Page 33 of Mourner for Hire

TWENTY-SEVEN

DOMINIC

“I don’t have to be impossible.” The soft hue of green in her eyes is so mesmerizing I have to blink away. “We could play nice.”

“I am nice,” I argue.

“Used to be.” She smiles softly, her gaze keeping a gentle hold on me.

“My mom just died, Vada. Forgive me if I’m not shooting out rainbows. You have to understand why I’m struggling with this… with you.”

Her eyes drift to the dirt beneath her hiking boots, guilt washing over her expression.

“See? You know it’s weird. You know it’s not right. What you’re doing is just…” Anger fuels the words I want to say but restraint holds them in place.

“The cottage will be beautiful, I promise. And then I will leave. Okay?” She throws out her hands in surrender.

“I’m sure it will. But it won’t be my mom anymore.”

The ocean roaring in the distance swallows the silence until finally she says, “If you ever want to help, you can.”

I think for a moment. “I’d rather crash a funeral. ”

“Well, that can be arranged.” She explodes into what can only be describe as a fit of giggles.

“Is that funny?” I ask, but my jaw ticks to smile.

When she finally comes up for air, she tosses her hair over her shoulder and sighs.

“Yes, it was. You are actually quite funny, Dominic. You know, underneath all the—” she waves her index finger at me like a magic wand. “Layers,” she finishes with a snort.

A split, fleeting moment of remembrance rushes over me about the night we met—my desire to get to know her and the taste of her kiss.

It’s almost enough for me to bury the hatchet.

But then I force myself to remember why she’s here, and I choke down whatever reconciliation she was trying to conjure.

“Did you get my message earlier?” I ask, interrupting my childish antics.

She makes a rather dramatic roll of her eyes as she closes the mailbox and dusts off her hands.

“I did,” she says, with a sweet smile that in no way fits her actual personality. “I gave it a thumbs up.”

My nostrils flare. “That’s not a response.”

“What do you want me to say? No? Yes? You’re right, let’s argue?”

I clench my teeth and inhale deeply.

“Look, Dominic, paint whatever picture of me you want. Hang it on a wall, admire it, and get used to it. I have never lied to you. And if you don’t like me, fine.

You have no effect on my actual life, so I’m not going to let your opinion of me hurt my feelings.

” She grabs her backpack and slings it over her shoulder and buries her gaze in the ground.

“I’m not worried about your feelings, sweetheart. I’m worried about you being a bad influence on Lucy,” I argue. Though I’m not. Not really. I’m more concerned about her presence flipping my life upside down.

“You can’t stop me from ordering food, Dominic.”

“No, but you don’t need to be offering up your services so she has to trudge three miles on her bike to deliver you some fried prawns and cheddar biscuits.”

Her hand inadvertently touches her stomach.

“I know their food is good. Just—” I say tightly. “Just leave Lucy out of this.”

She steps forward, a soft flush blooming across her cheeks—the same delicate pink they wore the morning she woke on my chest, her long brown hair spilling over my shoulder all those months ago.

“Out of what?” She gestures between us. “There is nothing between us. No need for contact. Leave me alone.”

“Oh, see, but you are involved with me. You are living in my mother’s cottage, sifting through her pictures and her life that very much involves me. You’re stuck with me.”

“Ugh. I’d rather shit in my hands and clap.”

I snort out a laugh and clear my throat to cover it up.

“You know what I think, Dominic?”

I raise my eyebrows for her to continue.

“I think you either want to fuck me or kill me, and you can’t make up your mind so you’re trying to control every circumstance around me.”

Her bold take lacks diplomacy, but it still makes me laugh. “You really want to paint me out to be the psychopath.”

“Well.” She sweeps her hand in front of her as if to demonstrate that the accusation tracks.

She smiles at me, her lips dripping with poison that only seems to affect me.

“Vada…” I shake my head and let my gaze land on the ocean past the cliff.

“So do it. No one is up here. No one knows where I am.”

She steps closer. So close. I can smell her shampoo, and my hands twitch to pull her closer just as they have before.

She looks up at me doe-eyed and innocent. “No one will even hear me scream. ”

I lick my lips, restraining just about every part of my body that pumps blood.

She tilts her chin up, and her mouth relaxes to a soft smile. “I dare you.”

We hold our stare. I’m convinced if she kissed me right now, I’d let her. But I refuse to make the first move.

Just as I feel my face soften, she laughs.

“I don’t want to kill you, Vada.”

“Exactly what I thought.” She shakes her head and takes a step back.

“All bark, no bite. Actually… you’re a nice guy.

Angry, grieving, and pinning all of it on me because it’s convenient.

So go ahead, blame me. Make me your target.

I’ll take it if it helps. Because deep down, I still think you’re the man I met last year. ”

“No, that’s not—” I start, but stop myself. The truth is, I don’t want to be honest. I’m not a good man—not to her. And I don’t want to be. Because even though I know I could’ve fallen for her, something buried deep in my gut still doesn’t trust why she’s here.

Before I can say more, she waves a hand like she’s brushing me off. “We don’t like each other. I get it. It’s weird. But I’m legally stuck with this, and I made a promise to your mom. Who, by the way, is lovely—even if she’s... haunting…”

She mutters the last part, and I’m not sure I heard her right.

