#Jacksonville Airport Car Rental

[aoccarrentals]

The Complete Guide to Stress-Free Travel with Jacksonville Airport Car Rentals

Briefly introduce the importance of stress-free travel. To get the most out of your trip, you must travel stress-free. It releases you from contemplating the specifics or unanticipated challenges, allowing you to focus on the moments and experiences. Traveling will be more enjoyable if it's easy and well-planned, like when you rent a car from Jacksonville Airport. This will reduce needless stress and free up more time for travel, social interaction, and enduring experiences. Promoting Relaxation: Traveling may be a naturally stressful experience due to several unknowns, such as delayed flights, strange destinations, and language obstacles. By reducing these stressors, visitors can stay calm and collected throughout their trip. Enhancing Enjoyment: When you're not bogged down by logistical issues or unexpected challenges, you can fully enjoy the sights, sounds, and experiences of your destination. It lets you embrace spontaneity and make the most of every moment. Saving Time and Energy: Managing stress associated with travel can be a time-consuming and tiring task. Travelers may save important time and energy for more significant activities by organizing and selecting stress-free solutions like quick and simple car rentals or smooth airport transfers. Improving Health and Well-being: Traveling can be detrimental to one's physical and emotional health, particularly during times of high stress. Stress-free travel lowers anxiety and enables travelers to keep an optimistic attitude, which improves health results. Boosting Productivity: Reducing stress associated with travel is crucial for business travelers to sustain concentration and efficiency. Professionals who travel without worry arrive at their destination rested and prepared to take on significant duties.

[wegolimo]

St. Augustine Limo Service

St, Augustine is known for its beautiful places like museums, parks, beaches, etc. Traveling to this city by public transport can be cumbersome for anyone. That's why hiring a good St. Augustine limo service is essential. It is available for private as well as corporate tours. During this service, you will get a well-maintained limousine and a licensed chauffeur.

Visit Here:- St. Augustine limo service

[limo-service-jacksonville]

Ponte Vedra Beach Airport Car Services - Which One Tops the List?

In the luxurious ambiance of Ponte Vedra Beach, the need for timely and top-notch airport car service is palpable. From business professionals to vacationers, everyone requires a seamless journey to and from the airport. Amidst numerous contenders, one name that consistently shines through in terms of exemplary services is Unique Corporate Limos. So, why does this particular service top our list?

A Testament to Excellence: The Unique Corporate Limos, LLC Legacy

Established years ago, Unique Corporate Limos has redefined the paradigm of luxury airport car service in Ponte Vedra Beach. With a fleet of modern vehicles and a cadre of professionally trained drivers, this service guarantees a ride worth every penny.

For Free Quote Call (904)800-5657

Safety First: Their Non-Negotiable Commitment

When it comes to airport travel, safety cannot be compromised. Unique Corporate Limos, LLC prioritizes passenger safety above all. The meticulous maintenance schedule, combined with regular vehicle inspections, ensures that passengers reach their destinations safely and without any hiccups.

Timeliness: Always a Tick Ahead of Time

In the business of airport car service, punctuality is paramount. Recognizing this, Unique Corporate Limos, LLC ingrains punctuality into its ethos. No matter the hour or circumstance, they're always there, ensuring that you're never late for that crucial flight or essential meeting.

Affordability Coupled with Luxury

It's a common misconception that luxury comes at an exorbitant price. Unique Corporate Limos, breaks this mold by offering premium services without the premium price tag. The tailored packages, coupled with seasonal discounts, make luxury travel accessible to all.

Customization: Because Every Passenger is Unique

Every individual has unique needs. Recognizing this, Unique Corporate Limos, offers bespoke services, catering to every nuance of their passenger's requirements. Whether it's a last-minute route change or a specific beverage preference, they ensure it's all taken care of.

Feedback-Driven: Continually Evolving for Better

Customer feedback is the cornerstone of Unique Corporate Limos. Every critique is an opportunity for them to enhance their services. This proactive approach to feedback ensures that the service continually evolves, setting new benchmarks in the industry.

For Free Quote Call (904)800-5657

A User-Friendly Experience from Start to Finish

From booking the ride to arriving at the destination, the user experience is seamless with Unique Corporate Limos. The intuitive booking system, coupled with round-the-clock customer support, makes the entire journey hassle-free and enjoyable.

Training and Professionalism: The Pillars of Their Service

Behind every successful ride is a team of dedicated professionals. Unique Corporate Limos, LLC invests significantly in regular training sessions for its staff, ensuring that every passenger experiences unparalleled professionalism and courtesy.

In Conclusion: The Undisputed Leaders of Airport Car Services

Navigating through Ponte Vedra Beach's array of airport car services can be daunting. But when you're looking for a blend of luxury, timeliness, and affordability, Unique Corporate Limos, stands unmatched. Over the years, they've consistently proven why they're the gold standard in the industry, making them the top choice for discerning travelers.

[sigynpenniman]

AIRPORT TIERLIST OF AIRPORTS I’VE BEEN THROUGH FROM SOMEONE WHO FUCKING LOVES AIRPORTS

S TIER:

- MCO Orlando. My love my queen. Platonic ideal of airports. All the other airports wanna be her.

- MSY New Orleans - I have only seen your beautiful face once but your vibes were just impeccable. I miss you beautiful

A TIER:

- LHR London Heathrow - you’re so chill and sweet to be such a major airport. Weirdly calming somehow. Sterile, but the big boy of London airports. When you’re here you’re in London. Smells like joy.

- CDG Charles DeGaulle Paris. Dripping in stunning retro futurism and has a Concorde on stands by the runway. We love her

- DCA Ronald Reagan Washington DC. So pretty. So clean. So easy to navigate. Prevented from S tier status by being one long skinny thing with no way to get quickly across it.

B TIER:

- DEN Denver Colorado. Architecture for the gods but somehow the vibes are off. I’d fly through you again happily but I don’t feel especially warm when I think of you.

- FLL Fort Lauderdale - Hollywood. You’re permanently attached to very warm memories for me because of the trip I took from you but you’re just kind of there. Vibes are off. Meh.

- ORD Chicago O’hare. Aesthetic perfection but weirdly stressful. While I had a great time on this trip I do not think warmly of the airport other than the rainbow lighting. Jules got yelled at here. -10 points.

- CLE Cleveland Ohio. Another airport that is home of warm memories due to loved ones but just really not the vibe as an airport.

C TIER:

- LGW London Gatwick. I don’t like you for no reason. Like a disappointment, you’re in London but not at Heathrow for some reason.

- PHL Philadelphia. Again, weird aimless dislike. I cannot justify.

- BNA Nashville. Meh. Fine, which may be the worst insult I can lob at an airport.

D TIER:

- LGA New York LaGaurdia. Fuck you and your tiny spirit terminal in the middle of nowhere and your hard to access rental cars and your poor road signage that sent me round and round on the New York interstate in my rented Corolla. The bigger terminals are pretty though, and anyway. New York City!

E TIER:

JAX Jacksonville. Ew.

F TIER:

BOS Boston Logan International Airport. I loathe you. Less busy numerically than ATL and yet somehow even more spread out. Signage is bad. Directions unclear. Nothing makes sense in this alternate reality. Labyrinthine building designed by the god Hades. Never again would be too soon.

UNTIERABLE:

ATL - Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta. The biggest and busiest airport in the world. When you buy a ticket on Delta a box pops up that says “by buying this ticket you agree to see the inside of Hartsfield Jackson Airport.” Not actually a real place, but a floating parallel dimensional space you enter when you walk through the doors. When you get off the Plane Train at terminal D a sign to the left points down a hallway and says “Walk to Terminal E. Time: 45 minutes.” Bigger than many cities and some European principalities. And sometimes you’ll be forced to run clear across it when your gate gets changed. Send every domestic flight that goes near it and many that don’t through it for a completely unnecessary 45 minute layover and sautée until golden brown to birth this unholy god of a space outside all time. They have CPR training machines. They have bathrooms too rarely. They have a whole other airport underneath for international transfers. Don’t die before you see it. Everyone should, at least once. 🎶Welcome Aboard the Plane Train!🎶 next stop: the 4th circle of hell. Walk to purgatory: 45 minutes. Moving sidewalk out of order.

