The mom jumped on it, of course. A hundred bucks was a small fortune for such an easy task.
That handled, I found out the number to Meryl's, calling and explaining that Lenny had a death in the family, and would be out for a while. And I may have thrown in that I expected her job to be there for her when she was ready to come back, whenever that might be. That phrasing coming from someone with a Henchmen logo on their back was almost a threat, and he took it as such.
"No, no. Of course! She will always have her place here!"
Then, to wrap things up, I put away the groceries, handing the mom an extra fifty because judging by the red on the baby's face and the strain on hers, the poor thing had missed naptime or bedtime.
I wasn't sure what kind of schedule the kid had, but it was sunny out by the time I opened the door to them.
I wasn't surprised to realize that it was closing in on ten when the food was away, and I had a funeral home address plugged into my phone.
It was right about then that Lenny rolled out of bed, going into her bathroom.
I heard the shower turn on, and set to making her something simple to eat - some English muffins with a bit of butter and jelly.
She stopped short on her way out into the kitchen.
"Oh," she said, brows drawn together, eyes swollen, skin down her cheeks still raw-looking from all the tears. "You're here."
"Of course I'm here," I said, holding out a plate.
"Don't say you're not hungry. I know you aren't, but you still need to choke some of this down."
She took the plate, going over toward the couch. "Do you have my phone? I need to call around and find..."
"I got the address to the best funeral home in the area, love. They are expecting us. So whenever you are ready."
She said nothing for a long time, systematically pulling apart her muffins and eating little bits of them.
Not much.
But it was something.
I could deal with that.
She was just so fucking thin already. She really couldn't afford to lose any weight.
"Tulips."
"What, love?" I asked, sure I misheard her.
"Letha liked tulips."
"Okay," I agreed. "There will be tulips."
She nodded a bit firmly at that, like it was important, like it was a big weight off.
I guess at this point, every little thing would feel like that.
"Okay. I want to go," she declared, standing suddenly.
"Lenny, there's no ru—"
"I need to get this part over with," she declared, moving toward the door to find her boots, stabbing her feet into it, then reaching for her jacket.
"Okay," I agreed, finding my phone and keys, and following her out, finding her already halfway down the hallway by the time I got out the door.
"Thank you again," the mom from earlier said, the baby fast asleep in a stroller as they made their way out.
"Don't mention it," I said, rushing to catch up with Lenny.
I wasn't sure what this stage of grief was, and I didn't know how to handle it. I guess my job was just to be there, to follow her through it.
We got there just four minutes later, Lenny barely remembering to take off her helmet in her rush to get inside and get it over with.
I barely even got to notice where the hell we were going, not wanting to lose her down the winding hall toward the back where she somehow guessed was the office.
"Oh," she said, shocking back, hitting me in the chest. "I thought they were expecting us."
"They are. This is Summer," I said, putting an arm around her, giving her a squeeze. "She is going to help with all the stupid little details you want nothing to do with."
"Oh," she said again, and I wasn't sure what kind of 'oh' it was.
So I looked over at Summer instead. "She wants tulips."
"Tulips," Summer agreed, giving Lenny a firm nod, no fake smiles in sight, something I knew that Lenny in her right mind would appreciate. "Done."
"We were wondering what day and time works for you for the wake."
"No wake," Lenny snapped quickly, too quickly.
But the funeral director, more accustomed to the various forms of grief than I was, was completely unfazed by the tone.
Lenny, seeming to sense the discomfort in the room, went on, "Letha was creeped out by wakes. She made me promise I would never let someone look at her inside a casket with bad makeup making her look like a wax figure. I promised her," she said, turning to look at me, eyes pleading.
"Love, whatever you want. No one is forcing you into anything."
Her eyes seemed to scream Except bury my sister.
"No wake," Summer agreed. "Lenny, do you want to sit down and look at some pictures?" she asked, leaving off the word we all knew and inwardly cringed at.
Caskets.
Summer was much better at subtlety than I was. Maybe it had to do with having kids, and needing to shade the truth a bit about their father's business.
Half an hour later, Lenny had picked out an ivory casket with a light pink interior.
Letha liked girly stuff.
The plot was chosen already, apparently, Letha's father had purchased three of them, one for himself, which he currently occupied, one for his wife, who Lenny realized she needed to contact, but Summer assured her that she could handle that for her, and then one for his daughter.
I couldn't help but be angry again for the complete disregard the man who had been a father figure for her for four years of her life showed for Lenny.
Summer had chosen the passages to be read with the only input from Lenny being Nothing religious. Letha was spiritual, not religious.
Tulips had already been chosen, so all that was left was a date, time, and a few minor details that Summer assured Lenny she could handle.
She was so relieved to be able to leave, that she didn't even think to ask about payment.
Which was good because I knew she would flip shit if she knew that I had already told them that I had it handled.