“She what?”

“Nothing.” She claps her hands against her thighs. “Ignore me, and I’ll ignore you.”

“Fine.” I cross my arms.

“Fine.” She exhales sharply.

I take a long breath.

“And I’m gone, I swear,” she adds, lifting her hands in mock surrender. Her attempt at a stare down is almost cute. I hate that.

“You look like you want to feed me to the coyotes.”

“They don’t like people.” I almost smile. Almost.

By the way she bites her lip, withholding a smile tells me she clocked my moment of weakness. She shifts her gaze to the dusty mountaintop and lowers her head as she walks past. I hate when she doesn’t look me in the eye. Her wild green eyes haunt me, and the need to see them again is maddening.

“Who were you talking to by the way?”

She freezes, twisting her face in confusion.

“On the way up,” I clarify. “I heard you talking to someone.”

Her cheeks flame, and her eyes go wide, but she answers. “My friend, Morgan.”

I take her in a moment. “Oh,” is all I say.

“On the phone,” she clarifies, pushing past me.

She almost makes it to the trailhead when I say, “There isn’t any service up here.”

I watch her swallow hard.

“You aren’t helping your case, Vada.”

“Oh, yeah, what case is that?”

“That you aren’t a lunatic.”

She chews on the inside of her cheek then clenches her jaw.

“Fine.” She pulls her backpack tighter. “I am crazy. A fucking lunatic. I set out to destroy you and take every bit of your legacy. I talk to ghosts and spend my Saturdays Ouija boarding… or whatever it’s called.”

I can’t help it. I toss my head back and laugh.

“Believe what you want, Dominic. But the more you beat this situation to a pulp, the more you insinuate about me and talk shit to all your friends, the more it tells me and everyone in this town that all you do is think about me.”

The last word falls off her tongue with a breathy threat and a painful shred of truth. Vada is always on my mind, no matter how much I want her gone.

She doesn’t wait for me to respond. But as she adjusts the pack on her shoulders, I notice something. A heart-shaped birthmark.

It looks eerily familiar.

A vague memory of a friendship surfaces. Nothing substantial. Sand castles and apple slices. Foot races and fighting over toys.

“I think I know you,” I whisper, just over a breath, but she doesn’t hear me.

She just disappears behind the pines.

Instead of returning to my apartment, I drive straight to Mom’s house. A SOLD sign hangs in the front yard.

The dumpster still sits in the driveway, due to be picked up next week.

It’s strange how much stuff doesn’t matter when a loved one dies.

I’ve spent the last two months cleaning out her house and prepping it for sale.

I have a box of her rooster collection that I have no idea what I’ll do with.

Joelle handled the garage sale, and I donated the money to the humane society under the name of our family dog, Darius Ruffker.

Don’t ask. All our dogs had names that were a play on famous people’s names.

Drew Barkermore.

Hairyson Ford.

Darius was our last family dog. He died when I was in high school. Mom and Dad were too sad to get another, and quite frankly, I wasn’t around anymore to convince them.

The red door squeaks as I step inside the house.

I used to hear my mom in the kitchen singing, and the smell of cinnamon sugar would fill the air.

Now it just smells like Windex and Pine-Sol.

The carpet is new, and there’s a fresh coat of beige paint, ready for the next family to make their very own imprint on a fresh canvas.

We sorted through so much of the house before Mom died. She didn’t want to leave me with “a mess.” But the problem with that is that everything after her death felt transactional. The reading of the will. The funeral plans. Deciding what I should keep and what I should sell.

The only box left is my memory box, and my realtor left it on the kitchen counter for me to pick up, along with a beer and a note .

Make one final memory. Sorry for your loss.

I crack open the beer and take the box out to the back deck.

The air is crisp yet warm, and the maple trees are turning a burning shade of orange.

I take in the yard one last time. I grew up here.

I learned to climb trees and ride bikes.

I studied for tests at the kitchen table and had my first kiss in the driveway.

And now, it’s been reduced to a single box.

It’s filled with trophies, medals, and random artwork from over the years.

There are several math journals and my science project from eighth grade—a diorama of the digestive system made with toilet paper rolls and balloons.

At the bottom are class photos from kindergarten through sixth grade.

One with my dad when I was ten, and another with my mom at my high school graduation.

I’m grateful for the photographs. There weren’t many at the house, so these may be all I have left.

I used to hate when Mom would take pictures, as many grumpy adolescents do.

It seemed so wasteful and unnecessary. Obnoxious, even.

I didn’t realize how much pictures mattered until they were all I had left.

There’s another Kodak print on the bottom of the box, and I pull it out. It’s me, probably in first grade, holding a knife, aggressively stabbing a pumpkin I’m supposedly carving. Next to me is a little girl, her head tossed back in laughter. A tidal wave of recollection hits me.

I turn over the picture.

Vada & Dominic, age 7

I sigh. The ache of old memories pulsing to the surface.

Yep. I do remember her. The more I linger in that realization, the more memories seem to surface. Carving pumpkins, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the beach. I have a vague recollection of her obsession with caterpillars and apples.

But the realization doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it just frustrates me more.