Take Care, Sara

swallowed. “Maybe he’ll be okay.” Lincoln’s voice was rough, his eyes downcast.
    “Maybe,” she agreed, nodding her head as she reached for him. It felt like a lie and that caused an ache in her chest. Sara cupped Lincoln’s face with her hands. He looked at her, his brows lowered, his jaw tight. His unshaven jaw shifted against her palms, gently abrading the sensitive flesh.
    Sara smiled. She smiled for Lincoln and she hugged him, knowing in that place inside a person where the truth was always heard, no matter how hard it didn’t want to be, that she was lying to Lincoln; they were lying to each other, but a lie was all she could handle at the moment. Lincoln too.
    Lincoln’s arms slowly enclosed her, stiff and loose at first, but eventually squeezing her so close and hard it was an effort for Sara to suck air through her lungs, but she didn’t mind. At least she was breathing, for a little while. Lincoln’s warmth cocooned her along with his arms, his scent of mint and lemon filling her with peace, the sound of his stable, strong heartbeat soothing. Sara let her eyes close, and though her heart was torn and possibly irreparable, like Lincoln’s, with the two ruined pieces there was one whole heart.
     
     
     

9
     
     
     
    “He taught me how to ride a bike. How to tie my shoes. How to bait a hook.” Lincoln laughed gruffly. “He taught me a lot of things.”
    Sara sipped from the red and blue striped coffee mug, the mint and chocolate mix coating her tongue with pleasure. The mug heated her cold fingers. They sat on opposite sides of the couch, though their bodies were turned toward one another. The room was dim with only one lamp on to offer light. A fire crackled in the fireplace across the room, the yellows and oranges hypnotic as they flickered and danced.
    “Like what?”
    “I’m sure you’ve heard this all before.” Lincoln set his mug down on an end table and rubbed his face. He looked tired and worn down, his features tight with repressed pain. Lincoln’s shoulders were slouched with the grief he tried to keep inside. It would crack one day; that barrier he kept up, and Sara wanted to be there for him when it did, like he’d been there for her countless times. If he’d let her.
    “Tell me again,” she offered softly, knowing Lincoln needed to talk about his brother. He needed to relive their shared history, make him real again so he didn’t completely fade. Seeing him in that bed, it was a punch to the senses. That wasn’t him. It shouldn’t be him. Yet it was.
    He glanced at her, sighing loudly. “Cole was quiet growing up. He didn’t have to say a lot to get his point across. Me, I was always the more belligerent, loud-mouthed one. It wasn’t that Cole was shy; he just said what he had to say and then shut up. He didn’t have the time to waste on words. He said so himself.” Lincoln grinned, sadness tingeing it.
    “He had better things to do than talk,” Sara agreed.
    “Yeah.” He stared at the fire, showing her his profile. “I got in a fight with a kid at school. I was, oh, maybe fifteen. He was making fun of another kid and I intervened. Then he started making fun of me. Of course I got pissed and gave it back to him, even punching him when he wouldn’t back down. I got three days out of school for that.
    “Cole reamed me for it. Told me only a dumbass lets another dumbass get to him like that. Only it hadn’t seemed right not to stick up for the kid. When I told him that, he said that wasn’t what he’d meant. I asked him what he had meant then and he told me to figure it out for myself.” Lincoln shook his head and offered her a quick, sad smile.
    That was her husband; honorable, gruff, and to the point. It was unbearable how much she missed him. Sara set the mug down on the coffee table, the taste in her mouth going from good to bad.
    “This doesn’t seem real.”
    Sara stiffened at the quietly spoken words. She looked up and saw Lincoln gazing into the crackling fire, his mind somewhere else.
    “None of it. This past year or so, it all seems like a bad dream. Some days I wake up and forget, but then reality always slams me over the head and tells me what a fool I am to try to pretend, even for a second, that my brother is going to show up at the work site and hand me a gas station coffee.”
    “I know. I keep thinking he’s going to come home from work or from a fishing trip. I know he’s not, but…” She took a shuddering breath, clasping