“Talk about fucking awkward.” I unbuttoned my Armani suit jacket, flapping it back to take a seat on the first pew overlooking my wife’s open casket.
For the first second, I waited for her to scold me for dropping the F-bomb, and then reality came crashing in.
Knight scooted away from Lev to make room for me between them. He glared forward, not taking the bait.
“We’re wearing the same outfit,” I explained, resisting the urge to put the final nail in my nonchalance coffin and nudge his shoulder.
Said outfit was black cigar pants, black loafers, and a black button-down shirt, complete with the black blazer Rosie was fond of. Normal attire for a funeral, especially your own wife’s, but I needed to break the ice with my son.
I’d thrown every single negative thought that had crossed my mind about him at his feet. I’d been wrapped up in Rosie’s coma, mentally climbing the walls of my sanity. And when I finally did talk to him, it was to force him to go to a counselor for his addiction. He needed more than to be bossed around. He needed a father.
Knight stared ahead at the elaborate stainless steel casket, his expression as flat and dead as Vaughn’s. This wasn’t my son. My son was an expressive, lively motherfucker with a sense of humor and natural charm. He was nothing like his sulky-ass best friend.
“Devastated,” he finally drawled when he realized I wasn’t going to look away until he gave me an answer.
“As you should be,” I murmured.
“As I fucking am.”
“Language,” I sparred.
“Please, Dean. You use the F-word more than any other word in the dictionary.”
Dean.
He’d called me Dean.
“I can’t believe you’re talking about suits right now,” Lev gritted out, wringing his hands together, almost as if trying to rid himself of his own flesh.
He wouldn’t look at the coffin. Only his hands. I couldn’t blame him.
“We’re not talking about suits,” Knight and I said in unison, which made us glance at each other.
The only time we’d caught each other’s eyes since he’d walked in on me going down on Rosie all those weeks ago.
The realization nearly skinned me alive.
I hadn’t talked to my elder son in months.
I’d been too busy grieving a wife who hadn’t even been dead, mourning her loss instead of enjoying her presence, enjoying our family while I still could.
Rosie. Rosie. Rosie.
I looked around at the two front pews of the church, which were filled with our friends and family. My wife had taken her last breath in my arms three days after she woke up from her chemically induced coma. My brave Rosie had hung on to her life longer than the doctors predicted, because she wanted to say goodbye to all of us. I’d been selfishly hoping she’d go in her sleep, that her heavy breaths would turn into shallow ones, then to no breaths at all. But she’d been awake, still squeezing my hand with whatever strength she had left. Her last words would forever remain carved on my heart.
“The sun will shine tomorrow, my love. I know.”
“Because it must?” I’d asked her.
“Because it was the first thing Luna ever signed to me. When I did her braids sixteen years ago, I asked her if she was sad about her mother. She signed that it didn’t matter. That the sun would always see her to another day. And you know what? It did. Smart girl.”
“She is,” I’d said.
“Thank you.” My wife had smiled up at me. “For this life.”
“Thank you,” I’d answered. “For making me worthy of giving it to you.”
I’d promised her I’d be strong, and I was going to be.
For her.
For me.
For them.
No more bullshit, half-assed dad. I’d been stuck in my own little Rosie-colored universe for far too long.
“Let me smell your breath.” I clapped a hand on Knight’s shoulder.
He turned and gave me a death glare, arsenic dripping from his pupils.
“Playing dad for the duration of the funeral?” He smiled tightly.
“I am your dad.”
“Whatever you say, big guy.”
He was bigger than me, and he knew it. Little fucker.
“Open your mouth.”
“Sell it to me, Dean.”
“Are you serious?” I felt a tick in my eyelid. “Do it, mister. Now.”
“Or what?” he pressed.
“Or I’ll open it for you, and that’ll be the only damn thing people remember about your mother’s funeral.”
When he made no move, I stood up. I really didn’t give a fuck about making a spectacle, and I think he knew it, because we were the exact same person. He was my mini-me, much more than sensitive, kind-hearted Lev was.
Knight tugged me down by the hem of my blazer.
“Christ,” he mumbled. He opened his mouth, still staring at me hard and defiantly.
I had a sniff. Sober as a nun. I leaned back, keeping my face hard and grim.
“Have you been eating tuna?”
Lev snickered from my other side. I took that as a little win, although it wasn’t Levy I was trying to make amends with.
