by C. J. Thomas
That made her turn to me. “So, let me guess, broken arm? Neck?”
“Face.” I shook my head. “You should have seen me before.”
She squinted at me playfully, examining every detail, then pressed her lips together to keep herself from smiling.
Just her gaze got me hard. I wanted to take her over my shoulder and show her what kind of rush I really enjoyed—something to really make her smile.
With her mock study of my face now complete, she finally shook her head. “Hmm. Maybe you should have gotten a second opinion.”
“Hey!” With that knock, I took the chance to put my arm around her. When she didn’t pull away, I gave her a little squeeze and figured I better set the record straight. “Broke my femur. Had to do something while it healed. During one of her visits, my mom left her camera at the hospital.”
Tessa raised a finely tweezed eyebrow. “And what, exactly, did you do?”
“I wheeled myself around and took pics of people sleeping . . . who may or may not have been sporting new fashion statements.”
“Like . . .”
“I thought for sure bedpan hats would catch on.” I shrugged. “Hey, I was ten.”
She laughed—a sound I’d never get tired of.
“More wine?” I asked, then noticed the empty bottle.
“Guess your doorman will have to go without.”
I chuckled and put an arm around her. Her hair smelled of vanilla and lavender, and damn if I didn’t feel soothed. “I’ll probably bring him one at the end of his shift.”
“For putting up with you? Better bring him two.”
I dipped my face to hers, put on my best serious face, and nodded. “You’re probably right.”
Tessa tilted her chin up to nip my bottom lip. She tasted like the wine and I wanted another drink.
I cupped my hand around the back of her head, ready to pull her against me, but stopped. I didn’t want it to happen like this. She meant more to me than that and I wanted to be more than just her escape from what was sure to have been the worst week of her life.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” I knew even before I asked the question that the trance of the evening would be gone. She needed something.
Three years ago, I’d been in her shoes and even if she didn’t want to admit it, there was something I could do for her. More than this.
Without looking away, she said, “Will you come with me to the funeral tomorrow?”
“Of course.” The words came out before I’d thought them through. I’d made it a point not to go to funerals since my parents died. They were uncomfortable, difficult . . . all good reasons I should be there with her.
But I also couldn’t help but think that this might be one huge mistake, too.
CHAPTER 15
Tessa
“Can the caskets be moved closer together?” I asked the funeral director, then leaned against Liam and sighed when the guy didn’t acknowledge I’d said anything. “Do you think he heard me?” I asked Liam and couldn’t help but smile when he peered down at me. We’d only been on one real date, and yet, he’d really been there for me.
Liam frowned at the man, seemingly as surprised as I was about his inattentiveness. “Who knows.”
Earlier this week, Dani and I had decided a combined funeral for Mom and Dad would be best, but as I’d been trying to tell the director for the last ten minutes, having the caskets at the corners of the room didn’t feel right. They should be together. Just like Mom and Dad always had been.
Even in the end.
“Excuse me—”
Instead of giving me a response, the director bent down behind the stage to do God knows what. Before today, if anyone had asked me to picture a funeral director, I’d describe someone calm and helpful to families as they grieved. This man had barely spent two minutes with Dani and me to discuss what we wanted—and that was to sell us the matching hand-polished cherry wood caskets that he couldn’t be bothered to pull together.
I walked to the edge of the stage and tried to raise my voice. “Excuse me.” The words came out cracked and hoarse. I guess that was what nearly a week of crying would do to you.
Before he could even look in my direction, the florist, with her sleek hair and pressed pantsuit, pulled him the other way, pointing to a row of uneven arrangements in the sea of flowers covering the whole back wall. Given my father’s position and my mother’s outreach in the community, I’d say half the state sent a plant of some sort.
I pressed my palms to the stage, leaning my weight on them, telling myself to breathe. Every time I did, the overpowering scent of lilies assaulted my nose, reminding me exactly where we were.
“Wait here,” Liam said to me, then walked over to take care of things himself. His broad shoulders flexed under his tailored suit as he carefully wheeled my parents to the center of the sanctuary.
I smoothed the hem of my black skirt down. “Thank you,” I said and sighed—something I’d been doing a lot this week as well. “Always something else, isn’t there?”
Liam stepped beside me and rubbed my back. His hand felt warm and comforting. Being here with him seemed so natural.
“I spent all week making arrangements so I wouldn’t have to worry about anything today. Just come here and . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t know why I expected it to not be so hard.”
“It’s okay. This isn’t something you ever plan for. Actually, this seems to be going smoother than my parents’ funeral.”
My chest felt tight as his words hit me. “I’m sorry for asking you to come here. This has to bring back some tough memories.”
He took my shoulders in his hands and gently turned me to face him. “Don’t think for a second that I’m not here for you. I’m glad you asked me. If there’s anything else I can do, just say the word.”
My breath caught in my throat and a tear streamed down my cheek. He wiped it away. “I’m surprised I’m not all cried out.” I meant it to be funny but it didn’t come out that way. Making jokes in stressful situations had always been my go-to way to cope. Sometimes people caught on and gave a sympathy chuckle, but usually it fell flat.