[briefsoulprincess-blog1]

High-Quality Limo Service in Jacksonville for Airport Transfers

Traveling can be a hectic experience, especially when it comes to navigating airport logistics. In Jacksonville, high-quality limousine services for airport transfers offer a seamless and luxurious solution. Combining elegance, reliability, and efficiency, these services ensure that your journey to and from the airport is as smooth and comfortable as possible.

Luxury and Comfort for Every Traveler

Jacksonville’s top-tier limousine services provide an unparalleled level of comfort and sophistication for airport transfers. Whether you’re traveling alone or with a group, these services offer a variety of high-end vehicles to meet your needs. From sleek sedans and spacious SUVs to elegant stretch limousines, each vehicle is meticulously maintained and equipped with premium amenities.

Passengers can enjoy features such as plush leather seating, advanced climate control, state-of-the-art entertainment systems, and ample luggage space. This level of luxury ensures a relaxing and enjoyable ride, allowing you to start or end your journey on a high note.

Professionalism and Punctuality

Time is of the essence when it comes to airport transfers, and Jacksonville’s high-quality limo services understand the importance of punctuality. Professional chauffeurs are trained to provide timely and efficient service, ensuring you arrive at the airport with plenty of time to spare or are promptly picked up upon arrival.

These chauffeurs are not only skilled drivers but also experts in customer service. They monitor flight schedules in real-time to accommodate any changes, such as delays or early arrivals, ensuring a hassle-free experience. Their commitment to professionalism means you can trust them to handle your transportation needs with care and precision.

Stress-Free Travel Experience

Navigating busy airports can be stressful, but high-quality limo services alleviate this burden by offering a seamless travel experience. From the moment you book your ride, these services handle all the logistics, allowing you to focus on your trip.

Upon arrival, your chauffeur will greet you with a sign bearing your name, assist with your luggage, and escort you to your waiting vehicle. This level of personalized service ensures a smooth transition from the airport to your destination, eliminating the need to worry about parking, rental cars, or public transportation.

Ideal for Business and Leisure Travelers

High-quality limo services in Jacksonville cater to both business and leisure travelers, offering tailored solutions to meet diverse needs.

Business Travelers: For corporate clients, time is money. Limo services provide a professional and productive environment, allowing you to catch up on work, make important phone calls, or simply relax before or after a flight. The reliability and efficiency of these services ensure you arrive at your meetings or events on time, every time.

Leisure Travelers: For those traveling for pleasure, limo services add a touch of luxury and convenience to your journey. Whether you’re starting a vacation or returning home, the comfort and elegance of a limousine make the trip more enjoyable. Families can benefit from the spacious interiors, while couples can indulge in a romantic and stress-free ride.

Safety and Reliability

Safety is a top priority for high-quality limo services in Jacksonville. Vehicles are regularly inspected and maintained to the highest standards, ensuring a safe and reliable ride. Chauffeurs undergo rigorous training and background checks, providing peace of mind that you are in capable hands.

Additionally, these services often offer 24/7 customer support, allowing you to make changes to your booking or address any concerns at any time. This commitment to reliability and customer satisfaction sets them apart from other transportation options.

For travelers seeking a luxurious, reliable, and stress-free airport transfer experience in Jacksonville, high-quality limousine services are the ideal choice. With a focus on comfort, professionalism, and safety, these services ensure that your journey to and from the airport is as seamless and enjoyable as possible. Elevate your travel experience with the elegance and convenience of a premium limo service and start or end your trip on the perfect note.

[bkcklimoservice]

Everything You Should Know About Jacksonville Airport Transportation

Travelling, whether or not for work or satisfaction, can be a profitable and exciting revel in. However, attending to and from the airport is frequently one of the most crucial components of your ride. Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) is a sizable airport serving the vibrant metropolis of Jacksonville, Florida. It may be hard to navigate this transportation hub, so let's pass over the whole lot you ought to recognise to make your ride much less traumatic and extra seamless: About shuttle service from Jacksonville airport to St. Augustine.

Overview of Jacksonville International Airport

The primary airport for flights to and from Jacksonville and the encircling regions is Jacksonville International Airport (JAX). Situated more or less thirteen miles north of Jacksonville's downtown, this airport is the busiest in Florida, managing tens of millions of human beings annually.

Knowing your alternatives for transit is crucial for smooth travel.

Options for Transportation among these choices are:

Airport Shuttle Services:

An airport shuttle service in Jacksonville that gives group transportation to and from the airport is available. These are often cheap and realistic for individuals travelling alone or with little baggage. They have set times; therefore it's imperative that you reserve your ride in advance.

Taxis:

At JAX, taxis are widely available and might be a practical means of transportation to your destination. Taxi charges are metered; the exact amount may vary based on traffic and the distance to your destination.

Ride-Sharing Services:

These services allow you to book a ride via a smartphone app whenever it's convenient for you, frequently at affordable prices. Just remember that prices can change based on demand.

Car Rentals:

If you would rather travel about Jacksonville in your automobile, JAX offers rental cars.

Public Transport:

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA), the city's public transportation system, operates bus routes that link the airport to numerous regions of the city.

To Sum Up

To accommodate the wide range of traveler needs, shuttle service from Jacksonville airport to St. Augustine provides a number of transportation choices. An easy and stress-free trip to and from Jacksonville can be guaranteed by making advance plans and taking your preferences, spending limit, and timetable into account.

[beautiful-world-travel]

St. Augustine

Travel to St. Augustine

St. Augustine, located in northeastern Florida, is one of the oldest cities in the United States, with a rich history dating back over 400 years. This beautiful city offers visitors a unique opportunity to explore the area's colonial roots and soak up its beautiful coastal scenery. Here is a guide to help you plan your next trip to St. Augustine.

Getting There:

The easiest way to get to St. Augustine is by flying into Jacksonville International Airport, which is located about 50 miles north of the city. From there, you can rent a car or take a shuttle to St. Augustine. Alternatively, you can also fly into Orlando International Airport, which is about a two-hour drive away.

Where to Stay:

There are plenty of options for accommodations in St. Augustine, including hotels, bed and breakfasts, and vacation rentals. The historic district of St. Augustine is the most popular area for visitors to stay, as it is within walking distance of many of the city's main attractions. You can find a range of hotels from budget to luxury in the historic district, as well as charming bed and breakfasts.

Things to Do:

St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum: This historic lighthouse dates back to 1874 and offers visitors stunning views of the surrounding area. You can climb the lighthouse's 219 steps to the top for an incredible panoramic view of the city and the ocean.

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument: This 17th-century fort is one of the most well-known landmarks in St. Augustine. The fort played a significant role in the area's history and was crucial to defending the city from attacks. Today, visitors can explore the fort's history and enjoy stunning views of the water from its walls.

St. George Street: This pedestrian-only street in the historic district is lined with shops, restaurants, and historic buildings. It is a great place to stroll and soak up the city's ambiance.

Flagler College: This former luxury hotel is now a beautiful college campus, and visitors can take a guided tour of the campus to learn about its history and architecture.

Beaches: St. Augustine is home to several beautiful beaches, including St. Augustine Beach, Anastasia State Park, and Vilano Beach. These beaches offer visitors a chance to relax in the sun, swim in the ocean, and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Where to Eat:

St. Augustine offers visitors a range of dining options, from casual seafood joints to upscale restaurants. Some popular options include:

The Columbia Restaurant: This family-owned restaurant has been serving up traditional Spanish cuisine since 1905 and is a St. Augustine institution.

Harry's Seafood Bar & Grille: This popular restaurant serves up fresh seafood and Cajun-style dishes in a casual atmosphere.

The Floridian: This farm-to-table restaurant features locally sourced ingredients and offers a range of dishes, including vegetarian and gluten-free options.

