Page 53

ALANA

Funerals suck.

There are no words available to change the narrative. No long, sweeping descriptions of the flowers that make the landscape pretty, or the birds singing in the trees. Not the rolling green lawns, or the cool breeze that keeps us comfortable under the warm sun.

Funerals do, in fact, suck.

Even the funeral for the woman who made my life a living hell, tormenting my every inner thought, squashing each moment of hope I was foolish enough to conjure, criticizing what I thought were achievements and highlighting my poorer choices, not so I would learn from them, but so I could be shamed for them.

My mother seemed to take great joy in holding me down when all I ever wanted was to rise up.

Perhaps worse, she knew what happened to me ten years ago. I confided in her the moment I stumbled home. Begged for her help. I pleaded for her understanding and asked for guidance on what I should do next. But in the end, I was met with a sneer and cold derision.

Statements like, ‘ This is what happens when nice girls dress like sluts, ’ and ‘ We knew this day would come when you insisted on spending time with the Watkins trash .’

The Watkins boys weren’t trash. Not then, and not now.

And I wasn’t dressed like a slut. I was wearing my prom dress .

Though, as an adult, I know now my clothing choices never mattered at all.

Instead of helping me, my mother shamed me. And instead of explaining the options I had, she focused only on how stupid I was to drink underage.

God, how her words play on repeat in my mind. How she had a chance to change my life for the better, but chose to stand on my throat instead.

But she’s gone now, and though my stomach turns with sorrow and my heart aches with contradiction, tears flow from my eyes.

Because a girl wants her mom. She wants the reassurance most others receive freely.

She wants the comfort of a mother’s bosom to rest on and sweet words of love whispered in the dark.

Those are the same words I offer my son when he’s afraid. Or lonely. Or merely bored.

“She wasn’t perfect.” I read the eulogy I prepared, sniffling and wiping the moisture from beneath my nose.

“I’m not sure she knew how to be the mom I needed, and I think that’s because she didn’t love herself the way she needed.

But today, and into the future, I choose not to focus on what I didn’t have and, instead, focus on what I did.

I had a mom who was present every single day of my first eighteen years of life.

I had a mom who helped in the school cafeteria and a mom who bought craft supplies so I could complete every assignment asked of me.

I had the mom who made sure my clothes were clean and pressed, shoes that shone, and schoolbooks I could always rely on. ”

I pause and search the crowd for familiar faces.

“She struggled after my dad left, and I know, sometimes, I romanticized the memories I had of him. I imagined him riding his motorcycle along the California coast, enjoying his life of freedom and excitement. I know I hurt my mom when I whined about how she was lacking, and yet placed him on a pedestal like he was a kind of celebrity worthy of praise. The impact of my views—of him and of her—was not something I could comprehend back then, when all I could focus on was bubbling teen resentment and a yearning for things I never had. But I know one thing for sure.” I lower my page and glance up at the hundreds of mourners who spread across the cemetery.

Wet eyes and noisy sniffles. Too many faces; I can’t even place them all.

Drawing a deep breath and folding my paper, I allow forgiveness to slide into my heart.

Acceptance.

“She stayed,” I declare .

Franky’s sweet little hand wraps around mine. He stands in front of a sea of eyes, his actual worst nightmare, but he does it for me.

Inspired by his bravery, I wipe my nose and paste on my best smile.

“My mom deserved more credit than I ever gave her. Because while he was traveling the world, ignoring his responsibilities and garnering some illogical, immature benefit of the doubt in a teen’s mind, she stayed and did the actual work.

So, Mom,” I drag my gaze to her casket. “Thank you. You did your best, even though you didn’t have to. ”

With a shuddering breath and a newfound resolve bolstered by Franky’s hand, I take a step back and signal for the funeral director to continue his work: he reads a passage from the bible. Or maybe two or three. He plays a song. Reads some more.

I pay little attention to most of it. But I take comfort in my son on my right and Tommy freakin’ Watkins on my left.

He proves, once again, how pure and unconditional his love remains.

