had a myriad of notifications, but only one mattered.
It was from his mom. ‘Nana told me you know. Hope your test went well. Packing now. Love you.’
He typed a response, ‘omw home.’ Hit send, and the little icon for being unread stayed there, forlorn. She was busy as usual.
Rory turned on his heel, dumped the last of his papers in the trashcan and headed to his car.
High school was over.