The Ice Plant Bar: This unique bar serves up handcrafted cocktails and small bites in a historic ice plant that dates back to 1927.

Conclusion:

St. Augustine is a charming and historic city that offers visitors a chance to explore its colonial past and enjoy its beautiful coastal scenery. With a range of attractions, dining options, and accommodations, St. Augustine is the perfect destination for a weekend getaway or a longer vacation.

[focusonthegoodnews]

Love at the Rental Car Counter

Love at the Rental Car Counter

Good News Notes: “A close friend of Nicholas Rowe’s once told him, ‘You’re going to fall in love with the girl who shuts you up.’ Chalk one up for that friend. ‘Everyone thinks I’m funny, but Jess has a lot of sass, and getting her to laugh was very much a challenge,’ Mr. Rowe said. In 2016, Mr. Rowe, 38, who goes by Nick, was Jessica Ravana’s manager at Enterprise Rent-A-Car at the airport in…

[taxiterry1-blog]

Limousine service for your best ride

Are you looking for a ride in Jacksonville, Florida? Then, limo service Jacksonville FL is here for you.

Whether you are travelling from home to office, office to home or going to the airport, limo service is the best option for you. Travelling in a limo is very comfortable and reliable nowadays. In past times, when only celebrities and rich people used limousine, limousine service was very expensive. But now there are many limousine companies providing best and affordable limo services at reliable prices in Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Gainesville.

It is not compulsory that you can use limousine service only on special occasions like weddings, prom nights and special events. You can use a limousine service at any time for your any moments and any moments. Riding in limousine is very comfortable and luxurious so it is very worthy to use limousine service. Nowadays, the limo companies not only provide limo service, but also provide shuttle service at affordable prices. If you are looking for a shuttle in Jacksonville then you can contact a reliable taxi company who provides you best shuttle service Jacksonville FL.

Always remember that you should never hire a limo from any random transportation company. Nowadays there are many limousine companies that advertise low rates and discounts just to attract customers but later charge higher. So beware of this scam and do a little bit of research of the company before hiring limo from them. While doing research of a transportation company you can check their customer reviews to assure yourself.

So, now the question is what are the other things you can check to get better, affordable and trustable transportation company and the tips to get that one best, affordable and trustable transportation company are here for you;

·       Checking their websites

You can also visit to a transportation company website to know more about them like their extra information, service types and many more. By visiting their websites you will know more about them.

·       Looking for their social media

Nowadays we can find many individuals and companies profile in social media. Social media has become our best friend and also it helps us to connect with different people. So if you are in Jacksonville and looking for a car, then you can also look for best town car service Jacksonville in Social media.

·       Customers reviews

A company customer’s reviews always help you to know about the services of the company. These reviews are very genuine and given by a company’s genuine customers so you can look and read their experience and decide whether you want to hire transportation from them or not.

·       Locations

If a company doesn’t show their exact location, then they might be a fraud company. Before hiring a limo from a transportation company you must make sure to look at their locations and find out that whether they are really in that location or not.

In future if you have any special occasions or any simple events, then you can use limousines for your comfortable ride.

[noccalula-writes]

I wrote a long-ass essay about the entire experience with my father, as it was happening, because that’s how I cope with shit. 

CW: parental death, discussions of abuse, medical situations, dying. 

(7/4/2019)

It’s Thursday. The hospice nurses don’t think he’ll die tonight and I don’t either, but his breathing pattern is beginning to change. The rattling of the gathering fluids at the back of his mouth. The way he sleeps with his mouth hanging fully open, a much further drop than the way he’d nod off in his chair or on the couch, open enough to drool and snore but not the near-scream affectation of his jaw hanging loosely that I’ve been seeing since we arrived here yesterday by ambulance.

His jaundice is returning, albeit more subtly than it was before. Sometimes he sleeps deep. Sometimes his eyebrows move, knitting and raising and fluctuating like he’s in the middle of a very important conversation with someone who just isn’t getting the message. For some reason, I keep thinking he’s talking to his own father. I hope he is. I hope it’s a good conversation.

But his breathing becomes erratic and the emaciated curve of his chest starts to heave a little or goes too still for too long and then rises harshly, and I hold my own breath while I wait to see if his is coming back.

I want to be here when he dies. I will be here when he dies.

***

I had booked a flight on Sunday for 7:45 pm. I made it out the other side of the TSA checkpoint when I got the text that American Airlines had canceled my flight.

I called and explained the direness of the situation, and the best they could offer was 7am the next morning.

Monday morning, I flew into Charlotte NC with a 36 minute layover, just enough to let me pee and refill my water bottle and make it to the gate with less than an hour’s wait til boarding.

No sooner had I sat down than American Airlines sent out yet another text. “Your flight has been cancelled.” I was five and a half hours away from Jacksonville as a straight shot. The next flight they could put me on was at 2:45 that afternoon. The nurses had been encouraging me to come down due to my father’s rapid deterioration – I spent the entire transit up until that point only mildly afraid that he would die before I would arrive.

There in North Carolina? I was terrified.

I called, talked to yet another sympathetic courtesy clerk who could do nothing for me, talked to a far less courteous clerk at the actual airport desk, tried to see if they could just get me a rental car instead. I could either sit for a six hour layover or I could get a car and make it to Jax half an hour before my flight would leave.

Nothing.

I did not have the money to fly here – a dear friend bought my ticket – and I do not have the money to fly back. I’ll work that out after. I definitely did not have the money for my own rental car.

Finally, I went back to the courtesy desk, cried to the older gentleman behind the computer, and how quickly his face changed when I said my father was dying told me he too knew what it meant to need to get home now, now, now.

He handed me a comp ticket for a 1:11 flight that no one else had even brought up with me and told me I had to run if I was going to make it across the airport in time to board.

***

Yesterday morning, he had the last period of real lucidity, unreplicated since we arrived and began comfort-care treatment.

His main doctor came into the ICU and explained to both him and me, freshly awakened by the sound of her pulling his curtain, father and daughter both bleary-eyed but alert and trying to look focused at the importance of the situation.

“There is really nothing else we can do,” she offered with empathy, looking more at me than at him. I don’t blame her for that. It must be harder to look him in the eyes and tell him he’s at the end of the road. We both nod grimly and I ask him, just to be sure, if he understands what she’s saying.

The day before, he slept through my consultations with his kidney doctor and his oncologist and through the group meeting (myself, both half sisters, their mother) with palliative care specialists but naturally was awake when hospice came. The word ‘hospice’ knocked the breath out of him, his left hand searching feebly along the side of his hospital bed, trying to hold on to the edge like he was cresting a daunting roller coaster.

I was crouching to his right, trying to stay eye-level instead of looming over him. I think he reached for my hand. Maybe I reached first. All I know is I took his hand and he squeezed mine.

He asked for a day to consider it, and when that patch of lucidity was gone in twenty minutes, so was his consideration.

That next morning, however, with his lovely doctor standing over us both while I rested my arm and chin on the bedrail beside him, like were co-conspirators instead of a distant father and daughter with a contentious relationship whose power dynamic was about to shift considerably, there was no question of the conversation we were having.

“Do you understand why we need to do this?” I asked him after explaining that we were out of other options. My Great Aunt Jane couldn’t handle home care, even with me present, and he would never get a moment’s peace with her hovering and micromanaging. The hospital was at the end of their ability to care for him, and any measures taken to sustain his life were only delaying the inevitable.

I don’t know if he fully understood that last part, but he nodded, looking away.

I waited for a moment, summoning my courage.

“You understand this is metastatic cancer, right?”

Another nod.

Another moment of gathering courage.

“Your oncologist told me you’ve known about this since last year…” I was cautious, careful not to make him feel judged though I knew it might be a moot point, “Do you remember that?”

He paused, taking assessment, his eyes moving slowly across the ceiling as he pulled through his own memory to find the answer.

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t… but I must have known.”

***

I arrived on Monday afternoon, my cousin bringing me straight from the airport to the hospital.