I knew her mind wasn't going there, but funeral plans cost a mint in the States. It didn't take a genius to know she didn't have it. But with the love she had for her sister, it needed to be nice, something memorable.
I wanted her to have that.
And I had it to spare.
That was one hell of a perk to living at the compound; you had no living expenses. And Reign gave us all a nice cut. It added up to more of a nest egg than I had any need for anytime soon.
She had two days more to learn to adjust, to accept the reality of the funeral.
And I was there for every minute of it, the lows and the lowers.
I forced food into her.
I picked her up off the floor more than a time for two.
I gave her Advil when it looked like the crying was giving her a jackhammering migraine.
I cleaned.
I fielded the minimal calls and texts to her phone after paying the bill because the service had gotten cut when I went to check it for Letha's step-mother's phone number.
And then on the morning of, I went into her closet, finding it a lot like mine, as in mostly black, so I handed her black jeans, a black long-sleeve tee, and her jacket because I felt like she would never be seen without it, not even at a funeral.
I ended up not being wrong.
Though, when she actually found a bra to put on, I was kinda convinced she wasn't thinking clearly anyway.
I drove her to the cemetery, almost worried she might fall off the bike with how detached, numb she had been since she woke up.
But as we climbed up, for the first time ever - let alone since her sister passed - she reached for my hand, holding onto it like a lifeline.
Which I was happy to be for her if that was what she needed.
THIRTEEN
Lenny
It was surreal.
I couldn't shake the feeling as I went through the motions of eating, sleeping, crying, occasionally shower
ing when Edison pulled me in with him, and taking some medicine for headaches.
Everything felt odd.
Far away
Just out of reach.
Because this wasn't my world.
The one where my sister no longer existed.
I didn't live here.
I was just floating above it all.
So as we parked in the lot at the cemetery, I felt the need to reach for Edison's hand, to help pull me back down, to ground me.
The walk to the plot felt like it took forever, it felt like each step pulled me further and further into the ground, like it was trying to swallow me up along with her. Which, well, seemed fitting.
I was burying a huge chunk of myself this day as well.
The best part of me was going down with that casket, never to be seen again.
Edison's hand squeezed mine hard as we got to the spot, finding his friend there - the redhead named Summer who had somehow managed to make most of this happen with next to no input from me.
Hell, she had even promised to go to Letha's apartment and pick out the best outfit for her.
I knew no one would ever see it, but I wanted her to look pretty regardless.
Standing with her was Lo, not her husband like I had maybe been expecting - and dreading.
I wanted to hold it together, not break down in public again, but I couldn't seem to tell from moment to moment if I was going to be blissfully numb, or completely hysterical.
I didn't want to do that in front of Edison's boss.
But Summer and Lo?
Somehow, that seemed okay.
I could live with that.
Edison had told me - he had taken to talking to me when I was numb, telling me stories about the club, the people in it, different countries he had seen, I think trying to pull me back to the real world with him - that Summer had suffered through watching her father be murdered right in front of her eyes the year before. If she had come through that, I knew I could lose my shit in front of her without her judging me too harshly.
I think Edison didn't think I was listening when he talked, or at least not remembering. But once he started, I slowly came back, heard him, cataloged it for later.
"No," I hissed, planting my feet, making Edison jerk back.
"It's just an hour, love. Then we can go back to bed. That's all. You can do it."
"She's here," I snapped, pointing my hand to the side.
Where my mother was standing.
In a skintight black dress that dipped too low in the front, stiletto heels, a goddamn hat with a black veil, and a man on her arm.
It was the first time in days that I felt anything other than the despair - or the numbness.
But right then, rage was a comforting companion.
It was, at least, familiar.
"Not now, Lenny," Edison half-declared, half-asked. "You need to bury your sister."
Ugh. That hurt. But he was right.
I bit down onto my tongue until it shot pain through my mouth, let Edison lead me toward the service where an older woman with a sing-song voice talked about the joy of life and the cycle of death, words that didn't really sink in much because all I could do was stare at the box where my sister's body was situated.
I wished suddenly that I was the kind of person for whom blind faith came easily.
Death must be much more comforting if you believed there was something after, if you thought your loved one went on.
Me, yeah, I wasn't sure.
But I leaned toward this being all there was.
So I wasn't going to see her again in some dreamy afterlife.
I would never see her again.
She was in a box that was going in the ground to be covered with dirt.
And just like that, the most beautiful person I ever knew was gone for good.
The gut-punch sensation was expected when we were all handed tulips to drop on the casket. Summer and Lo gave me head nods, knowing I wasn't in a place that would allow me to accept their sympathies, and they moved off.
As did Jake's wife, who cupped my shoulder as she passed. She and I had hardly spoken over the years, but she had been a mom to Letha when ours couldn't be bothered.