I broke his heart and destroyed our future, and even now, with nothing promised besides ‘in a few days, I’ll tell you to move on again’, his support remains absolute. His adoration, pure. His strength, unwavering.

He leans closer while the funeral director lowers my mother into the ground, his aftershave settling in the base of my lungs, providing a nice distraction from the rich perfume of flowers.

Freshly cut grass. Pollen in the air. All of which make my sensitive stomach tumble with nausea. “You holding up okay?”

I’m not sure I have words, so I chew on my trembling lips and nod.

“You need to sit down?”

I shake my head.

He drapes his arm over my back anyway, not to hug, though it may appear that way to those who watch on. He takes my weight and makes it so I’m barely standing of my own accord at all.

“You ready for the long line of I’m sorrys ?” he murmurs. “They’re about to begin.”

I choke out what I think is half sob, half smile.

And because I can, because I feel safe enough in his arms, I lean against his chest and find comfort in the constant beat of his heart.

The rhythmic bass. The gentle thrum that remains consistent as the line starts and mourners say the things expected at a funeral.

I’m sorry.

Thank you.

So sorry for your loss .

Thank you.

She’ll be missed.

She will. Thank you.

Touching eulogy.

Thank you.

She would be proud of you.

Not sure she was capable. But thank you for saying nice things.

For a hundred or more faces, the tone remains the same. Muttered words, soft appreciation, and then they move along to make room for the next. It’s a production even the least experienced know how to fulfill. Expectations are put upon those who live, on behalf of the one who died.

In my case, I doubt the one who died even likes half of the people here, and I’m certain half of those here feel the same for her in return.

I allow myself to slide into a comfortable, meditation-like state.

Nodding. Cheek kisses. Hugs, when I must. Fake platitudes and promises to catch up soon , though everyone knows we lie.

But when Tommy’s pulse scatters, I wake again.

When his heart pounds and his hold turns to iron, adrenaline spikes in my blood and brings me charging back to reality.

Tommy’s hands bruise my skin, holding me close and allowing me no space for freedom, but it’s not until Chris shoves nearer, his broad form shielding Franky’s and his shoulder almost touching mine, that I realize what I so stupidly allowed to approach.

If I was paying better attention, I could have prevented it.

Maybe.

I don’t know.

Nausea spears through my stomach and up to touch the base of my throat when Grady Watkins steps forward. With dancing eyes and lips curled into a disgusting smile, he stops in front of me just as everyone did before him, but unlike those who know to pretend to be sad, he practically does a jig.

Tommy’s father. Returned from what I was so hopeful was the seventh circle of Hell.

His grin is rotten, his teeth chipped. His lips are thin, crooked, and taunting as he leans forward and attempts to take my hand.

But before Tommy has a chance to smack the prick away, that strength I discovered when I became a mother comes rocketing back into my blood.

I have a son to protect now, and before him, I was a child, tending to broken boys and the wounds this piece of shit inflicted upon them.

Franky will witness my ferocious wrath long before he becomes a victim to Grady Watkins’ existence.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Tommy snarls, mistaking my trembling hands for fear instead of anger. My racing breath for nerves and not rage. He steps in front of me, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother, but a foot of space remains for me to see the vermin and his date through.

The woman on his arm is not even Pamela, Chris and Tommy’s mother. Just some other toothless mole. Sickly thin, jittery, and too far gone to the perils of a hard life and poor choices.

Whether she knows this family’s history, or even cares, remains unknown, but when she stupidly reaches through the gap to touch my son, I slap her hand away with a sharp crack that reverberates through the cemetery.

“Don’t touch him.” I yank Franky around and place him behind my back for safekeeping. But when I feel him being pulled away, panic lances through my blood until I spin and find Fox’s hand holding his.

Panic makes way for relief. But relief only lasts until I meet her eyes and remember she knows everything. She knows my childhood. My teen years. She knows all there is to know about Plainview and the Watkins family and the reason I left this town ten years ago.

She knows it all , including the role Grady Watkins played in the most important years of my life.

