“They should fire the dude,” Bex declared from beside me, her dark glasses obscuring her face. “I mean, it’s a pretty fucking stressful day to begin with. You’ve got people like ... fucking mourning, ready to say their last goodbyes, and it’s like … sorry peeps had to stop for a latte. Body’ll be here soon,” she babbled, sounding disgusted.
I failed to be offended by her demeanor. It was Bex. She didn’t have a filter.
“There’s no one here, Bex. We’re good,” I reassured her, squeezing her arm.
She pushed her glasses up, revealing her kohl-rimmed eyes which narrowed on me.
“You’re here, Lil. The grieving daughter. I’m giving that guy a piece of my mind when he gets his creepy ass here,” she declared angrily. “Anyone driving dead bodies for a living’s got a screw loose,” she added, wrinkling her nose.
I smiled, something catching my eye. I held out my hand. “Look he’s here, and she’s here,” I choked up when I realized the “she” I was referring to was my mother’s body. It wasn’t her. Her soul. That was gone, I knew. Squashed out like a burnt out candle. This was just the shell that was left.
Bex squared her shoulders, her eyes narrowing. “Right.” She looked like she was going to point her combat boot in the direction of where a thin looking guy was getting out of the driver’s seat. She could definitely take him. Though she may have been short and skinny, she was a fighter. She had to be, the way she’d grown up.
I reached to grasp her hand, stopping her. I was about to calm her down when Aiden, who’d been silent, cut in.
“I’ll go talk to him, sort things out,” he muttered. He focused on Bex. “Stay with Lily,” he ordered tightly.
Bex looked like she was going to say something, then her eyes met mine and she nodded.
Aiden kissed my head, then left.
Bex and I silently watched him walk over the grass, holding hands.
“She’s really gone isn’t she?” I asked the air, my eyes glued to the vehicle holding the last physical remainder of the woman that raised me. Saved me. Saved us.
Bex’s hand squeezed mine. “Yeah,” she replied quietly.
I nodded. Yeah. She was gone. I felt the pins and needles threatening to bring back the feelings. That big sadness that lurked in the corner of my mind, like some kind of assassin, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
“Nice place for Faith to catch her last sunset,” Bex said finally.
“Yeah,” I agreed, watching the sun move closer to its hiding place beyond the horizon. “She picked it,” I continued.
“Of course she did,” Bex smiled at the horizon.
My eyes prickled as I thought back to that day, that conversation.
I’d been reading one of Mom’s favorite books to her, she was losing the ability to grasp the edges, focus her eyes on the words. Her ability to hold a paintbrush had long gone, I think a piece of her heart went too, not that you’d ever know. Not that her cheerful smiles would betray a hint of sadness, or of defeat.
“I want to see the sunset, on my last day on earth,” she said suddenly, interrupting my sentence.
I looked up from the book, failing to stop my inward flinch every time I laid eyes on my fading mother. Her hair was gone, a tie-died head scarf fastened like a turban around her bald head. Her skin was yellow, a sign of her organs shutting down. Black circles rimmed her eyes. Her cheekbones protruded, she was a bag of bones underneath the thin polyester blanket. She looked like a skeleton. Her eyes never lost their sparkle, though, or their vibrancy. The one thing cancer couldn’t steal from her. It was robbing her of her life, it was yet to rob her of her soul.
“Okay, Mom,” I said, choking on my words slightly. “We’ll watch the sun set every night,” I promised. “I’ll make the nurses wheel you out,” I added, knowing it would be a feat, but I’d make sure it was something I’d get done.
Mom smiled warmly, the expression the only familiar thing on the alien face apart from the eyes.
“No, peanut. I don’t want to see the sun kiss the parking lot of this place.” Her eyes moved around the room. It was covered in flowers, in color, but nothing could disguise what it really was. “No, I want to be in the fresh air, with not a sterile wall in sight,” she joked warmly.
