"She's ready for you now."
Chase looked over to where his mother-in-law had entered the living room, turning slightly on the couch to watch her. Isabella looked like she had just gotten back from the heart of a blizzard; the red eyes, runny nose, ratty hair, and a haunted stare suggested that she'd barely survived what she'd just been through. Pretty much just how it'd been with the little girl who was, right that moment, cleaved to him with her face pressed into his leg so hard that he could feel sweat on his skin under his pants. Chavelle had stopped crying, mostly, but she was not ready to be left alone, and was gripping a mended length of sleeve tight with both little hands; a last gift. Chase though... he had to go. It was now or never.
Isabella went straight to the couch and scooped up the five-year-old, making
shushing
sounds when she protested, but the grandma skills she'd picked up in the last couple of months were more than up to the task, and Chavelle let herself be transferred to the next most important person in her life quickly enough. Through a new bout of tears, Isabella gave Chase a pleading look that he had no problem translating.
You have to go right now.
Trying to express all the gratitude he could without using a voice he knew would fail him, Chase made his way into the master bedroom. To the last place he would see the love of his life still alive.
He knew what awaited him. It was exactly what had been there for weeks; machines to ease a dying woman's pain, and the shriveled shell of his wife alone in the bed, though only alone recently. He had shared that space with her, giving whatever intimacy his presence by itself could provide, until it finally became too much for her and he'd retreated to a cot next to it. That was hard, but it had only been three nights before, and he still made sure he held her hand every time she drifted off, since neither of them knew if she'd be coming back.
Now, it was certain. The curtains were drawing, and Elizabeth Ventris was taking her final bows.
She'd seen her daughter first, knowing it would be hard for the child to understand her when her strength started flagging. Then her mother, to squeeze a few more minutes into a reunion that had been all too brief. Finally, it was his turn, and he knew why he was going last.
"Cheese." The name rasped from her throat when she put her hand in his and forced her eyes open. "Thank..." She swallowed. "Seeing your face... how I want to go... love..."
"I know." He was watching her from underwater, and he could barely get the words out himself.
"You... every second... a gift." Her fingers trembled in his. "So... thankful." Her eyes drooped. Lower. Lower. "Find... someone. Someone..." Her last breath began its journey. "...needs you."
"Bizzy." Chase patted her hand. Her cooling, paper skin. "Bizzy. Bizzy." It couldn't be real. He thought he'd had time to ready himself, but he was wrong. He'd never be ready. He'd never be able to let her go. "Bizzy... Bizzzzyyyy..."
The other women in his life let him sob and wail for as long as they could before they had to come to him and shared his anguish. None were sure who had to be strong for whom then, but, in the face of the new black hole that had formed in their home, all three had to be there for something. Anything. They'd figure it out later; at that moment, what mattered was that they were together as they lost a portion of their souls.
__________
The funeral was packed. Every employee of Chase and Bizzy's came, and their significant others, and all the friends who had come back into their lives with her reappearance less than a year before. Maggie ran everything, made all arrangements, and coordinated every minute of the whole ordeal like the goddamn superhero that she was. Chase, Chavelle, and Isabella concentrated on each other because there was nothing else they were capable of then.
At the gravesite, when the last mound of dirt had been replaced, the three of them lingered; afraid to go to a home that they knew would feel so, so empty. Inevitably, though, they had to return, if only because they knew that the woman they were agonizing over would hate more than anything to see them in that state.
At home, Chase and Isabella put Chavelle right to bed, and he figured that the woman would head for her own room, his old office that they converted back to a bedroom for her when it was decided that she would live there in her daughter's final days. Instead, though, Isabella stood outside her granddaughter's door and stared at Chase inscrutably.
"I need a drink."
She didn't hesitate even a second before she made her way to Chase's little bar, and he just shrugged and followed.
I've heard worse ideas.
The pair poured in silence, sipped in silence, and wished with everything in them that the other would speak first... in silence. Eventually, Chase broke. "Isabella... I don't know..." He glanced over to the closed bedroom and what slept beyond the door, and sighed. "Since you've been back, I know we've barely spoken, and that's my fault." At seeing her open her mouth he held up hand to forestall her. "It is. We both know it is. I wasn't up to it, I can admit that. I wasn't strong enough to be what Bizzy needed me to be, and to work out what there was... what there is between..." He faltered then.
"Chase." Isabella raised a hand like she wanted to... touch him. Hold him. Something more than what she was doing, but her nerve failed and she let it drop back to her lap.
He chose to ignore the pain in her eyes right then. He had to get out what he had to get out, while he could. "The fact is, I don't think I'm capable of being what Chavelle needs. Not yet. I don't know what you've been doing in these last three years we've been apart, because, frankly, I've been afraid to ask... and I'm not asking now. Not about that. What I am asking is if you'd be willing to stay for a while. Just until we... heal some. I don't want to intrude on your life, but--"
"Chase Ventris, I will be whatever you need me to be, for however long you need it." She smiled at him with an open warmth. "Being able to spend extra time with my extra amazing granddaughter is a whole lot of unnecessary-but-appreciated cherries on top."
Her grin slipped then, and she cast her eyes to the side, unable to look at him. "I've told you this before, but you keep making me say it again and again... I can never thank you enough." She swiped a hand across her nose. "When Elizabeth called me and asked me to come to her, I was sure that I would have about an hour's worth of joy, if I was lucky, before it was rightfully taken from me by the truth of what I am. Of what I did to her." Her voice dropped. "To you."
She cleared her throat and continued. "But you didn't say a word. You had every right, every
obligation
to tell your wife what actually happened to rob her of all that time she could have had with you, but you kept it to yourself, because you knew it would kill me."
Isabella gathered her bravery enough to take his hand then, and he didn't have it in him to pull it away. "You gave me a gift I can never repay, but I will keep trying as long as you'll let me. I know you can't love me anymore..." She didn't seem to notice when he turned his head away for a second. "...but what I promised before still holds true; I will always love
you
for giving me something I had no right to."
Chase squeezed her fingers. "Isabella... I don't know..." He shook his head. "I'm not sure what's left in me for anyone, and that's the honest truth. I've been... hollowed out. So I can't promise you anything... if you're even expecting something from me... if you even want me to..."
Isabella leaned over and brushed his lips lightly with hers, then leaned back. "When I say
love
, I mean