I slept on the small sofa in his hospital room both Monday and Tuesday nights. I only left for an hour on Tuesday to meet a close friend at a restaurant right on the other side of the business park from the hospital, a quick catch up to eat and get some take out for Tara.

When I start to worry that I’m doing this because I need to feel like The Goodest Daughter, like I’ve somehow exceeded everyone else’s efforts by miles, I remind myself that I’m still putting chapstick on him, rubbing lotion onto his feet, helping the nurses turn and hold him to change his diaper, enduring the vilest of shit (that systems-are-shutting-down feces is no joke), making sure his dentures are clean and his goatee is free of food despite the fact that he’s called me Tara more than once.

***

My father and I have barely spoken in the last several years.

Nobody seems to suspect that.

***

I’ve been trying to journal but it’s difficult to keep up with considering how tired I am – writing by hand is still a beautiful pastime but I’m at the point where my memory goes so quickly that if I’m not in front of a keyboard, I lose whatever nice prose I thought I had going.

I know from a self-care perspective that I should probably leave a little more often. Go for a walk around the property at a more leisurely pace than my panic-stricken power walk – big body, short little legs, shitty shoes means my legs have been killing me since the day I had to hoof it across the Charlotte airport all the way until I got back from my quick Target trip today, four days later. But I can’t.

The idea of him being alone and afraid makes me feel sick.

But he’s calm now. He’s been calm since we arrived at hospice yesterday afternoon, after I rode in the ambulance beside him that took us from his 8th-floor ICU suite to the Hadlow hospice center on Sunbeam Road, a road only slightly off the path that I rode with my father so many times. We’ve definitely driven down it before together, though, and I can’t stop thinking about time, about how eight years ago today he put “happy 4th, love ya” on my facebook wall and within three years of that we were so strained we barely spoke, existed somewhere not quite yet arriving at estrangement but somewhere further away from familiarity.

***

I’m working very hard to not let that anger I carried for him all the way up until the phone call came on Saturday that he was dying get transmuted into guilt. Of course, it’s happened to some degree, that much I couldn’t fight off – but I’m trying to remember that this anger isn’t the dysfunction of a spoiled kid who couldn’t quit butting heads with her father, but someone who tried very hard to build a relationship that never took, who eventually decided to take her hand off the burner because eventually she stopped accepting pain as a trade-in for affection.

One of the things that has emerged the clearest to me during this transition between ICU to hospice, between periodic lucidity and near constant sleep, is how different a relationship to him Tara has had than Alina or I had. Alina has always carried the bitterness of feeling unfavored atop the conflict that close proximity built between them – she spent the first 7 years of her life with him constantly, traded off every other week after that. She’s angry at him for things that he did or said, for how he chose to shape her life from that vantage point. I spent two months of every summer with him and every Christmas and birthday as they fall during the same winter break from school. I was a part-time visitor in the life he had with both of them; I came and lived in his life, on his terms.

Her anger comes from a sense of entitlement. Mine comes from an ever-present ache of abandonment. Alina has always resented him for what he did when he was there; I resented him for not being there to begin with. I ached for a relationship with my father. I called him sporadically – far apart enough that it wouldn’t cramp his distant style, but close enough that we could maintain a steady narrative of what my life was like (always mine, almost never his – my father was as cagey and distant with me as I often was with other people). The rivers of bad blood between his longtime girlfriend and all 3 of his daughters made matters worse; she was the sort of woman who never made it past high-school level social skills and let pain and depression turn her cruel and callous, and once their relationship was over my father very openly blamed her for the strain between him and his daughters.

I once countered to him that he had made the decision to not step in and stop her. To me, it was more his fault than hers. She was awful but he was complacent with it.

Never being able to consolidate world views in general atop my feelings of having been abandoned to my grief after my mother’s death in a house that felt more like a prison (I once left a cup of water unemptied in the sink and came home to find he had dumped it all over my bed – another time, I arrived home to find my dresser from Alabama pluming up smoke from the burn pile in the back yard without so much as a word to me, because he said he saw spiders in it) made it incredibly difficult to stitch the distance between us closed. I started leaving at 5am to go to my boyfriend’s house before school and have breakfast with his family (or, more often, sneak in and either go back to sleep or have sex). I begged to move out, to leave and go stay at my great aunt’s house instead, and he resisted me only until his girlfriend needed my bedroom for her kids when they visited. Then, I was allowed to leave.

He kept all of my social security survivor’s checks. I only saw the very last one. I worked at McDonald’s to pay for my own gas (I inherited my mother’s car, a 1990 Cutlass Cierra, when she died) and insurance, and I bought my own food as well so his girlfriend didn’t get upset when I ate at the house.

He judged my mother mightily for her mistakes and while my sexuality didn’t seem to hang him up too much – he nearly choked on chicken when I told him I had been dating a girl, but he recovered quickly with a shrug and a “well… shit happens” – and my defensiveness of her put us at odds with each other again. I tried to call and set up dinner dates or ask him to come see whatever new apartment my girlfriend and I were living in. He visited one once and then never again. I brought over a pizza to hang out with him one night and within thirty minutes, Cynthia called me to tell me that one of our cats had died. Spending time together got harder to arrange, and the more he seemed indifferent to how hard I was trying to forge a relationship, the more I resented him for it.

My calls went unanswered. Seeing him required going out of my way, every time. He rarely met me halfway, almost never if it required real effort on his part.

By the time Cyn and I moved to Pensacola, we had been living less than 10 minutes away from one another and had seen each other less than 5 times in a year.

By the time we moved to Columbus, Ohio, I didn’t even tell him we were going. It didn’t seem to matter.

***

The jaundice and edema have returned by Friday morning. His breathing is becoming more and more erratic. Morphine and Ativan are coming in through a subcutaneous port because he no longer wakes up to swallow.

I have to fight the urge to try to wake him, make him take a sip of water for his parched tongue. His mouth stays wide open all of the time now. I gently rub chapstick over his lips a few times a day so they don’t crack, but the corners of his mouth are bruising from the constant tension.

I am letting him die. We are letting him die. It feels like a failure somehow, even though I know I would absolutely encourage literally anyone else to do exactly what I am doing now in exactly this situation.

***

When I was 12 years old, I played my first live show.

My father brought me onstage at the bar where he played lead guitar in the house band, a vast waste of his natural talent, and had me sing Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” while he accompanied me. We drilled it night after night in his studio apartment during the summer that he split from Alina and Tara’s mother. We worked on Tom Petty’s “Breakdown” but there was something to “Time After Time” that we both really loved – I had only recently gotten very good with pitch control and my young voice was still high and soft, able to curl over the notes gently. Now I sing with the base of my chest and what I suspect are several vocal nodes, my voice getting weak quickly but frankly it suits my style.

I was shaking, I remember very clearly wanting to throw up, but my father beamed at me from his post on the barstool beside me and started to play.

Years later, my Italian macho-typical misogynist of a father would come to the local women’s center where I worked as a victim advocate for a sexual assault response team and play in our courtyard during our survivor event in April. He played an Ani DiFranco song and I sang.

***

Time is a swallowed bomb, waiting. You pay for the whole seat but you only use the edge.  

***

On Friday night, they’re saying less than 24 hours. His breathing has changed again, growing labored and strange.

I almost have a panic attack when I have to go to the funeral home to sign papers for a cremation and fill out what of his death certificate I can remember.

Tara is staying beside him. Alina joined us for a while today, all three of us sitting and holding his hands, petting his leg while we listened to his favorite Splendor album and sang “Yeah, Whatever” to him. Hospice brought his lunch; he doesn’t eat or take water anymore. We stole his cookie and split it and talked to him about how good it was, teasing the way he always teased us. We reminisced, talked about the past and our mistakes. We all cried. We all laughed. It was as good a moment as we’d had together in a long, long time.

He didn’t wake up, but we were holding his hands. We were keeping him safe.

***

I sing to him when we’re alone – his favorite Bonnie Raitt songs. Time After Time, of course. When I try singing Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me In Your Heart For A While,” I only make it to the second stanza before I can’t go on.