I put the book down. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” I replied slowly, knowing how unlikely it would be to be able to take Mom out of the hospital. She might not even survive the short car trip. An excruciating pain stabbed through my crumpled heart at that thought.
“Peanut, I mean after I’m gone,” she murmured softly, holding out her hand.
I leaned forward and grasped it gently. It was cold. I was worried if I gripped it too hard the bones would shatter.
Her eyes searched mine. “I want the day you say goodbye to me to be when you can watch the sun set, and know that I’ll be going somewhere beautiful, following the rays to somewhere you can’t see, but you can always feel,” she said, her voice croaky.
I nodded, through the tears in my eyes, unable to speak. My throat swelled up with pain and grief.
“I want it to be on the top of that hill at that cemetery we used to go to, amongst all of those beautiful old tombstones,” she continued.
We visited graveyards together. Weird, most people would say, but I’d never known different. My mom was beauty from the inside out, and she found beauty in the most unusual of places. A lot of her best works were inspired by graveyards. She was fascinated by them. I liked them because they were quiet. I could be alone with my thoughts while Mom sketched furiously on her notepad.
“I want you to wear a yellow dress,” she announced, her eyes dreamy. “Rebecca too,” she added with a grin. “You look so pretty in yellow, and I don’t want you wearing some depressing color like black. I want yellow,” she decided.
“I can do that, Mom,” I said, outwardly trying to disguise my utter despair over discussing my wardrobe choices for the funeral of my mother. My best friend. My hero. My everything. “Though Bex will curse you for making her wear such a cheerful color,” I added, maintaining my charade.
Mom grinned. “She’ll curse me, but she’ll wear biker boots and excess eyeliner and look like the beautiful girl she is,” she said, her eyes warm. She squeezed my hand. “Sunset and yellow, peanut,” she repeated.
“Sunset and yellow, Mom,” I promised.
So, here we were. In a cemetery, at dusk, wearing bright yellow dresses. Mom was right, Bex wore her signature combat boots and heavy kohl eyeliner, her black hair messed in choppy layers, the dipped purple ends brushing her shoulders. She looked completely and utterly her.
Me, not so much. I didn’t even know how to be me, let alone create a look that represented who I was. My yellow dress used to be snug on me, tight at the waist and ballooning out into a fifties style skirt, kissing my knees. Now, it was loose, my long hair lay flat around my shoulders. The tan I normally had to complement it was long gone, considering I spent my days in a hospital room, and my nights in a bar. But I wore it, even though the color I identified most with was black. I got why people wore it. So their outsides matched their insides. To cloak the despair.
People had started arriving, and I had to commence my duties as the daughter, greeting old friends, acquaintances and fans of my mom’s work. We didn’t have family. She had a lot of friends, though. My mom was likable, a ball of light. People radiated toward her. People that by chance did not find black appropriate for a funeral either. Most of them were hippies like Mom, so a lot of flowing skirts and bright colors decorated the graveyard. It was kind of poetic and beautiful. Well, it would have been if I hadn’t been drowning under the weight of my grief.
The clearing of the priest’s throat had me stop my conversation with my mom’s artist friends and turn my attention to him. My gaze flickered to the coffin, one that I’d avoided looking at. Covered in flowers, letters and drawings it looked like something my mom would’ve loved. I wanted to feel warm about that, about the fact my mom w
ould have loved every part of this. I couldn’t. My mom would have loved this—past tense—she can’t love it. Because she was dead, right in that beautifully disguised coffin. I averted my gaze, feeling the pins and needles stronger now. Bex squeezed my hand. Aiden took my other. I focused on the priest.
“Now, I understand Faith’s daughter, Lily is going to say a few words,” he declared, after his monolog.
Both Bex and Aiden jolted beside me, I knew they were surprised. They both knew I avoided public speaking as if my life depended on it. Knew the depths of my shyness. The crowd here must have been big, I didn’t really look, but didn’t need to. Like I said, my mom was loved.
“Lily babe, you don’t have to do this,” Bex whispered. There were streaks on her face from the tears she’d already shed. My face, I knew, was streak free. I was still numb.