“Vaughn, Hunter, and Luna are taking turns watching me.” Knight clapped his mouth shut, rubbing his jaw.
“I know.” I sat back.
Vaughn accompanied him to the restrooms at school, even though Vaughn, apparently, was above taking a piss there. Luna shadowed his every move from the moment he left school, and I checked in on him every single hour. Hunter came at nighttime. Mainly, I suspected, to take refuge from the harem of girls he’d been bedding and dumping. I couldn’t care less, as long as he took care of my kid.
“I’m not three,” Knight said.
“Debatable,” I answered flatly.
“Why am I being treated like a toddler?”
“Because you’re just about as reliable—at least until you go an entire month sober.”
“You suck.”
He nearly goddamn sulked, and although he was giving me shit, I also acknowledged that he’d at least talked to me, which was something. Which was everything right now.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
He looked at me like I was crazy. Guess I needed to elaborate.
“I needed to suck and do my job as a parent months ago. From now on, I am going to suck like a whore in a brothel, kiddo.”
“I can do whatever I want. I’m already eighteen,” Knight said at the same time Lev coughed all over my inappropriate little speech.
“You are,” I whispered, leaning closer to Knight. “But you want to get better. I know you do. And I also know why.”
The service opened with a prayer by Father Malcolm, the same man who’d baptized Knight and Lev when they were born. Personally, I wasn’t big on religion, but Rosie had wanted the kids to be baptized, and what Rosie wanted, she always got. Next, Emilia went up to talk about my wife. Then it was my turn.
I kept it light. I didn’t believe in the afterlife, but if there was a slight chance Rosie was watching from above, and she saw me shed a tear, I knew she’d haunt my ass to the grave, Casper the Unfriendly Ghost-style. Besides, I’d run out of tears over these past two weeks. The ruthless motherfucker I was prior to losing my wife had been shed and dumped behind.
I cried every night.
Sometimes all night.
Many times with the door open, when Emilia, Knight, Lev, and my parents could hear and see me. Pride was a luxury I could no longer afford.
When I made my way from the podium back to the pew, I expected Father Malcolm to wrap the ceremony up so we could get to the real nasty stuff. The part where I had to bury the love of my life. The part where I’d undoubtedly break.
To my astonishment, the next person to walk to the raised podium in front of Rosie’s casket was my son’s sometimes-girlfriend, Luna Rexroth. Her steps were brisk, yet somehow full of trepidation. What in the ever-loving fuck was happening?
Luna Rexroth didn’t talk. Was she going to communicate her grief about my wife’s untimely death via telepathy?
I felt Knight shifting beside me, tugging at his collar and wiping his mouth. He couldn’t look at her without getting flustered. Plus, he knew she hated crowds and people. Everyone goddamn knew that. Which begged the question—what was she doing up there?
I threw him a glance, asking just that with my eyes. He ignored me, his eyes still glued on her frame, wrapped in a long, black dress.
Luna cleared her throat and smoothed over an object she was holding—some kind of a notebook. She tapped it with her finger, nodding silently, as if having some sort of a conversation with it.
People began to look around, whispering. As far as the town of Todos Santos was aware, Luna Rexroth was a mute. Some knew it was selective muteness. Most simply didn’t care.
“Save your girl,” I ordered Knight without moving my lips an inch, still staring at her as she shifted from foot to foot, busily flipping the pages of her notebook.
Transfixed, Knight answered me, his eyes still on her. “No.”
“No?”
“No. She needs to see this one through.” He drew in a breath.
I was about to stand up and save my best friend’s daughter from a debacle when she hurried to the edge of the stage, produced a small remote, and darted back to the center. She swiveled on her heels, giving the audience her back, punched the remote keys a few times, and a portable projector behind Rosie’s casket came to life.
A picture appeared on the screen: Rosie and Emilia when they were no older than four and three, butt naked, their messy, curly hair the same shade of brown-blond, sitting in two buckets full of water, grinning at each other.
Luna looked back to the audience, took a shuddering breath, and opened her mouth.
“Here’s the thing about love—it’s an uncomfortable feeling. It pushes your boundaries. If any of you would have told me I’d be standing here talking to you a year ago, I’d have laughed in your faces. Silently, of course.”
“Oh, my goodness.”
“She speaks.”
“Are you recording this?”
I heard all those whispers behind me, and knew Luna was in great discomfort, but I couldn’t help chancing a look at Trent, her father, who sat at the aisle behind me. He was smiling at the stage, his eyes shimmering. Pride radiated from every pore of his face.