“When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun, keep me in your heart for a while; there’s a train leaving nightly called When All Is Said And Done, keep me in your heart for a while.”

I asked him for guitar lessons once. He tried to teach me a G chord, told me to keep it simple.

“With your voice, you won’t need to learn much,” he said, and I was so overjoyed for the compliment that I’ve never forgotten it.

***

My dear friend Diana comes in to see him, despite having only known him through me.

He would hate this, I think, but I need her to be there, if only for a few minutes.

We met at the abortion clinic we both worked at; she became my boss within two months of my starting and we’ve been close ever since. When she goes to leave, she addresses my father, coming to put her hand gently on his.

“Mister Vance, if I don’t see you again, safe travels.”

I don’t know where he’s going. If there is somewhere, though, it’s going to have so much music. He’s going to be playing his heart out, saying everything his pride never let him say with notes and bars.  

Once, back in college, he called me and said nothing, setting the phone beside him on the couch while he absolutely nailed the Eruption solo from Van Halen’s cover of “Girl You Really Got Me Now.”

I have never thought of him as a good father. I have always thought of him as an incredible musician.

***

Back on Sunday, when I knew I would be flying out due to the severity of the situation, I told the nurse to tell Dad I was coming.

I didn’t think he was lucid enough to understand much of anything anyone said, but I missed a call from the hospital by margins of seconds. In an absolute tizzy over what might have been on the other end, I called back.

My father answered, his voice barely a hoarse whisper, his focus obscured by so much morphine.

“Dad? Is that you?”

“Bre?”

“Dad?”

“Bre?”

“Yeah, Dad, it’s Bre.”

His voice broke. “Oh, my baby girl.”

I felt my heart fall out of my ribs and drop down the staircase I fell down the year before and cracked my tailbone, shattered a tooth. I sat down on the stairs. I had been so worried he wouldn’t want to see me, that I’d get there and the ice coating would crawl back over our relationship and I’d have rushed down for little more than maybe a chance to say hello.

“Are you really coming?” he asked, over and over, like a child afraid of the answer being ‘no.’

***

On Saturday, he’s gasping for breath like a fish on a deck. It’s terrifying for me and Tara, who sit on either side of him wide-eyed and panic stricken, waiting for the higher dose of morphine to kick in. It’s violent to watch, but thankfully it starts to subside by that night.

The fear dissipates from the room, but we don’t forget the experience.

***

I show the night nurse pictures of my father with his long dark hair, his brown-tan skin, his brilliant green eyes. I show her pictures of him just two short years ago, round-faced and charming in his straw fedora as he played his guitar, blissfully unaware of all the shitty connotations of fedoras nowadays. She marvels at how handsome he is, how happy he looks holding a guitar. I tell her he’s a really good carpenter but he’s a much better musician, raised by a father who was notoriously talented as well. My father lit up onstage, not as towering as a front man but as the ever-present lead guitarist, just quirky and fun enough to draw your eye from the main microphone but practical, decades of practice and honed skill turning him into the kind of perfectionist he resented in his father.

The lead singer of the last band he played for comes to see him for the third time since Monday. He’s the kind of man who has a natural charm about him, a comfort with being the center of attention that most of us can’t cultivate. He’s sincere in his grief about my father, but he’s also the kind of person who acts as though it’s never dawned on him that not everything he does will come with applause. He performs a very dramatic one man show of his grief when it’s just him and my sister; when I’m here he holds court with his memories and talks about throwing back whiskey with my father at the bar they played at.

“He always said the doctor said it was okay!”

I fight back irritation when I respond, “The doctor absolutely did not say it was okay, he had liver damage.” It’s not this man’s fault my father took big gambles with his health and his addictions. It’s not his fault that my father has always loved a good time. It’s certainly not his fault my father lied about his condition to most people to avoid having to talk about it.

He makes open-ended statements designed to make us ask him questions about himself. Neither one of us do. This seems to bother him. It occurs to me that after a lifetime of being handsome and musically inclined, he might just be expressing himself the only way he knows how – from a vantage point where the world ends at the end of his nose.

Later, when his wife comes, it’s a complete 180. She is calm and warm and immediate, built small and slight like my mother, and between that and her unabashed Mom vibes I’m instantly glad that this virtual stranger is in the room. We watch my father struggle to breathe and she puts her hand on my back, one hand on mine on his, and for a second I shut my eyes and let myself cry – not the way I want to cry, I haven’t found the softest spot to rip that one open from yet, but quietly. If I keep my eyes closed, it feels like my mother is beside me. I can’t think of a not-weird way to tell her I’m grateful for that, so I don’t.

***

Tara and I hold vigil all day on Sunday. His lungs are full of fluid and his face is going grey. His breaths are gentle and small but he sounds like a coffee maker, an observation I make after waking from a catnap in the bay window.

It’s just the three of us and a Law & Order SVU marathon. Dad’s come to like police procedurals in his old age.

We put up a statement on Facebook asking people to send their well wishes via text and phone calls, that we are running out of road and we’d like to focus mostly on spending the last hours or days with him. Alina doesn’t show. She’s been present but sporadically, unable to bear the full weight of the reality of the situation perhaps or too distracted by her own personal demons. I wonder, of the three of us, which daughter will be the one living with the most regret. It’s probably between me and Alina.

When Tara finally goes home for the evening, the nurse comes back to check on him again. Between his blood pressure and his gentle, rattling breaths, he could easily go tonight or go into the morning.

I text my cousin and refer to my father as Captain Refuses-To-Die. She laughs. I feel guilty. She points out that no one would be laughing more than my father. I feel better.

On this, likely the last night we’ll ever have together, I read to him from the book I’ve brought from home (Dessa Wander’s My Own Devices, nonfiction essays that are beautiful and poignant), put Chicago PD on mute and play him Jeff Buckley. I read aloud from the chapter in which Dessa filmed the music video for “Sound The Bells”, and the ending lines crush me all over again: “Some places you need to go, even a chestful of air is too much cargo. Some places you can only go empty.”

I tell him, for the hundredth time, that it’s okay to go if he needs to. His blood pressure is lower and the rattling breaths are a sign we’re growing closer, but he’s still warm to the touch all over. If he’s mottling, we can’t see it. There’s gray in his face again but he reacts to the oral swab of moisturizer to keep his mouth from drying out by furrowing his brows, almost turning away but not quite. The nurses aren’t sure what to make of it. One of these literal angels asks me if I’ve tried telling him it’s okay to go – I tell her that might be what’s holding him up, because now that it was someone else’s idea, he’s just not going to do it.

I hear him in my ear sometimes. Quit rushin’ me. I’ll go when I want and not a moment sooner. Sit down.

We listen to three different versions of Buckley’s Hallelujah – instrumental while I read to him, live, and studio. We move on to the rest of the Grace album.

I’m afraid to go to the bathroom or take a shower when it’s just me and him, so convinced he’ll wait until the second the door clicks shut and then take his opportunity to slip away unnoticed, robbing me of the moment where I get to hold his hand and put some symmetry to our relationship. After all, he was there when I came into the world, purple and defiantly refusing to breathe until suddenly I sucked in air and began to scream. He saw me come in; I vow to at least be here when he goes out. I want to hold his hand the whole time, but if in all his wittiness he decides to kick while I’m half-sleeping on the World’s Okayest Cot, just being in the room will have to be enough.

***

When Alina arrived at my great aunt’s and found him on the floor, slumped against his bed bleeding and unable to get up, he told her he had become addicted to oxycodone since nothing else was helping for the pain. He told her he was done, that he was tired of being sick and tired of fighting.

Despite this, he’s still hanging on. I don’t think he wants to go. He’s only 61 years old. It seems far away to me now the way my mother’s 39 years seemed when I was 16, but now I am 32 and 39 gets more horrible and tragic every day. My father was the life of the party between his sense of humor and relentless flirting and I can only assume that on some base level, he’s not ready for the party to stop yet.