I smiled woodenly. “Yeah, I do.”
Aiden moved beside her. “She’s right,” he murmured quickly, “this is too much.”
I silenced him with a hand. “I’m doing it,” I said firmly and quickly, aware of all the eyes on me, and hating it. I didn’t give them any more time before moving around to stand in front of the crowd. I wasn’t wrong. It was big.
“Thank you, Father,” I mumbled.
He bowed his head and gave me a soft gaze filled with sympathy. I took a breath and faced the crowd. I was prepared. I could do this. I thought I could, until my eyes caught the glimpse of chrome reflecting off the dim light. A small group of Harley’s were parked in the distance. My eyes met familiar ones quickly, a rich chocolate gaze momentarily paralyzing me.
Asher.
He was here.
Along with Lucky, Amy, Brock, Cade, Gwen, and Rosie.
I sucked in a breath, aware I’d been silent. I ripped my eyes away from the man who I hadn’t stopped thinking about in three years. The man who took up the fantasy world I escaped to when I couldn’t stand the real one.
Don’t focus on that now, I told myself. Be strong for her, one last time.
“My mom was the greatest person I ever met,” I started, my voice clear. “She was everything I want to be, everything I could wish to be,” I continued, my voice wavering. “She found beauty in every single thing that she laid her eyes on. She made every single thing she laid her hands on beautiful.” I moved my eyes from the crowd, from the stare that burned into my soul to regard the horizon. To watch the sun slowly move away. “She had it till the end,” I said to the horizon. “Beauty. The ugly disease failed to take that.”
I took a breath as sorrow threatened to overcome me, the weight on my chest threatening to bring me to my knees. “She wanted to see the sun set, on the day we all said goodbye to her. The sun setting does not mean it’s disappeared, it just means its light’s shining somewhere else, that’s what she told me.” I watched the sky dance with the last of the light. “That’s where she is, shining her light somewhere else. Somewhere better,” I finished almost choking on my last word, but able to keep my head straight, my eyes clear, so I could watch the last of the sun’s aura disappear.
“Bye, Mom,” I whispered to the horizon.
“Thank you for coming, you didn’t have to,” I said to Gwen after she had finally let me out of her embrace.
The pity on her face did not fade with her narrowed brows. “Honey, of course we did. You lost your mom. I wanted to be here. We all did. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” Her voice wasn’t accusing, only sad, full of pain.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I didn’t want to trouble you, you’ve had a lot going on,” I explained. A lot was an understatement. I may have quit working for Gwen a year ago when Mom got worse, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t stopped seeing them. I knew things in their lives were always intense. Kidnappings and shootings were more than intense. Which was why I never told them about Mom. They were good people. They’d take it upon themselves to help, even with all of the trouble in their life. They didn’t need that. I valued their friendship, but I didn’t want to be that burden to add to the drama.
Gwen frowned at me. “Trouble me? Lil, you’d never trouble me. It only troubles me having you go through this alone. Why didn’t you tell us your mom was sick?”
I ignored the intensity I felt from a stare from behind Gwen, from where I know he stood.
I puffed hair out of my face and shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t know,” I said honestly. Why hadn’t I told my glamorous ex-boss and current friend that my mom had been battling cancer for the last three and a half years? Maybe because if I verbalized it to that part of my life, it’d make it real. It felt nice being able to have some sort of feeble escape whenever I met Gwen and Amy for coffee or drinks, and not be the girl with the dying mom. Amber may have been small, but my mom operated out of the ”normal” community and lived out of town, in a little rundown cottage by the sea. I knew her friends weren’t likely to shop at Gwen’s store or hang out with the Sons of Templar. So I was able to pretend when I was with them, pretend I wasn’t battling every day. Pretend that hospitals, cancer treatments, and watching the strongest person I knew fade into nothing was only a distant nightmare.
Her face softened with understanding, she brushed my hair from my face. “We’ll talk later. Your words were beautiful, honey,” she told me softly.