Liam smiled. “That won’t last forever. Might not feel like it now.” He kissed my forehead. “You have me.” He nodded to Dani and her boyfriend, Jason, as they walked down the side aisle toward us. “And you have your sister.”
As Dani stepped beside me, I saw that she appeared about as haggard as I felt. I wrapped her in my arms and wished we could freeze this moment. Looking up, I caught Jason’s eye, and mouthed, “Thank you.”
He and Dani had been on again, off again for over four years—an eternity for teenagers. Even though he was only nineteen, a year older than Dani, he’d been her rock this past week. I didn’t know why I figured he would’ve bolted. Maybe I should give the guy more credit.
Dani pulled away and looked down at the caskets. She reached out to one, then pulled her hand back. “Are we supposed to say something at the service?”
“You can, or I will for us both.”
She turned to me. The look of surprise on her face pained me. “Really? You’re the best.”
“We’re in this together.”
The overhead lights reflected off the polished wood. Dozens of smeared fingerprints littered the surface.
“God, I’m sorry.” Liam looked around to find something to wipe it down with.
I shook my head. “There’s no way all those could be yours.”
Jason stepped beside the first casket and began rubbing it down with his handkerchief. Liam joined him and they kept looking at different angles to make sure they hit every spot.
Considering what Dani said, seeing their coffins now, barely two feet apart, I reconsidered what I’d planned to say. Somehow talking about Dad’s love for his company and Mom’s garden parties didn’t feel like the right way to say goodbye.
When Dani laid her head on my shoulder, I said, “So, if you were going to say something, which you
’re not, but if you were, what sort of thing would you say?”
She put her arm around my back and stood there for a time like we had when we were little. “You remember that winter we got snowed in for like three weeks?”
“That freak-of-nature storm that came out of nowhere and the whole city shut down?”
Her head bobbed against my shoulder. “That’s the one.” Thank God Mom had collected food-drive cans the month before. She’d apologized to the committee for weeks that we had eaten so much.
“I swear I’ll never eat peaches again.”
“We all kept getting sick, passing whatever it was back and forth.”
“I’m telling you it was the peaches.”
She laughed. “Remember seeing Mom and Dad sitting at the fireplace together, kissing and holding hands like they were just married?”
“I kept covering your mouth to keep you from coughing and interrupting them.”
Dani nodded. “That night we saw what we hoped we’d have one day.” She looked over at Jason, who was pointing out another spot for Liam to wipe down. “That’s what you should talk about today.”
The ceremony was standing room only, and though the funeral director drove me nuts to the point that I was ready to hire some random person off the street, I could not have asked for a better service. Dani’s advice on what to say was spot on and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Or a face without a smile.
Afterward, Liam and I stood in front of his Land Rover, leaves blowing across the mostly-empty parking lot.
He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear and smiled at me. “I’m happy to spend the rest of the day with you.”
I shook my head and he gave me one final hug. I’d had more hugs today—some from people I didn’t even recognize—to last several lifetimes. Yet, in Liam’s arms, I could stand having several lifetimes worth of hugs.
Liam opened his door. “Sure you don’t want me to stick around? My calendar is clear.” I was pretty sure I overheard him tell Jason how much editing he had left to do with his current collection.
“Thanks, but you’ve already shuffled enough around to be at the service for me.”
“And I want to keep being here for you.”
It would be easy to forget about what all needed to be done and just lose myself with him for a week, a month.
I needed to be practical. “I’m good, really.”
“Hey, sis,” Dani said as she walked up with Jason in tow. “I’m going back to Jason’s for the night.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. Liam didn’t need to be there for all the boring things that still needed to be done, but Dani was a different story. How did she not see that? Maybe I took it too easy on her by arranging everything for the funeral myself.
Her black chiffon dress fluttered in the wind. She held it down and stared at me, mouth agape.
“We have a lot to do in Greenwich,” I reminded her.
“What is there that has to be done today? Mom and Dad aren’t going anywhere.”
“Dani.” I pressed my lips together and worked to level my tone. Her day hadn’t exactly been the easiest, either. “We’re in this together, remember?”
She chewed on her thumbnail and glanced at Jason. “Call you later?”
Liam kissed me on the cheek and whispered in my ear, “I’ll definitely call you later.”
CHAPTER 16
Tessa
A lump caught in my throat as I looked around my dad’s home office that afternoon alone.
An avid reader of non-fiction, floor-to-ceiling shelves covered two walls with topics ranging from historical biographies to mathematical theory. I ran my fingers down the classic molding of his cherished walnut desk. Dad had always been a dark wood kind of guy. To him, it spoke of class and money—the two things he knew best and loved to show off. He and Mom both loved doing things up in the new way, the new style, without flaunting their wealth in a distasteful way.
