The Last Breath (29 page)

40

I LEAN BACK
on the bench, and late-afternoon sunlight filters through the pink clouds of cherry tree blossoms above my head. It’s May, a full three months after I was called home to take care of Dad, and I’m still here, in Rogersville.

And surprisingly, not all of my time here has been bad. Lexi was right. My blood, like hers and Bo’s,
is
mixed with mountain water, and this place—this town and the mountains and rivers and valleys that surround it—is as much a part of me as my skin and bones. It whispers for me to stay, even while another part, a larger part, tells me it’s time to go.

Beyond my outstretched feet, Ella Mae’s Memorial Garden blooms like a springtime carpet, a riot of hydrangeas and peonies and lilacs and even a few straggler tulips, swaying above fledgling grass shoots. Lexi was right about that, too. This is the perfect spot.

The wind kicks up, and the shirt I pilfered from Jake’s drawer dances and bucks around me like a tethered kite. When I stand, it flaps around my shoulders, straining for the sky and beyond, and my gypsy soul stirs. Where will the kite take me this time? To Africa? Asia? The Arby’s down the road? Wherever disaster strikes next, I suppose.

My name, called out by a familiar throaty voice, floats up the hill on a fresh breeze. I turn and there she is, Sexy Lexi Andrews, sashaying up the pea gravel walkway like it’s a catwalk. “How did I know I’d find you up here?”

I grin. Lexi knows the thinking bench is where I’ve spent the better part of the past three months, watching plants nudge their ways through the soil and, well,
thinking.
About Dad and Ella Mae. About Lexi and Bo and Cal and Dean. About Jake. Most of all, I think about Jake and how he was right, too. What happened here all those years ago has nothing to do with him and me, but wisdom like his is easy to miss when you’re in the eye of the storm.

“Everybody’s down at the truck, waiting.” She jerks a manicured thumb down the path she came in on. “You coming?”

“Yeah, I was just...” I spread my arms wide and look around, like the answer is tucked behind the fronds and flowers. “I don’t know. Letting go, I guess.”

She gives me a dubious look. Letting go is a concept Lexi has never considered. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Other than to purse her pretty lips, Lexi doesn’t respond, and I don’t push it. I know she’s not ready, may never be ready. She’s already told me she was relieved to learn the truth about Dad. As much as she wanted to believe he was innocent, she said she should have known something was off when forgiveness never felt as comfortable as her blame, as if we were talking about a pair of worn-in jeans, or an old flannel shirt.

But she’s finally managed to let go of some of her hatred, at least toward Dad. All that anger had to go somewhere, though, so she picked it up and transferred it over to Cal. When I remind her he spent the entire thirteen and a half minutes we were at gunpoint using his lawyer voice on the 9-1-1 operator, ordering the police to hurry the hell up before he sued the entire state of Tennessee for negligence, she tells me it doesn’t matter. She says she will never forgive him for lying for Dad, and I have no reason not to believe her.

“It’s not too late to change your mind, you know,” she says softly, her voice pulsing with hope. “One of my clients runs the YMCA in Kingsport. He’ll know where to start, who to talk to...” She pauses to take in my expression, and hers falls. “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”

I don’t shake my head, but I don’t nod, either. I just head down the hill, not stopping until I’m right in front of her.

“It’s not for forever,” I say as much to Lexi as to myself. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

“That’s what you said last time.” When I don’t respond, she snorts. “Okay, fine. You
might
have said something like that last time, but it was hard to hear over your gunning engine and squealing tires. Those old track marks are still on the driveway, you know. They smoked for days.”

I laugh at the same time a sob pushes up my throat. I’m ready to leave, but at the same time, it shatters my heart to go.

I don’t have to tell any of this to Lexi. She always could read my mind. “Me, too,” she whispers, and the fresh tears in her eyes mirror mine. She links her arm through mine, tugging me down the path. “But it’s time.”

We walk in silence for a bit, our shoes crunching in the gravel.

Jake said we can’t change our pasts, and he was right about that, too. Trying to change what happened with my father and Ella Mae, with Dean and Cal, with me and Jake, would be like trying to stuff the flowers back down into the soil...impossible.