The entire room was so quiet with scandalized shock, you could’ve dropped a pin on the floor and it’d make a colossal sound.
I returned my gaze to my son. He was smiling.
For the first time in months, he looked pleased.
Maybe not content.
And definitely not happy.
But there was something promising behind his jade eyes.
I looked back to Luna, just as she clicked the remote.
“The truth is…” She sighed. “I didn’t want to talk here. It was part of my promise to Rosie. She asked me to make this for Knight, Lev, and Dean so they’d remember her the way she wanted them to. Not in her last month, struggling, unhealthy, and fighting for each minute that passed. She wanted you to remember she’d had a good life, and that she expects nothing less from you. This picture was taken over forty years ago, in Rosie’s backyard in Virginia. Her first-ever memory. She told me it meant the world to her, because she’d thought a bucket full of water was the most joyous thing someone could have before she moved to glitzy Todos Santos, with all the Olympic-sized and kidney-shaped pools and the glorious ocean. She said Lev and Knight always asked her why she put them in buckets of water every summer when they were little. It was so they could remember that the small things in life count the most.”
Luna smiled at Knight, giving him a wink.
Next was a picture of Rosie, Emilia, and me from high school. Em and I were seniors; she was a junior. I had my arm thrown over Emilia’s shoulder, but it was Rosie I looked down at with a smile. Rosie stared at the camera, horrified, and although I’d lived many happy years with my beautiful wife, it still pained me to know I’d caused her a heartbreak, no matter how minor, no matter how long ago.
“Knight, Lev, Rosie asked me to tell you about this moment. Said it was the moment she realized she was in love with your father. But she chose not to do anything about it, because she loved her sister just as much. This is a message from post-life Rosie to you, in her own words: ‘Don’t be a Rosie. Be a Dean. If you want something, no matter what it is, go for it. Falling in love is rare.’”
Luna’s eyes were now on Knight, only Knight, and something in the room shifted. She wasn’t merely speaking the words, she was becoming them.
“Don’t give up this precious gift. Chase it. Catch it. Hold it close. Don’t let it go. And if it leaves anyway…”
Her eyes clung to Knight, and for the first time—for the very first time since I’d known my own son—there were tears in his eyes. It gut-punched me to the other side of the room.
“Fight for it,” Luna finished.
There were more pictures. More stories. One of us on our wedding day that captured me picking her up, crossing-the-threshold-style, and walking away in the middle of a soul-crushingly boring mingling session with a few of my colleagues. I’d carried her to our vintage rental car, straight to the airport, and to our honeymoon in Bali, Indonesia.
Knight in our arms when he was one day old.
Lev’s angry-red face right after birth.
Rosie’s first lengthy hospitalization, where the entire family had sat on her bed. We’d played cards, eaten cinnamon mini-pretzels, and made up elaborate life stories for all of the staff who’d tended to her.
Each story lifted me up and brought me back to life. The audience laughed, cried, clapped, and gasped at the stories Rosie had left for us. And by the time Luna was done, no one remembered how weird it was that she’d spoken. Everyone was laser-focused on the fact that Rosie had left us with such happy memories.
It was when we stood up, and people trickled up to her casket, that I understood why my wife had enlisted Luna Rexroth to do this for her. The finality of the situation hit me as if it was the first time I’d learned my wife had died. I clutched the back of the pew, righting myself.
Levy scurried to Bailey, who threw her arms around him, letting his pain soak into her like Rosie had for me, countless times.
I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose, expecting Knight and Luna to have a similar reunion, especially after the exhibit of loyalty and trust Luna had put on. To my surprise, I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I opened my eyes, I vaguely recognized the woman in front of me. She looked like a distant memory. A yellowed old picture, curling at the ends.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
She sounded genuine. I nodded. I wondered at which point, if ever, it was acceptable to ask her who the fuck she was. Instead of putting both of us in an awkward position—truth was, I didn’t care who she was—I smiled politely and moved toward the neat line of people who’d paid their respects to my wife and wished to say goodbye.
“Wait,” I heard the woman yelping behind me. “We need to talk. I need to…I need…I need you.”
I stopped. Turned around. She looked meek. Timid. Almost scared. Did she realize this was not the best pick-up place in the world for newly singled millionaires?
I frowned, losing patience. “Yes?”
“Your wife asked me to come here.”
“She did?” I smiled skeptically.
