Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
“Before they depart for the cemetery, I’m going to head back to your apartment with Joy and your brother. There’s no sense in dragging her to the cemetery in this heat. Dad’s going to stay by your side and drive you home. Unless you’d rather go to that lunch her other friend is hosting.”
At the mention of my father, my eyes went searching for him. It took a second to locate Lester Cain standing near the doorway, talking to one of Molly’s uncles. A year had passed since I’d last seen them both thanks to a hectic work schedule that had made it impossible to get out to Arizona. He was still the same lean, tall man with a friendly, open face. It seemed as if more of his brown hair had gone gray in the past year. He was getting older. Both of my parents were.
I shook my head, knocking that errant thought away. Sitting in a funeral home at my best friend’s funeral was drudging up all kinds of dark thoughts. I forced my brain to what my mom had been saying. “No. I spoke to Violet already and thanked her for putting the lunch together. She understands I need to focus on Joy. I want to go straight home after the cemetery.”
Violet was a lovely older woman who was a close friend of Molly’s at work. She was handling the reception after the funeral for Molly’s parents and her friends.
Joy shifted in my arms, and all my attention zipped to the tiny girl sleeping with her head on my shoulder. Her little red bow lips smacked and moved. The tip of her tongue poked out and then retreated as she settled into a deep sleep. In the span of a few days, things that had felt awkward were becoming second nature. Holding her was easier. I could change a diaper in the blink of an eye now. I was even learning the tenor of her cries, though all of them still sent a shaft of fear through me as I worried that I’d messed something up without realizing it.
But each time, she just needed a fresh diaper, a bottle, or to be held. All things I could do with ease.
I’d barely gotten Joy settled in my arms when the line to the casket ended and the local nondenominational pastor the funeral home had arranged for us came up to speak. Molly wasn’t religious and hadn’t gone to any specific church, but her parents wanted some religious leader to step up to say a few comforting words. I’d spent an hour talking to him the previous day about Molly, spilling out hundreds of wonderful memories. Her parents had done the same after they’d arrived from Arizona.
But now that I was listening to him regurgitate all these things I’d said, anger boiled up inside me. I wanted all my words and memories back. I didn’t want to share them with anyone because it felt like I was letting my best friend go. And I didn’t want to let her go. She needed to return to me so we could go on our stupid adventures and have more of our weekend chat sessions over good cheese and cheap beer. Only now they were going to include Joy. We were going to show Joy all the fun things we loved about this city and all the things we loved to eat and do.
How was I supposed to do these things now without Molly?
Tears slipped down my cheeks faster and faster. I tried to wipe them away, to keep them from raining on Joy, but it wasn’t easy to do while holding her. My mom reached across and swiped my cheeks with her tissue. My dad had shown up while I wasn’t paying attention and wrapped a supportive arm around my shoulders.
I looked up at them, and they appeared to be as heartbroken as I was. They’d known Molly for years, too. She’d been a regular fixture in our house throughout my childhood. We’d had her and her family to our house for cookouts and Christmas parties. She’d sat next to me, holding my hand tight enough to nearly snap my fingers, as I came out to my parents.
How was I supposed to let go?
Joy shifted in my arms, her tiny hand coming up to graze my chin, as if she were trying to say that it was going to be all right. That she was there for me. My little piece of Molly.
The funeral was way too long, and yet it was finished in a flash. My mom and Jack took Joy to my apartment while my father and I roasted in the scorching August sun as we stood in the cemetery and laid Molly to rest. I was grateful he was there to drive me to my apartment, because I couldn’t focus on anything. My mind wandered in a hundred different directions, from lists of things I needed to get settled prior to returning to work to when Joy’s diaper had last been changed to whether I had anything in the fridge for dinner.