What’s important is what comes next. Do we spend the rest of our days chasing someone else’s disasters, filled with hate and resentment? Do we put what happened in a box and shove it to the back of our closets, refusing to forgive or at the very least, pretending to forget? Or do we somehow learn to adjust and make peace?

As for me, I choose the last. I plan to take Jake’s advice and figure out how to not let my past influence my future. I plan to write my own happy ending.

Lexi and I emerge onto Main Street’s empty sidewalk, a few blocks down from Roadkill, now owned by a nice couple from Mount Carmel. Jake’s truck idles, packed and fueled at the curb. Bo and Amy push off the bumper when they see us coming.

“Make sure to check the tires and top off the oil on your way out,” Bo says, gesturing to the truck. “Washer fluid might be a little low, too.”

I could tell him I had the truck checked out, bumper to bumper, just yesterday, but I don’t. If measuring sticks and air pumps are how Bo wants to express his love, who am I to complain? Instead, I pull him into a fierce hug and kiss him on the cheek.

“Thanks, bro. I’ll see you soon.”

He nods brusquely and hands me off to Amy, then blinks at the concrete while Lexi and I share our final, tearful goodbye.

“Call me when you get to wherever you’re going, okay?” Lexi thinks better of it, shakes her head. “Or actually, no. Scratch that. Call me anytime, I don’t care when. Just call me. Often.”

“Every single day.”

“Okay, well, not
that
often. I have a life, you know.”

Sharp footfalls sound behind me, heavy boots on concrete. I turn, and my heart gives a happy flip at the sight of Jake. Hair a little longer, frame a little thinner, but my point is, he’s still here.

I gesture to the battered duffel in his fist. “Do you have everything?”

He tosses the bag in the bed of his truck then steps close, as close as you can get without touching, and tucks a curl behind my ear. “Everything I need.”

“God, y’all are disgusting,” Lexi says, but there’s a smile in her voice. She shoos us into the truck. “Leave already.”

Once we’re settled, Jake behind the wheel and me pushed up against him until there is not a sliver of space between us, Lexi leans her arms over the open passenger window. “You take care of my baby sister, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Jake says. “I’ll bring her back, too.”

Lexi slaps the side of the truck and steps back, taking up next to Bo and Amy on the sidewalk, while Jake works the gear shift into Drive.

“Ready?”

I deposit a kiss on his pec, an inch or two to the right of his scar, and nod.

He reaches for the wheel, then pauses. “Uh, where are we going, exactly?”

Somewhere on this planet, seas are churning, locusts are swarming, plates are shifting under the earth’s crust. Who knows where the next disaster will strike, or how long we have until it does. I want to make every second until then count.

I swing my feet up onto the dash, blow a kiss to my family and point straight down Main. “Just drive.”

* * * * *

Acknowledgments

WRITING A BOOK
is a lonely venture, and I am blessed to be surrounded by people who don’t put up with my attempts at seclusion for very long.

To my agent, Nikki Terpilowski, and my editor, Rachel Burkot. Thank you for loving this story as much as I do, for all the ways you helped me shape it into a book, for your enthusiasm in sending it out into the world. I feel as though I won the literary jackpot with you both.

To the sweetest sistahs a girl could ask for: Lara Chapman, Koreen Myers, Alex Ratcliff. Your support, critiques, shoulders, advice, cheerleading, laughs and friendship make my world a much brighter place. And to Margie Lawson, who gave me my sistahs and taught me more about the craft than I thought was possible. I’m not exaggerating when I say this book would not exist without you and your brilliant coaching. Thanks for sitting on my shoulder while I write.

To the lovely ladies of Altitude—Nancy Davis, Marquette Dreesch, Sima Lal Gupta, Angelique Kilkelly, Jen Robinson, Amanda Sapra and Tracy Willoughby. You gals have been there every step of the way, and you’ve made the long road bearable. Thanks for always having my back and cheering me on.

To Genevieve Bos, for your generosity, business sense and all-around fabulousness, and to my early readers and cheerleaders—Kimberly Barnett, Mellissa Steadman Barney, Elizabeth and Greg Baxendale, Christy Brown, Lisa Campagna, Jamie Gallo, Kathy Kay, Dorothy Peterson, Jennifer Richardson, Tanya Sam, Alan and Teresa Schaefer, and K. C. Young. Katennia Dula, I’m so glad we’re on each other’s team.