And I think, most importantly, she knows I’m not that child anymore, defenseless and scared.

She knows the murder I’ve prevented for a decade already, the one I was terrified Tommy would commit, may eventuate today.

But I’ll be the one who faces a jury of twelve when it’s all done.

“Come on.” She gently tugs Franky backward. “We’re leaving.”

“Mom!” Franky fights against her hold, reaching out and grabbing my wrist. “Come with us, Mommy.”

For a single moment, just a blip in the enormity of my life, Grady’s hand stops on my hip. I feel him in the way my blood cools. In the way my pulse skitters, and my stomach rebels.

But Tommy wrenches the parasite away, grabbing him by the collar and lifting him an inch off the grass. “The fuck are you doing here? You had no right to intrude.”

“Mom!” Franky demands, his eyes glittering with terror and, worse, knowledge. Because New York-me never lied to him. “You need to come with us! Now.”

“I suggest you take your hands off me, boy.” Grady’s voice has visited me in my nightmares for a decade. The lisp his dental hygiene creates, an added detail to join those I’ve obsessed on for three decades. “You forget respect since I was last in town?”

“Respect?” Tommy laughs. But the sound is anything but kind. “Motherfucker, the only thing you deserve is my boot down your throat.”

“Mom!”

Decided, I loop my left hand around Tommy’s belt, so when Fox tugs Franky, and Franky tugs me, I pull Tommy until he releases his father. Then I turn and walk, sucking fresh oxygen into my lungs and swallowing the nausea clawing mercilessly along my throat.

Chris follows without hesitation, leaving his father behind and creating a long line of no fucking chance are we dealing with this shit today.

And because Eliza is a good girl beneath the fire, she steps in the way, closing ranks beside Ollie and Raquel, and stopping Grady and his taunting laugh from following us.

“Wait, don’t leave!” He calls out. “Tommy! Don’t you want to spend time with your dear old dad?”

Tommy changes our grip and speeds his steps, walking with me instead of forcing me to drag him along, and whether it’s a newfound maturity or a desire to protect me from an inevitable explosion, he controls his temper in a way that leaves me breathless.

“Okay, so we’ll just see you at Darlene’s, then?” Grady waves in my peripherals. Is he truly so delusional? Is it the drugs? Entitlement? Has he forgotten?

“God.” Disgust spreads throughout my stomach the way oil spreads on a smooth surface.

Difficult to contain and all but impossible to clean up.

Sweat beads on my brow as a million memories come sprinting back to the forefront of my mind, and with them, stars dance in my vision.

The darkness wants to take me. To flatten me.

To put me face-first on the grass and leave me vulnerable the way I have been in the past.

But when my knees shake, and my steps falter, Tommy catches me, dragging me close until I’m not sure I’m walking at all. Gliding, perhaps. Flying, but with my feet barely skimming the ground.

“We’re definitely not going to Darlene’s.” Eliza leaves Grady behind and jogs to my car, yanking the back door open and nodding when Chris climbs in first, and Franky follows right after.

Fox folds in third while Tommy walks me all the way to my door.

But he doesn’t open it yet. He doesn’t shove me inside.

“Hey?” He grabs my jaw, pulling my face around and forcing me to look into his eyes. “Take a breath, Lana. You look like you’re about to fall on your ass.”

“Why is he here?” I try to turn. To search for the filth in the sea of faces. Was it only moments ago I held disdain for the false pretense and faked kindness? Did I seriously judge them so harshly when the likes of Grady Watkins exists? “I thought he moved away. My mom said?—”

“He did.” He strokes the underside of my jaw. “Haven’t seen him in years. Are you…” He frowns. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t want to go to Darlene’s.” I step out of his steely grip and search for my son. His hand isn’t in mine. His little arm isn’t draped across my back. “Franky?”

“He’s with Chris and Fox. Hey?” He jerks me back around. “You need to take a fuckin’ breath. Why are you freaking out?”

Fox climbs out of my car and glares across the top. “Get in.”

“Alana—”

“Let’s go!” She slaps the roof. “Now.”