Page 109 of After All The Wreckage

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Rory

EYE OF THE TIGER

Performed by Survivor

I feltlike I was moving through a fog as Nan, Dad, and I watched the coroner arrive and take Mom’s body from the room. The staff at Shady Lane were nervous and jumpy, as if they were afraid we were going to sue them. But this wasn’t their fault. This was mine.

While we’d waited, anxiety had crept in, growing stronger and stronger until I thought it might choke me. An invisible countdown sat above my head, approaching zero and fast.

When the room was finally empty except for the three of us again, the silence made me want to scream. No machines. No Mom. Nothing but agony and regrets dripping from all of us, pouring on the floor like acid ready to tear apart the frayed edges of our relationships.

Dad broke the quiet with words that surprised me. “Let me take care of the arrangements with the funeral home tomorrow. Neither of you should have to deal with it.”

“She didn’t want to be buried. She wanted to be cremated,” Nan said. Her voice was so hoarse from crying that it made me wince.

Dad nodded. “I know. When we were married, we had it all written down in our will.”

Nan looked at me to see if I was okay with this, and I shrugged. It didn’t really matter what happened, did it? She wasn’t here. She was gone. What we did now was for us and not her, and all I wanted to do was catch the assholes who’d killed her. That was what I wanted to do for my mother.

“Do you need a ride home?” he asked.

“I’ve got my car,” Nan said. “Rory?”

“I’ll go with Nan.” There was no way I was getting into the car with Dad. My feelings were too much of a jumbled mess, and I was afraid he’d see through me. That he’d see what I was going to do.

I grabbed my things from the couch, and we walked out of the room. As we exited the building, tears filled my eyes once more. It wasn’t that I would miss Shady Lane, but the finality of what had happened hit me all over again. I ground my teeth together, fighting to hold myself together.

“I’ll call tomorrow,” Dad said, taking in my splotchy and swollen face. “Take a moment to breathe, Rory. Don’t do anything until I call you.”

I shrugged, and his eyes narrowed. But I wouldn’t make promises to him I didn’t intend to keep. I couldn’t.

“I don’t want you to get hurt too. Don’t go looking for revenge without me,” he insisted. “If you’ve learned anything from watching that damn show of yours, remember the mistakes she made in not telling her dad the truth. In not waiting for backup.”

My stubborn defiance must have shown on my face because he growled, “Keith Mars isn’t the only man who loves his daughter.”

And it hit me in the chest like a brick. The words about love. The fact that he knew so much about my favorite characters. That he must have watched the show.

But I couldn’t do this with him right now. Love or forgiveness… or whatever he was hoping for. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to work with him on Mom’s case or any other, and especially not when I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I could trust him.

So instead of responding, I spun around and followed Nan to her car. The mist whirled around us in thick spirals, making her Beetle almost impossible to see even when we were right on top of it.

Everything about tonight felt wrong. Like watching the ending of a movie but knowing it wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Like watching Logan’s car blow up in the series finale.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

The quiet in the car was as painful as it had been in the room. I finally broke it, saying softly, “This is my fault.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand. “I hate that it happened this way, Rory. I hate it. But this wasnotyour fault. You didn’t cause the accident. You didn’t sign those papers.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, tugging at the cuffs of my jacket. Throat bobbing.

“I hate that it happened this way,” she repeated, and then inhaled and let go of an unsteady breath. “But it did need to happen.”

I turned away from her. It was pointless to have the argument anymore. The choice had been taken away from us. My mother was gone. The thought was accompanied by splintering pain.

When we pulled up to Nan’s house, a dark sedan screaming government was parked out front with two people inside.