To my
literatuurgroep
—Jiska van Ede, Kiki Edelman, Carolien van der Lande, Alette Stache, Petra Strickland, Irene Tyler, Jacqueline Waning and Riëtte van Winden—for agreeing to read an English-language book at a Dutch book club, and for letting it be this one.

To my parents. Thanks for being proud of my writing before you read the very first word.

To Ewoud—my best friend, my biggest fan, my traveling partner and partner in crime. Life with you is an adventure.

And finally, to Evan and Isabella. No matter where in this world I end up, my favorite place will always be wherever you are.

THE LAST
BREATH

KIMBERLY BELLE

Reader’s Guide

Questions for Discussion

1. In
   The Last Breath,
   the story begins with Gia returning home to care for her dying father, a man she hasn’t seen or spoken to in sixteen years. She’s not convinced he’s guilty of murdering her stepmother, but she’s not certain he’s innocent, either. Would you have returned home in this case?
   
2. Why do you think Gia chose a career chasing disasters around the planet? Was it to feed her wanderlust, to get away from her past in Rogersville or something else entirely? Does it matter if her reasons were not purely altruistic, as long as she’s helping others?
   
3. Alternatively, do you understand Lexi’s reasons for remaining in Rogersville, and Jake’s for settling there? Are their methods of coping with their traumas better or worse than Gia’s?
   
4. Think about the bonds of family—the obligations that hold them together and the secrets that can tear them apart. What do you think the author was trying to say with Gia’s story?
   
5. Have you or someone you know ever been caught up in a destructive and abusive relationship? How did reading about Ella Mae and Dean make you feel about that relationship? Did it change any of your thoughts or beliefs about how that relationship played out?
   
6. Gia keeps finding herself in situations where she’s either disappointed by her family members, or she feels she’s disappointing them. Is there anything she should have handled differently?
   
7. At one point, Gia realizes that Cal’s defense wasn’t accidentally shoddy, that he threw the most prominent and important case of his life on purpose. Do you understand Cal’s choice to defend his brother, while also ensuring Ray paid for what he did? What about Cal’s promise to keep Ray’s secret from his children?
   
8. Do you understand Jake’s reasons for keeping his true identity secret from the people in Rogersville? What about from Gia? Was he right or wrong in not telling?
   
9. After her father’s deathbed confession, Gia forgives her father, even if she will never be able to forgive his action. Further, according to Gia, “And if I can’t do either of those things just yet, the least I can do is give him peace.” Could you do the same in her position?
   
10. Where do you think Gia and Jake end up? What do their lives look like a year or two or ten down the line?
    

A Conversation with Kimberly Belle

What was your inspiration for this story? Where did the plot and characters come from, and what helped them to take shape in your mind and then come to life on paper?

Unfortunately, tragedies like Ella Mae’s happen every day, so finding a story spark can sometimes be as easy as turning on the news. For me, though, what makes a story compelling is not the tragedy, but how it affects the people left in its aftermath. How do they cope; how do their relationships change? In the case of Gia, when her father swears he didn’t do this awful thing everyone says he did, how does she decide who and what to believe? These are some of the questions I loved exploring in this story.

As for where I find my characters, Gia was a gift from the writing gods. She came to me almost fully formed, her name and physical attributes, her strengths and weaknesses already in place. Lexi and Jake, too, to a large extent. I had to work a little harder for the others, mining my memories for some of the more colorful folks, embellishing them to really make them pop. Folks like Fannie, for example. I’m not exaggerating, not even a little bit, when I say there are a million Fannies puttering up and down the hills of Appalachia.

What about the setting? Why Tennessee? What did you want to convey by giving the book a small-town feel, and with the homecoming element for Gia?

The easy answer is that I grew up in eastern Tennessee and wanted to showcase the natural beauty of the Appalachians, but there was more to my reasoning than that. I wanted a place that for Gia would look and sound and smell like home, one that would slam her with a strong sense of belonging while at the same time stifling her with its small-town, small-minded feel. A place where the mountains are big and wide, but the towns are tiny and insular. Where everybody knows your business, and they won’t hesitate to act as if it’s theirs. Eastern Tennessee’s dichotomy served Gia’s story perfectly.

