A Beautiful Funeral (The Maddox Brothers #5) - Jamie McGuire Page 0,93
crinkled as he unfolded the words he’d written down just days after I’d left him. It was full of eraser marks, pencil smudges, and dried tears.
“Dad.” He sighed. “When I sat down to write this letter, I tried to think about the many moments you were a good dad, and the hundreds of times we laughed or that just stuck out to me, but all I can think about … is that I’m so sad that you’re gone and how much I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss your advice. You knew everything about everything, and you always knew the right words to say—whether I was hurting or trying to make a decision. Even when I was making the wrong one. You never”—he shook his head and pressed his lips together, trying to hold in his tears—“judged us. You accepted and loved us for who we were, even when who we were was hard to love. And you were that way to everyone. Our wives called you dad, and it was real to them. Olive … called you Papa, and she meant it, and I’m glad to know that wherever you are, you’re together. I’m going to miss you telling stories about Mom. I felt closer to her no matter how many years passed by because when you talked about her, you talked like she was still here. I’m glad you can finally be with her again. I’m going to miss so many things about you, Dad. I couldn’t name them all. But we’re all lucky that we had you for the time that we did. Everyone who crossed your path was better for it, and they were forever changed. And now, we’ll be forever changed because you’re gone.”
“Stay out of the street,” Thomas said to his identical younger brothers.
The twins’ toy fire engines were flying four feet above the sidewalk two blocks from our house, intermittently crashing into each other without spinning out of control into space. Trenton’s tiny hand was in mine as he waddled next to me, his diaper crinkling as he walked, even under corduroy pants and pajama leggings. He was bundled up like an Eskimo baby, his nose and cheeks red from the icy wind. Thomas herded the twins back to the center of the sidewalk, shoving Taylor’s knit cap down over his ears.
I zipped up my coat, shivering under three layers, wondering how Diane was so happily dragging me along by the hand in just a stretched-out sweater and acid-wash maternity jeans. Her puffy nose was red, but she insisted she was on the brink of sweating.
“It’s just the next street!” she said, encouraging the boys not to stop in front of us.
“Trenton, I can’t see you when you’re just below me, so if you stop in front of Mommy, we’ll both go down with the ship,” she said, shooing him with her hands. “There!” she said, pointing at a long driveway. “Thirty-seven hundred! Can you believe it?”
A practically new conversion van sat with a For Sale sign in the front windshield; its red paint barely visible under three feet of snow.
I gulped. Our current van that barely fit our family of six still wasn’t paid off. “It looks new. Are you sure that’s the right price?”
She clapped her hands. “I know! It’s like Heaven just plopped it right in front of us!”
Her perfect smile and the deep dimple in her left cheek melted me every time, making it impossible to tell her anything but yes. “Well, let’s get their number, and I’ll make an appointment to take it for a test drive.”
Diane clapped her hands once, holding them at her chest. “Really?”
I shook my head once. “If it’s what you want.”
She jumped, and then held her belly, looking down. “See? Didn’t I tell you? Everything is going to be all right, little T.”
“Mommy,” Trenton said, tugging on her jeans.
Diane slowly maneuvered her body to kneel, always sure to get eye-level with whichever son wanted her attention. Trenton was holding her index finger, and she lifted it to her mouth, kissing his pudgy hand. “Yes, sir?”
“I like the car.”
“You like the car?” she asked. She looked up at me. “Hear that, Daddy? Trenton wants the car.”
“Then we have to get the car,” I said, shrugging.
Trenton and Diane flashed matching smiles with matching dimples.
“Did you hear that?” she squealed. “Daddy’s going to get you the car! Good choice, Trenton!”
Trenton threw his arms around his mom’s neck and squeezed. “Love you, Mommy.”