It’d been awhile since I spent time in this office. We really only talked about work downtown so there hadn’t been a real reason for me to be here. My freshman year of college, he started grooming me to take over the company—what was supposed to be a few decades from now. Between all the meetings and studying, I must have shadowed most everyone with a title over the last four years.
Though we had plenty of late nights at the office, he made sure we never brought our work home with us. From what I could tell, about the only thing that had changed here in the last six months were the piles of mail on the coffee table.
I sank into Dad’s high-back chair, turned my head, and breathed in the spice of his Cohiba cigars still lingering on the leather. It reminded me of when our family would go on our springtime walks. Every Saturday after breakfast, we’d hunt down a basket from the seasonal closet and use one of Mom’s older quilts. The four of us would head down from our back porch, walk and laugh as we made our way around the small lake behind our house, all the way to the park.
Smelling Dad’s cigar took me back to when I was eight and refused to hug him for a whole week. I’d told him that it was because I couldn’t stand the smell of his clothing after he smoked. He told me the next time we went on a picnic to lay down on the ground, cheek pressed to the grass, and let the midday sun warm my back.
Dad said smoking cigars was like returning to his childhood. Like the rich rain-soaked earth on a spring day. That next Saturday, I laid in the field and enjoyed spring like never before. Ever since, when I smelled his cigars, it took me back to that day and made me smile.
I picked up the framed picture Dad had kept on his desk since then. Our smiling faces stared back at me. Until today, it had always been the four of us—Mom, Dad, Dani, and me.
I took a cigar from the humidor, put it to my nose, and it was as though, for just that moment, he stood right beside me again, ready for that hug.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to start that nasty habit,” Dani said, making me jump. I hadn’t heard her come in. She leaned her head against the door and looked at the room as if seeing it for the first time. I wondered what she looked at. Her gaze focused back on the cigar. “Just because you’re taking over the company doesn’t mean you need to take that on, too.”
I carefully placed the cigar back in the same spot, even though there wasn’t anybody to notice it’d been moved. “I’m not planning on taking over the company.” I couldn’t imagine sitting in his chair for real like nothing ever happened. The leather tugged at the skin behind my knees and I shifted my weight.
“I’m going to go lounge by the pool,” Dani said. “Want to catch some rays with me?”
I shook my head. “Too much to do around here. Did you take care of the flowers yet?”
“They’re not going anywhere.”
I pictured the dozen arrangements wilting away in the car and the dozens more still at the church. “Find a couple places to donate them.” I sighed when Dani gave me a blank look. “Nursing homes, hospitals—”
“Kinda morbid, don’t you think? That’d be like getting your flowers before you die.”
“They don’t keep them in the same arrangements.”
She folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “I don’t want to do any of this.”
“None of us want to do this, but it’s something we have to do.”
Dani groaned. “Fine. I’ll figure it out.”
Dani’s footsteps retreated heavily against the tile and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been a little hard on her. I shook my head, reminding myself that we both had to step up.
I walked over to the coffee table set on the opposite side of the room from Dad’s desk. When Dani and I were little, we used to have a dollhouse in this exact spot. Looking back, I had no idea how Dad put up with us while he did his work. Most parents wouldn’t even let their kids step foot into their home offices, let alone play in there. Once a week, we’d dress up our dolls and have a fashion show on his desk.
I couldn’t blame him for
switching out the pink, three-story, mini-mansion with this dark wood table to match his desk. Though, right now, letters covered half of the polished surface.
Leafing through a stack, I wondered when he last opened his mail. Part of me wanted to leave it. Like Dani had said about the flowers, the mail wasn’t going anywhere.
Then I reminded myself that I couldn’t very well do the opposite of what I’d pushed on her. It wouldn’t be fair.
I pulled aside the stack of mail that had come over the last week. Most seemed to contain a word of condolence. Once every card’s message of “sorry for your loss” began to run together, I set that stack aside and slid an older group toward me.
These letters had been piled up so precariously that several fell from the top and went right off the table. This stack contained mostly long envelopes, obviously from companies rather than sympathy cards. I figured the impersonal might be easier to swallow right now.
After the first half dozen, a frown carved its way onto my forehead and stayed there.
“Dani?” My voice rang through the house and the silence that followed made me wonder if she really had skipped out to lay out.
After about half a minute, her heavy footfalls returned. When Dani poked her head around the door, she said, “Jesus. What do you want now?”
“The name’s Tessa.”
Dani gave me the half fish-face look that she got every time she bit the inside of her cheek. The look she constantly wore when dealing with Mom.
I held up the first stack of notices. “Do you know anything about these?”
“What are these?” She scrunched up her nose as though the letters smelled of three-month expired yogurt.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself she’d lost her parents, too. “That pile is cards, but the rest seem to be bills.” I held one up. “Notice. Three months overdue.” I grabbed several more. “Notice. Two months, four months. All overdue.”
By now Dani walked over and began opening a pile I hadn’t gotten to. “These are the same. Two thousand dollars, five thousand here. Ten-thousand for a downtown parking spot?” She dropped the bills on the table. “That better be for the year.”