How, if at all, do you relate to Gia? How are you different? Is there anything she does that you would never do yourself?

I imagine every writer puts at least a little bit of herself in her characters, and I’m no exception. Like Gia, I grew up in eastern Tennessee, in a small town about a half hour from Rogersville, and have more than a little gypsy in my soul. I worked in nonprofits for years (albeit a desk job), and many of Gia’s frustrations about what organizations are and are not capable of accomplishing were mine, as well.

But that’s kind of where our similarities end. Gia had this horrible, awful thing happen in her family when she was eighteen, something I can only imagine in fiction, but instead of succumbing to her tragedy, she channeled it into a career helping others. She’s so broken, yet so brave and strong. Returning home was the hardest thing ever, yet she not only did it, she rediscovered her roots, reconnected with her siblings and fell in love. I would have been a puddle on the floor.

What proved most challenging in writing this story? What was the greatest pleasure that you took from it?

Writing Dean and Ella Mae’s story was extremely difficult and took me to dark and scary places. I think a lot of people can relate to losing yourself in a relationship. To getting so caught up in another person that you push aside all the voices that say he’s bad, he’s wrong, he’s going to hurt you in ways you never dreamed you could be hurt. Maybe not to the extent that Dean hurt Ella Mae, but still. I have a daughter, and all I could think about while writing their story was, how do I prevent my daughter from becoming an Ella Mae?

At the same time, I’m a romantic at heart, so the best part of writing this story was easily Gia and Jake. They had everything going against them, yet their love was so strong, so genuine and sweet. They had to work really hard for it, but they deserved their happy ending, and I was glad to give it to them.

Did you know every plot twist and decision your characters would make—and furthermore, the book’s outcome—before you started writing? Or did the characters surprise you and lead you to stray from original plotting at all?

By the time I sit down to write, I always have the basics of the story in my head. I know where it begins, who the major players are, the themes and big-picture messages, and the plot points, including a general sense of the ending. But characters always surprise me. I had no idea, for example, that Gia would pretend to be Ella Mae when she went downstairs to coax a deathbed confession from her father. She did that all by herself. And I didn’t decide on the true identity of Ella Mae’s killer—Ray or Dean or someone else entirely—until about the halfway point. Writers talk a lot about writing the story that wants to be told. I try to do just that, to point my plot and characters in a general direction while also giving them room to take an unexpected turn.

Can you describe your writing process? Are you an outliner? Do you write scenes consecutively, or jump around? Do you keep a daily schedule?

I’m a planner, but I don’t outline, and with the exception of one or two candy-bar scenes (Jake painting Gia’s house was one of them, and my favorite scene in the book), I write the story in order. I do a lot of polishing as I go, as I find I can’t move forward until the characters feel authentic and the plot points ring true. It takes me longer to get to the end, but it’s typically a pretty clean first draft.

And yes, when I’m working on a story, I sit my butt in a chair for a big chunk of every day, slogging toward a daily word-count goal. Sometimes those words suck, sometimes they don’t. But words make sentences, and sentences make paragraphs and chapters and eventually an entire story.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re working on now?

Gladly! I have two stories in the works.

The first one is about Abigail Wolff, a former journalist hoping to resurrect her stalled career with the story of a fallen soldier and a sweeping army cover-up. She enlists the help of the soldier’s youngest brother, Gabe, but what they uncover points them back to her father, a retired army general whose fingerprints are all over the cover-up. Her father’s increasingly insistent pleas to let the story die only leave Abigail with more questions, while her shattered trust in him drives her straight into Gabe’s arms. But the truth leaves her with an impossible choice—write the piece that will redeem her father, or bury it to protect the man she loves.

In the second one, Carly Rose Wilson chases down new rumors about her mother, a country music legend who died at the height of her career. Two people stand between Carly Rose and the truth—her father, a man who stands to lose everything if the press discovers his secret, and her Alzheimer’s-ridden grandmother. An encounter with her first love, Rex, introduces her to his young son, the one person who can still coax lucid moments from her grandmother. With their help, Carly Rose discovers unsettling truths not just about her mother, but about the people she has always trusted most—while Rex’s nearness resurrects memories and feelings she thought were long buried.