Page 42

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

REECE

M y mom was gone.

Those words kept playing around in my head, like if I repeated them enough, they’d stop feeling like a punch to the chest. It didn’t work.

I’d been to a lot of funerals. My best friend from high school.

Teammates’ family members. Even a coach once.

I always hated the way people moved around you like you were made of glass.

I hated it more now that I was the one being tiptoed around.

Bishop, Jones, and the rest of them wanted to be supportive.

I just wanted to play hockey. Those few hours allowed me to forget that I had to go on when the one person who loved me unconditionally was gone.

But no. Coach insisted I take time off. In the few days between the hospital and the funeral, I could’ve been keeping sharp. That was what I wanted. No one asked me, though.

Fuck every single one of them. I wasn’t glass, more like rusted sheet metal. If they left me alone, I’d be able to get through day by day. But if one more person looked at me with those damn sad, pathetic eyes, I’d crumble into a dusty mess.

The morning of the funeral, I couldn’t get out of bed. Not until Bree pressed a cup of coffee into my hands and brushed her fingers through my hair like she was petting a wounded animal.

She cooked and cleaned but gave me the space I needed.

Still, I still saw the way she moved through the house mechanically.

Cooking. Cleaning. Taking care of Benny.

It didn’t stop her from stepping in where I couldn’t.

It didn’t stop her from anything. How in the hell had she done this at seventeen when I couldn’t even put on a damn pair of socks without having a meltdown at thirty-one?

Bree made the calls to arrange for my mom’s body to be transported back to Virginia. To a spot right next to my grandparents. She booked the flights. She even found the rental car, one big enough to hold the mountain of grief I dragged with me everywhere I went now.

I barely remembered the plane ride. I just remembered gripping Bree’s hand the entire time, and her letting me. No words. No expectations. Just her quiet presence anchoring me to the earth.

When we pulled up to the house— her house—I lost it.

It hit all at once: the screen door that always stuck in the summer, the yard swing that hadn’t swung in months, the cracked driveway where I’d once skinned my knees learning to ride a bike. The ghost of her was in every square inch.

And that damn woman pulled me into her arms, letting me sob like a six-year-old again. She held me. Never once shushing me. Never rushing me. She just gave me a safe space to fall apart.

None of this would have gotten done without her. The funeral director called her . The florist delivered to her . Everyone asked for her . She kept the train on the tracks while I could barely tie my shoes.

When I’d tried to bring Benny, Miss Claudia had stepped in.

“You’re not going to have the capacity for him, baby,” she’d said, folding me into her arms like she would with Benny. “Let me take care of him. ”

I tried to argue. I wanted him there, but she was right. My grief was an ocean. Benny didn’t need to drown in it.

So it was just me and Bree when we pulled up to the cemetery.

My teammates showed up. The whole first line.

Bishop brought Jaycee. Jones had his wife and kids in tow.

Antonov, Bonner, even Winstead and Chesney—all there.

Lexi handed me a handkerchief and said nothing.

Just squeezed my hand before moving back over to Jones.

Some of my mom’s old teaching colleagues came. A few of her former students. One of them told me how she used to write notes of encouragement on all his essays. Another said she was the first adult who’d ever told her she was good at something.

I stood there like a statue, nodding and smiling where I could, but the words kept swimming away. I didn’t know how to be gracious. I didn’t know how to be .

Bree did.

She worked that room with quiet strength.

Gently redirecting conversations when she saw me struggling.

Offering hugs, kind words, tissues. She remembered names.

Remembered to thank people for coming. When someone needed a direction to the post-service gathering, she pulled out the cards she’d printed and passed them out.

When I couldn’t bring myself to speak, she was my voice.

The funeral was beautiful. Quiet. Poignant.

There was a soloist who sang an old song from the ’70s, I think; it was one of my mom’s favorites.

“Carry On, Wayward Son.” How had Bree known to use that song?

My mom must’ve told her how much she’d loved it, and Bree being Bree, locked it away for just this purpose.

The song brought back so many memories of my mom singing along with it while correcting papers—the lyrics hit harder now.

More than ever. I crumpled somewhere around the third verse. Bree’s hand never left mine .

After the service, she drove us back to the house.

I didn’t even realize she had arranged for the caterer until I saw the spread being set up in the dining room.

People filtered in slowly. She floated through the rooms, politely refusing to let anyone overwhelm me. A buffer. A wall. A soft place to land.

Eventually, the people trickled out. The food was packed up. The wineglasses were rinsed and stacked by the sink. The lights dimmed.

And then it was just me and Bree.

I hadn’t said much all day. I didn’t know how. My throat felt like it had been scraped raw. My chest hurt from the effort of breathing.

And through it all, even when she deserved to take a break, she continued to stay vigilant, keeping up with what I needed.

Right now, what I needed was to be alone.

I sank down on the couch in the den. Mom’s childhood photos still lined the shelves.

A crocheted afghan lay draped over the arm of her favorite recliner.

I could smell her lavender lotion in the air. It crushed me.

When being alone no longer served me, Bree sat beside me. She didn’t say a word. Just leaned into me. I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face into the curve of her neck, and all of it—the sadness, the rage, the exhaustion—poured out of me.

I cried until my shoulders shook. Until I couldn’t see straight. Until I had nothing left.

Bree didn’t move.

She just held me.

And when my sobs finally quieted and my breathing slowed, she whispered, “I’ve got you, Baker.”

I didn’t have the words to tell her how much that meant to me.

But I held on tighter.

Because she was all I had left.