His fingers stopped searching for the fret board days ago. His eyes don’t move behind the lids anymore, and the shadows and bruises around them are coming in fierce. The Haldol is doing nothing to stop the secretions and he’s still in full brew mode, death rattle on all day long. It’s terrifying at first but after a while it’s just a rumble, just a purr. There are moments when Tara and I are perched in our respective chairs on either side of him, eyes turned to the TV or our phones, and this is… ‘fine’ isn’t really the word, but mundane. Just a thing we’re all doing. Boring, even. And then I glance at the bed and see my emaciated, sunken-faced father gurgling through yet another breath and it takes my own away how very not okay it all is.

He’d hate this, is the only thing I can keep thinking. He would hate all of this.

***

There’s a train leaving nightly called ‘When All Is Said and Done.’

Keep me in your heart for a while.

I love him with every ounce of my being. I’m so angry for all the time we missed. I’m so sad that he didn’t let me love him more.

***

It’s Thursday, again. The last few days have been a blur so emotionally exhausting I haven’t had the presence of mind to put pen to paper in any capacity.

When he’ll die is anyone’s guess. For a while yesterday his breathing changed so drastically, came in short little hiccups, that the PRN was sure he was breathing his last. Then, like nothing had ever transpired, he was back to the soft, shallow breaths of before, the rattling having disappeared within a day of its arrival. He started having spells yesterday where he exhales so hard that it engages his vocal cords, making a groan or soft moan like a zombie in a horror film; this terrified the shit out of Tara and me so badly that we grabbed the nurse. His eyes tried to open. It was incredibly upsetting.

The nurse explained that these were reflexive, the deep sighs were him fighting his own heart’s slowing down on some basal level. He’s been unconscious for an entire week now – the eyes opening are a reflex, not intentional and not a sign of any sort of awareness behind the lids.

When they opened after he was cleaned, they had rolled all the way up into his head, leaving nothing but a sliver of white, making me feel sick to my stomach. I knew dying wasn’t elegant and beautiful the way the movies would have you believe, but this is taking so very, very long and it’s so very, very awful.

It’s been a week without water now, so at some point something will have to give.

Tara has spent every day right next to me, sometimes holding his other hand, sometimes napping in the armchair while I nap on my cot. It’s often the two of us in comfortable silence for long stretches or cracking jokes over whatever is on tv. We share his trays when they come in – sometimes the worker slips us a second tray specifically for Tara – or she runs to grab lunch. We tried going out together a few times but no results; he would be exactly as we left him upon our return. Whatever he’s holding on for, he’s holding on with both hands.

I watch his pulse pound in the veins in his neck. I can see his heartbeat through the emaciation of his ribs. I wish to god this was a Death With Dignity state. I wish to god the end would just come gently for him already, and then I feel like a monster for wishing that. How do you want someone you love to die? How do you want them to stay and suffer? Damned if I do, fucked if I don’t.

I play him Joe Bonamassa, more Jeff Buckley, Bonnie Raitt, Bon Iver, Eva Cassidy, Warren Zevon. I sing every song he ever asked me to sing for him, even the ones he chastised me for singing too loudly for him to hear the radio. I hum when I can’t muster the energy to sing, which is increasingly often at this point.

I’m a ghost wandering the hospice halls. The staff greets me by first name and I know most of theirs now – Lisa, who is a literal angel, sent in a dining room cart loaded with sandwiches and chips when a big storm hit yesterday, thinking Tara and I wouldn’t likely go out to get dinner. Gloria dutifully checks on me and my dad and Tara. Jasmine, Victoria, Tinkey, Dolores, the cleaning lady named Cynthia (my wife’s name) is a particular comfort, going out of her way to talk to me every time she comes in to sweep.

The guilt is palpable. I miss my wife and my dog and my apartment; sleeping on this cot has triggered my already flared vestibular disorder and I am so dizzy I worry I’ll fall over at least once a day. I eat what I can when I can but my diet is garbage. I often forget to eat. I’m making it a point to drink as much water as I physically can without getting sick as it helps my headaches.

But I haven’t cried in what feels like days. I can’t anymore. I talk about the increasingly mottling on his fingers, his toes, his ears like it’s a matter-of-fact conversation about the weather. The sound of his sighs and groans still make my heart catch in my throat every time but I’m going numb to the rest. We’re just kind of trapped here in limbo between being able to care for him, which we no longer can, and being able to mourn him and grieve, which we cannot yet do. It feels like torture. I mentally calculate out how much therapy I’m going to need to get out the other side of this. I watch more cop procedurals than I’ve watched in years and hate every last one of them unless Olivia Benson is in them (except Criminal Minds, which I have a complicated relationship with but Tara and I both share a deep abiding love of Spencer Reid, so.)

I want to go home. I feel like dog shit for wanting to go home. I can’t leave him. Not like this. I don’t know how to ask for help but I feel like I’m drowning.

***

The only slices of time where I feel like I can breathe is when Tara and I run to Target for no good reason or when I’m in the shower late in the evening. At first I was too afraid to so much as use the bathroom, scared he would slip off the second I left the room in one final act of independence to prove once and for all that he didn’t need anybody else’s input or help.

Dad’s hospice room has a huge walk-in shower built to accommodate a sitting toilet for those who are still resisting the sponge bath with all their might. Dad was unable to walk for the three days he was in the ICU, much less now, so I drag the entire rig of pvc and toilet seat out into the bathroom proper and enjoy a shower with enough space to comfortably fit three people. In my apartment back home, we haven’t had a functional shower in months; the whole set up fell out of the wall, leaving us only with our very deep and very beautiful porcelain tub. It’s hard to complain about such a tub but the reality is that cup baths get tiring very quickly when you’re disabled and getting into and out of that gorgeous porcelain tank is real work.

This shower comes equipped with safety rails, which at the ripe old age of 32 send my chronically ill self into pure joy. I find reasons to stay in the shower longer than I normally would, water conscious as I try to be. My legs haven’t been so shaven so frequently since I was a teenager. I don’t always have the energy to slip off and stand in hot water for twenty minutes at a time but when I do I try to take advantage; we don’t know when he’s going to decide he’s had enough and I’ll be quickly packing our things into all these Zaxby’s carryout bags I keep hoarding.

***

At some point, this has begun to feel deliberate. Am I locked in one final battle of wills with my father? Is he testing my mettle – and Tara’s, for that matter – to make sure we’ve got the stones to follow up on our promises?

My father made a lot of promises he didn’t honor. Whether they haunted him or if he just forgot is anybody’s guess.

***

I’m on the lanai near my father’s room when I noticed a few people going in and out of the room. I tell my aunt Sharon, “If he slipped off while I was outside on the phone, I swear to god.” He hasn’t, but we’re close; they’ve repositioned him to try to help things move along. The doctor tells me the mottling has moved quickly up his legs and that we’re looking at hours now, maybe even sooner.

His eyes are partially open again. I grimace and close them gently. I remember my mothers’ open eyes, dead for hours when I found her, and it’s something that sixteen years of road between that moment and now have never been able to rub free from my memory. I wonder what about this will haunt me in specificity – the whole experience, sure, but the little things. If I’ll smell someone wearing his nurse practitioner’s perfume and it’ll send me straight into fight or flight. If I’ll be so consumed by my grief that I can’t eat but the second I can I find I can never eat trail mix again. If something will slip just under the edge of my self awareness and then one day I’ll be crying in the aisle at Kroger for no reason.

Bronze nail polish, unexpected splashes of Daffodil yellow, and “Girl You Really Got Me Now” stop me in my tracks in regards to my mother, but she was part of my life every single day. This man laying in this hospital bed is undoubtedly someone I love so much it makes my chest hurt to think of, but not much in my day to day life will change when he is gone – he wasn’t a part of it, hadn’t been for years.

A storm is rolling in. I call my sister.

***

He dies at 10:40 on July 11th.

Tara is asleep on the cot on one side of him, I’m sitting in the armchair on the other, listening to him breathe and texting my wife. Chicago PD is on because of course it is. I get a strange prickle of discomfort and pause, realizing that I no longer hear the heaving of his breath.