I blinked away the tears that threatened with the collision of the two parts of my life. The collision that shattered any pretend world I had constructed.
“Lils, the dude with the dope dreadlocks is asking if we’re heading to the farm now? I’m voting a massive yes,” Bex interrupted boisterously. She gave Gwen a small smile and her eyes stuttered on what I knew were the bikers behind her. I felt her form stiffen slightly, and her eyes harden, I knew she was remembering the not so pleasant ending to my night three years ago.
“Bex, this is Gwen, Rosie, Amy, my friends from Amber. Gwen and Amy own Phoenix,” I introduced quickly before she could cause a brawl. “This is Becky, my—”
“Best friend, roommate, drinking buddy, sister from another mister, and so much more,” Bex interrupted on a grin.
Bex hadn’t met my Amber friends, even though three years had passed since I met them, I didn’t exactly hold parties for everyone in my life to mingle.
“Lilmeister has told me all about you. Your lives could totally be turned into movies,” she continued with her usual lack of filter.
I cringed and my face reddened. I didn’t want Gwen to think I’d been gossiping. Luckily, she laughed.
“Yeah, well only if Rachel McAdams plays me,” she answered.
“I’d totally be down with Amy Adams for me,” Amy piped in.
“J Law,” Rosie added with a wink.
Okay, so my friends from two different parts of my lives were equally crazy, and made it somehow possible to seem like we weren’t standing in a cemetery after the burial of my mother.
“Lil?” Aiden’s voice interrupted while Bex continued chatting to the women.
“Excuse me a sec,” I said to Gwen and I failed to ignore Asher.
He was watching from further back, his eyes intent on me. He seemed like he was never going to approach, only hang back and torture me with his stare. His face turned blank and hard, at the same time I felt pressure on my waist.
Aiden turned me, both his hands resting on my hips. “You want me to give you a ride to this farm place, or do you want to go home?” he asked quietly.
The farm was a farm, it was where a big group of Mom’s friends lived. Words like ”commune” were not used to describe it, though that’s what outside society regularly referred to it as. It wasn’t that, but it was like a second home for me. Everyone there was like my mom—free spirits, creatives, artists. People that didn’t like the mainstream world. That didn’t fit. A little like the Sons I guessed, although they didn’t ride Harley’s and engage in questionable activities. They mostly made art and smoked pot. Mom might not have been as hardcore as them. Hence, me being raised in a house with just her and me, it was still
our adopted family. It was also where the reception, if that’s what it was called, was being held.
“Um…” I began, not knowing what I wanted. Yes actually, I knew what I wanted. My mom not to be buried in the ground. Instead, for her to be in front of me, teasing me about the fact my ‘“boyfriend” was from a family who didn’t recycle and were, gasp, Republicans.
“It’s been an exhausting few days for you, scratch that, three years. Your words up there were beautiful, but they’ll understand if you want to go home. You need sleep,” he said.
As much as I didn’t like Aiden telling me what I needed, I agreed. I was tired to my bones. Though I didn’t think sleep would cure much. Sleep couldn’t cure an exhausted soul. It at least promised a welcome oblivion.
“Yeah, maybe I should go home,” I declared finally.
Aiden nodded, his grip tightening.
I said my goodbyes to Gwen and the rest of them, eyes avoiding Asher like the plague. He didn’t approach me, just stayed rooted to the spot, his eyes burning into me. I felt them on my back as I said the rest of my goodbyes, and as I walked with Aiden to his car. The residue of his gaze, his proximity, followed me most of the way home. I welcomed the pain that came with it, since it was nowhere near close to the agony that promised to ruin me the moment I let it in.
I woke abruptly. My jerk hadn’t roused Aiden, who was sleeping soundly next to me, his arm thrown lightly across my midsection. He’d fallen asleep with me atop the covers, after lying and talking with me after we got home. No funny business. There was never any funny business, and he seemed content with that. It had only been a month after all, and I hadn’t exactly been in the mood that month.