On that thought, it was pretty much the exact moment I was aware of my mother saying something about how tacky it was that I had chosen not to have a gathering somewhere after so everyone who loved Letha could mourn.
And, well, there was only so much I could be expected to take in a week.
I was at my max.
And, quite frankly, this was a long time coming anyway.
Even Letha would agree that what came next was something I was fully in my right to do.
"You get no right to say shit about how I handled this situation," I called, voice raised, nothing but an empty gravestone-filled field to overhear. Well, except for two employees and the non-denominational woman who had led the service.
"Really, Lenore, I raised you better than to have a funer..."
"You raised me? Seriously? Is that a fucking joke? You didn't raise me. TV raised me. And babysitters. And, well, my fucking self. And when you brought Letha into the world, I raised her too. Since you were so fucking jealous of the love her father gave her instead of you. You didn't raise either of us, so you get no place to judge anything that I do. And, quite frankly, you had no fucking right to be here at all after what you did. But you're here. So let me just say this. Today is the last time you will ever see me. As far as you are concerned, you lost both your daughters today. Do you understand me? I am dead to you. Because you, you have been dead to me for fucking years." I eyed her man, clearly taken aback by the revelations, likely already sick of her shit, and going to use this new information to get shot of her. "So don't come running to me when you're even older, even more unlovable. I won't be there for you. Just like you were never there for me. Or Letha. I hope you die miserable and alone. I know that is your worst fucking fear. And I am just a vengeful bitch enough to wish it on you."
With that, I turned, storming away, walking back toward the lot as the tears started again, as the rage was spent, as decades of bitter was finally spewed all over the target it had always called home from afar.
The anger gone, there was nothing left.
Just the hollow feeling in my chest as Edison ushered me back to my apartment, letting me crawl to bed, forcing some godawful cabbage-filled soup into me, then, later, coming in beside me, pulling me close, whispering to me in his native tongue.
Some words were repeated enough for me to pick them out.
Draga mea.
Iubirea mea.
The small part of my brain that wasn't suffocating under the raging currents of grief wanted to know what they meant, why he said them to me again and again.
But sleep claimed me before I could ask.
—
Two days later, the impossible happened.
I woke up.
And my first urge wasn't to curl back up and sob.
I noticed things that I had been too out of it for days to notice before.
My hair felt gross.
My skin felt like it needed a scrubbing.
My limbs felt weighted and lazy from disuse. And my stomach was churning with the need for food.
I climbed out of a bed whose sheets needed a wash after being in them for so long, so I stripped them and threw them on the floor before I went off to shower some of my mourning away.
I walked back out to my kitchen to find Edison missing.
My stomach dropped at that, wondering if his patience had finally worn out, if he realized what was between us was way too new for him to have to put up with my descent into near-madness.
But before the coffee could even stop dripping, the door was opening, and in he was walking with a bag of groceries.
I was actually normal-feeling enough to be amused by the look of complete shock on his face at seeing me up and mostly-functioning.
"Lenny."
"Edis
on," I mimicked the odd confusion in his voice.
"You're up."
"And not covered in grief," I agreed. "And making my own coffee."
He crossed over to me, brows drawn together, watching me like I was something that didn't make sense. "Are you okay?"
I waved a hand down my body, clean, dressed. Sure, I only managed to throw on gray yoga pants and a wifebeater, but they were clean. I was not in a ball crying or staring at the wall. I was pretty sure my okay-ness was on display for all to see.
Maybe I shouldn't have been okay.
Maybe it was too soon.
But there had been a part of me that had been preparing for this day, having a gut instinct that the six months would pass with little improvement.
I think the grief had a lot to do with how blindsided I was, how unprepared to hear it how I did, to have to function and make arrangements after that blow.
"Maybe I should still be in bed," I mused, wondering what it said about me that I could be up so soon.
"Grief comes in waves, Lenny," he told me, watching me closely. "Sometimes it is loud and crashing. Sometimes it just ebbs and flows gently. Don't be surprised that there are days with calmer shores, but don't be blindsided by the riptide either."
I nodded at that.
"I feel human today," I admitted. "I felt gross and groggy and hungry when I opened my eyes. I haven't felt that way in days."
He moved over toward me, putting an arm around my lower back, pulling me against his chest, kissing my forehead before tucking my head under his chin.
"Good. I'm glad, draga mea. You started to scare me."
I scoffed at that. "I doubt anything scares you."
"It doesn't," he agreed. "But you did."
I took a deep breath, trying to make my tongue force out the words. I felt them down to my soul, but the feeling part was easy. The telling part was always hard for me.
"Thank you," I told his shoulder, breathing his scent in, finding it comforting. "For being here for me."
What would have happened if I had been alone as I usually was?
Where would Letha be laid to rest if my mother was in charge of it?
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