At that exact moment, my sister wakes for no reason and goes into the bathroom, passing me as I quickly come around the bed to look at my father’s face in the blue tv light, his eyes slit just barely open. His chest unmoving. The thrum of his heartbeat, so visible for so many days, stilled. I pressed two fingers to his neck, fought the urge to recoil, and pressed the call button to the nurse’s station.

We get an hour and a half with him before the funeral home arrives at nearly 1 am. With my mother, my shock and fear kept me from being able to go anywhere near her body after I dropped her when I tried to turn her over. My criminology studies made me slightly more comfortable around the dead but that quick recoil didn’t leave me and before long I was doubly nursing a burgeoning drinking problem and a crippling fear of death. I’ve done the reading. I’ve pushed myself past my comfort zone. When my beloved dogs died in 2015 and 2017, I spent time with them before burying them myself in the backyard of my aunt’s home.

When the doctor backs out of the door gracefully, quietly, I press my ear to my father’s chest and hear nothing. I put my arm over both of his. I let myself sob into his still, unmoving shoulder and I remember for a moment how he held me in my bedroom at his house the day I moved in, when my mother’s death was suddenly too real to stand under the weight off. How he let me lean fully into him and slid down to the floor with me, let me sob until I was too sore to keep crying, how for that one blessed moment he was the father I needed at exactly the moment I needed him. 

They come to take him. The funeral home worker watches me with a soft expression as I dip down one last time and tell him, “On to the next adventure. Thank you for everything. I love you, Dad. Goodbye.”

***

I love you, Dad.

Goodbye.

***

I think I’m going to feel better but really, I’m just tired. Bone-deep tired. A tired I can’t put a name to. I want to go home and be held by my wife more than I want anything in the world. I spend the day with my sisters, alternating between being mostly-okay and having my breath snatched from me by how not-okay I am. Alina submits herself back to rehab to return on Monday. We make plans to go through his things, together, in September, when I’ve returned for a wedding. It feels okay-ish, and then it feels less okay, and then it’s so awful I can’t wrap my head around it.

And it will continue to be awful. I know that. But it will gradually become less awful, the edges rubbing down until it doesn’t cut me every time I brush against it. It will always be awful. But it will turn into a shape of awful that I can breathe around.

I take stock of what I’ve got left in my hands now that my watch has ended. I went from “my father is not in my life” to “my father is dying and I am caring for him in his final days after a lifetime of his antiseptic behavior to my attempts at building emotional bridges with him” to “my father is dead” in the space of about 13 days. There was no time. It all happened too fast.

On my last day in Florida, I drag both of my exhausted sisters to the beach. Alina sleeps on a towel. Tara and I wade out into the ocean, and I let the salt water of my sweat and my tears remind me how we all came from the sea, how we all return to the earth, and how one day this planet will keep spinning without me, regardless of whether I’ve left a list of things undone or not.

I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I just float for a while. 

[limo-service-jacksonville]

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[let-me-love-you-loki]

Hounds of Justice--Ch. 11

Chapter 11

           Time off. It rolled around so rarely that it was a phantom, hovering in the background waiting to be seen.

           “Where are you going?” Roman asked as we dragged our things from the back of the rental. It was midnight, the drop off area of an out of the way airport. Dean had gone off with Renee after the show. It was just he, Seth, and I along for the ride.

           “North Carolina. I’m visiting with my older brother and his wife.” I smiled, thinking of the family that waited. “They just had a baby.”

           A soft look passed over Roman’s face. “I remember when JoJo was a baby.”

           I’d seen pictures but hadn’t met Roman’s daughter. She was adorable. Clearly had him wrapped around her little finger.

           “They already have a little boy. He’s six.” I hefted my bag onto one shoulder. “Half the weight of this is souvenirs for him. I think Matt and Jeff have signed away their souls on merch for that munchkin.”

           Roman laughed, pulled out the last bag. The slamming of the trunk was final, echoing. It reminded me of Undertaker’s gong.

           Seth stepped around the side of the car, stuffing his phone into his pocket. Almost as soon as we found out about the down time, he started calling around, talking to friends and family, seemingly planning a party at his place in Davenport. The depth of his eyes brightened when our gazes locked.

           “Everyone excited to see you?” I asked brightly. A part of me ached at the thought of being away from him for a few days. We’d traveled together, worked together for almost a month. It would be odd to be apart. Yet I was glad he’d get to see his family.

           “Pretty much. I just want to sleep in my own bed and walk my dog.” He grinned, flipped up the hood of his sweatshirt. After gathering up his things, he held out his hand.

           Roman turned his back to us, playing at being oblivious. My fingers slid into place between Seth’s, the touch sending shivers along my skin. We walked into the airport, whatever we had simultaneously on display and hidden.

           Our flights left at staggered times. Seth flying west to Iowa at two. I had a long ride south to North Carolina half an hour later. Roman’s flight didn’t leave for Jacksonville until almost four. So we waited together, clustered in a far off section of the waiting area somewhere between all of our departure gates. I sat curled up on the bench with my head on Seth’s shoulder, watching him play Rocket League on my Switch. Roman sat across from us, a book open on his lap.

           It was quiet. No one paid attention to us. Time passed slowly. It passed too quickly.

           A voice over the loudspeaker. Boarding for Seth’s flight. A stone dropped into my stomach. He slipped the game into my bag, stood up, drew me to my feet.

           He threaded our fingers together, gathered our hands to his chest. A shake of the head, the hood falling down to his shoulders. His eyes flicked over my face, never lingering in one place too long.

           “I’ll see you in a few days.” His voice caught, dropped an octave. His forehead settled against mine. Warm breath tickled my cheeks. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

           My lips curved, light touching my eyes. “You, too. I’ll miss you… I guess.”

           He leaned back, scoffed a little. But there was a joy in his gaze that was something wholly new. “You guess?” Seth teased.

           A shrug. A brighter smile. Flex of muscle, bend of bone. I drew onto my toes, pressed my mouth to his. Breathed in the scent and heat of him, branded it into my memory.

           There was a sound low in his throat. Shivers and shocks of desire raced through me.

           I pulled away, watched him with something open and innocent in my expression. He squeezed my fingers, dropped them gently.

           The metallic click of a zipper going free. A rustle of sweatshirt cloth. Seth dropped his hoodie around my shoulders, dusted a last kiss along my hair.

           “Let me know when you land.”

           The voice came again, hurrying him away from me. I watched until he disappeared, waiting for him to turn back, to want one last sight of me. I wanted him to see me, to know I was still there.

           He disappeared past the gate, head down. He never looked back.

           An ache burned through my limbs. The world went fuzzy.

           Hot fingers settled around my wrist, tugging me down. Roman pulled me into the seat beside him. “If he looked, he wouldn’t leave.”

           I curled into a ball, tugged Seth’s hoodie around me. It smelled like him. His soap and that deeper aroma that was just his skin.

           “I suppose it’s easier,” I replied softly.

           Whatever it is, I thought, is it enough?

           “Lie down. I’ll wake you when they call your flight.” Roman turned a little, curved a knee into the seat, guided me to recline against his chest. One arm held me steady, a promise of protection and safety.

           Silence. For a while.

           “Ro?”

           His answer was a mumbled grunt, enough to let me know he was listening.

           “How many others have there been?” Loaded question. Innocent. Breakable.

           Roman’s arm tightened. He brushed his cheek against the top of my head. The line of his body tensed. His voice softened when he spoke. “No one like you.”

           A kind answer. One that wouldn’t spiral me into wondering how I measured up to the others. Truthful though. Roman was a brother, a solid rock for me in this business. I trusted him.

             Early dawn blurred the horizon. I curled in the backseat of a cab, fighting the fall back into the fitful sleep of the plane. Seth’s hoodie was warm, pillow and blanket and reminder of the man a thousand miles away.

           I dug through my bag for my phone, pulled it out, switched off airplane mode. A second’s delay. The repeated vibration of messages catching up on the signal.