I didn’t buy it for one second. Chances were, my wife wasn’t keen on throwing younger blondes on my ass before I’d even buried her.
The little blonde nodded furiously, swallowing hard.
“And you are?”
“Dixie Jones.”
“Dixie Jones,” I repeated the name, tasting it in my mouth before the penny dropped.
Motherfucker.
My eyes narrowed, and I immediately twisted my head to look for Knight. Suddenly I was rabid. I wanted to protect my kid like he was a baby and she was about to kidnap him. As it was, Knight weighed probably more than both of us. He could wear his birth mother as a scarf and forget to take her off when he walked indoors. He didn’t need my protection, but it didn’t make me want to give it to him any less.
“He knows I’m here.” Dixie read my mind, taking a step back.
I obviously looked as distraught as I felt. I needed space. From her. What the hell was she doing here?
“What the hell are you doing here?” I echoed my thought.
She looked ready to explain, but the last thing I wanted was baby mama drama at my wife’s funeral.
I held up a hand, shaking my head. Already people’s gazes were beginning to turn our way. I was supposed to be with my friends and family, not talking to this young stranger. Dixie Jones was, I decided, not the sharpest pencil in the box, despite my wife’s strange fondness for her.
Late. Late wife. I was never going to get used to it. Yet, Rosie had wanted her here. I couldn’t disrespect her wish.
“Know what? My son is eighteen. He is of legal age. If you want to talk to him, do. If he wants you in his life, I will give him my blessing.”
She nodded.
I should have stopped, but I couldn’t.
“If he doesn’t…” I said slowly, fixing my gaze on her. “I will unleash hell on you if you come any closer to him. I’ll bury you so deep in legal shit, by the time you come up for air, it will be your turn in a casket. He’s been through enough. Now, excuse me, Dixie. I need to go say my farewell to the love of my life.”
With that, I turned around and walked toward the woman I’d joined with between these pews two decades ago. Only then, she’d worn a wedding gown and a mischievous smile.
Only then, she’d promised me forever.
Only then, I’d taken it, knowing damn well forever wasn’t going to be the longest time.
As I peeked into her casket, at her tranquil smile, her gorgeous, porcelain face, that white chiffon gown she loved so much, I knew forever wasn’t long enough.
Not for a love like ours.
A little while later, I watched Levy hugging Bailey over my wife’s fresh grave. I wanted to die.
I watched Luna engulf Knight in her slim arms. I wanted to dig a hole next to my wife’s grave and settle there.
Everyone was in pairs. Such is nature—a special type of asshole.
Vicious and Emilia. Jaime and Melody. Trent and Edie. My parents. Even Daria, Jaime’s kid, and her fiancé, Penn.
The soil above my wife’s casket was fresh. Dark. Damp. It was not too late to pull it out. Not that I would. That would be crazy.
You’ve done crazier shit for this woman.
Staying calm was not an option, so I was trying to keep sane. Baby steps and all that bullshit. I blinked, looking away from the assaulting image of the ground swallowing my wife’s casket. There were dozens of people around me, but somehow, the only person I could spot in the distance was Dixie Jones. She stood back, away from everyone else, chewing on her lower lip the same way Knight chewed on his stupid tongue piercing every time he was contemplating something or just being his usual, ill-behaved self.
A cheek pressed against my shoulder. I looked down. It was Emilia.
“She’d have been proud of you,” she whispered.
“I know.” Not if she could read my mind. Not if she knew all the dark shit that blazed through it like a storm.
Vicious, behind her, clapped my back. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too, bro.” Trent clapped my shoulder from the other side.
“We’re here for you. We’re always here for you,” Jaime butted in.
Mel and Edie clung to me. Then the kids trailed over, embracing me from the back. The front. Everywhere. I was the center of a mass-hug in a matter of seconds. Everywhere I looked there were faces I knew and loved.
And it wasn’t pity I saw in them. That was the part that kept me from breaking, from really digging a hole next to Rosie and lying there. There was admiration and determination instead. But still, I couldn’t find solace in that. Not completely. Not until I felt Knight’s hand on the back of my neck and saw my son staring right at me. He leaned in to hug me, so close his lips were on my ear.
“You told Dixie to fuck off?” he rasped.
Goddammit. I didn’t want to lie to him. But I didn’t want another explosive argument on my hands, either.
“Knight,” I said.
“Thank you.” He drew me into a hug.
We crushed each other’s bones, and the beef between us.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you,” I choked back. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