           A smile. Half an ache that felt like loss. The first message was a picture. Seth, glasses on, cap on backward, the blur of sleep blunting the sharpness in his gaze. A little ball of fur settled beneath his chin, looking as if it were grinning.

           Kevin says hi.

           I smiled. Fought the urge to reach out and touch the screen, stroke the image of Seth’s face.

           A series of images. A selfie of Seth drinking coffee on a sofa, Kevin on his lap. A view from a window into a sculpted patio. Snapshot from above, white pillow bunched up behind spilled black hair.

           Glimpses into his life away from the ring. He shared them with me like secrets.

           I held up my phone, took a video of the sun rising over the river passing over a bridge. Followed it with a selfie, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over my hair.

           Good morning. Two words. I meant them as something else. Something deeper. Maybe three words, although I didn’t quite know which three.

           I tucked the phone into my pocket, not expecting an immediate response. Eyes closed, warm cheek pressed against the crisp glass. Thought about Seth somewhere in the Midwest, sleeping soundly in his own bed with his dog curled nearby.

           A vibration. Soft ping.

           You look beautiful.

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@bethany99stuff-blog

[bkcklimoservice]

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[leylakinsx13-blog]

THE TIME IS HERE!!! I know some of you have been patiently waiting for me to update this blog you’re in luck!!

Last night we stayed just outside of Chicago since we were supposed to have freezing rain overnight. We were not risking being stuck at home.

We stayed at the country inn and suites, which was actually really nice. Dad wanted deep dish pizza so we swung by this pizza joint that was super packed. Dad said to forget about that place and to just go to the mall I wanted to go to. (*giddy girl squeeee*)

Get to the wood field mall. Also super packed but alas, we trudged through anyways. When we leave dad says “well, that was just exciting.” Insert all the sarcasm in the world to that comment. Shocking. I know.

Anyways, we leave the mall. And try the same pizza joint except in a different location. STRIKE TWO! This was just a place you order and take pizza to go. No thanks.

So dad had emailed me a restaurant last week or something like that of a restaurant we could go to, third time is a charm, right? We go inside and it’s like a 40 minute wait unless you wanted to eat at the bar.

We got on the table wait list, the bar was full so we just hung out until I sniped a spot at the bar. SUCCESS! I didn’t cancel the table just in case it was not going to be too terribly long. We ordered food at the bar, started eating, finally we get called to a table. We just laughed and carried on with dinner which was delightful. Moretti’s if anyone is curious.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel for the evening and went to bed. We’re seriously exciting people.

7AM Sunday: Flight day!!!

My wonderful alarm goes off at 7. We got up headed over the free breakfast because, well, it’s me. If there’s food, there’s a Leah.

Finish up breakfast, dad has a smoke, we grab our stuff and head to the shuttle. Here’s a good laugh for everyone... I hop in the shuttle van and bounce right onto the seatbelt clamp. Seriously, I think my right asscheek is bruised.

We get to the airport, I’m briefing dad on everything. “Take your coats off, take your belt off, take your shoes off... blah blah blah” dad: “I can only do one thing at a time!!”

We make in through TSA with no incident. However while I’m packing all of our snacks back into my bag, a TSA agent asks if this random tray of chocolates and powdered coffee creamer is mine to which I said no. He then proceeds to ask if I want it. (It’s too early in the morning for me so I’m just standing there dumbfounded for a moment) I say “uhh.. no? I’ve watched too much Drugs Inc. on Netflix. I have no idea what could be in there! And I’m not trying to get busted for something!” He responds back telling me I’m a smart girl.

Uhhh? Thanks? Not my coke and crack rocks, I’m just trying to get to my vacation.

Finally we are making our way to our gate to hand out. Annnnd of course there’s one of those little electric walkways on the floor.

Let’s just say dad took full advantage of poking along on that, laughing at his snailing speed while I’m standing at the end waiting for him.

We’re at our gate patiently waiting dad is asking about our plane and commenting on other planes while seeming highly intrigued. I was fascinated. Dad seeming to be interested in something?!

Finally it’s time to board up and continue onwards with the journey. We have our passes scanned and then we were standing on the jet bridge for what felt like an eternity freezing to death. We finally get to our seats and dad sits down looking disapprovingly at me and the seats. I just laughed because I knew before we left he’d hate the seats. I chose frontier because they are the home of low fares done right! Or something of that nature...

But anyways, we’re packed in like little sardines riding with Cloe the deer fawn. The entire plane is rocking back and fourth while we’re just sitting there waiting for everyone to get in. Literally the most nauseating feeling was taking over me from the shaking. Dads response? “Imagine taking a cruise and feeling that the whole time!” Thanks dad... I’m feeling much better after that.. hahaha.

Time for take off. FINALLY!!!!

Talk about terrifying... I think I peed a little. That’s no joke. The wind was AWFUL!!! I didn’t think we were going to make it into the air. I was thinking to myself, “great, now we’re going to lose a wing and bounce off the runway.”

Me to dad: “the wing is probably going to snap off and we’ll all die.” Dad: “naw, I’m too ornery to die.” Okay dad, whatever you say.

The flight was pretty smooth, dad and I had some snacks and an in flight nap up until the landing. She was pretty rough too but we made it into Jacksonville just in time for it to finish raining!

We picked up our rental car which was hellish. They were packed and had no cars. We waited about 20 minutes before dad started getting crabby that we were going to waste our entire day waiting for a car. So I told the lady that we needed a car ASAP because we had reservations, we didn’t, but we got a car. NO TIME FOR A CRABBY DAD OR IT WILL BE A LONG TWO DAYS!!

I set up the GPS to head to lunch and of course dad immediately realized we weren’t headed the right direction... dad: “I thought this joint was between Jacksonville and savannah?!” Me: “no, I told you it was in Jacksonville.”

Thankfully any crisis was averted there due to the fact this restaurant has 4.7 stars with over 2k reviews. It was called safe harbor and it was delish!

Dad knew before we even got there that he wanted a grilled shrimp basket. As for me, I had no clue, but I went to the classic fried fish. We also decided to split an order of gator tail.

I’m weak. I love gator. I thought for sure dad would be hesitant but he was actually the one who asked if I was wanting to try it from there. A restaurant with locally sourced/caught seafood? Of course I’m eating gator.

No regrets. The gator was AMAZING! Dad said it was “really good” and for any of you who know my dad, that’s a rare thing to hear. He did also enjoy his shrimp basket. So I dodged a bullet and was able to wipe the sweat from my brow this go.

After we finished up lunch we took a quick walk through the area before having to sit for another two hours to get to Savannah!

It’s a straight shot from Jacksonville to Savannah on I95 so we’re about mid way there when all of a sudden dad yells “DID YOU SHIT!?!” Guys, I seriously about died laughing. It hadn’t quite hit me and I was like “oh my god! No! DID YOU!?!” We’re both dying in the car from this putrid stench that came out of nowhere and assaulted your nostrils like they owed some serious cash. Dad: “smells like Nekoosa in the middle of August! NASTY!!”

I’m laughing just thinking about it. It was disgusting but gold. Thanks for automatically assuming it was me, dad.

We are finally approaching one of the joints I put on my list to stop at with dad. It was called “peach world”. Dad likes peaches so it seemed appropriate. It was just a small roadside shack full of peach related items. Salsa, jelly, tea, brittle, you name it I’m sure it was in there.

Dad found us some peach bread and the lady gave us a sample of a peach cider slushie. Needless to say we ended up with two peach slushies.

We paid and went back to the car and dad says “this better be the best damn peach bread I’ve ever had for that kind of money!!!” Me: “then why’d you buy it? There was a sign on the table with a price.” Dad: “WHAT! I DIDNT SEE IT! HOW MUCH WAS IT!?!” Me: “11.99”

I couldn’t help but laugh. It is good bread, but definitely not quite worth that price.

We finally finished up our trip and got to our Air BnB here in Savannah, and we’ve just been hanging out here until tomorrow morning since it’s Sunday in the south.

Hopefully tomorrow’s excursions will be a little more exciting.