Somehow, no matter where I’d hidden, I had always been in his way.
“You didn’t even pay for Mom to have a funeral. That’s why I hate you most. You didn’t let me say goodbye.”
I let my head fall back against the metal frame of the chair, staring up at the ceiling. I couldn’t accuse him of stealing my inheritance from her. No, he’d scrupulously saved every penny, using only what he needed to take care of me. He’d kept a log of every dime he’d spent on me, every meal and pack of underoos, and taken it from Mom’s insurance payout.
There was a soft clearing of someone’s throat behind me, and I snapped my head up, turning to look at the door again. Mr. Emery, one of the owners of the funeral home.
“Time’s up?” I asked, trying to keep the wry smile off my lips. The guy was just following his own rules, after all, and it wasn’t like I was serving a purpose, sitting there talking smack to my father’s ashes.
He offered me a soft smile. “Did you need more time?”
Did I? I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve had more than enough of him to last a lifetime.”
He nodded, more like a bashful duck of his head, as he came up the center aisle to retrieve the box of ashes for me. He was biting his lip when he turned around to hand them off. “It’s not something we do here, but I have a friend who sometimes does memorial services for people. Later on.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I hadn’t put off a service for Dad because I wasn’t ready—I wasn’t ever going to pay money to have someone say nice things about the dead bastard—but then I realized what he meant. He’d heard me talking about Mom.
I almost dismissed it anyway. The insurance money from Mom’s death was long gone, and I’d spent most of Dad’s on his medical bills and this travesty of a funeral. The rest of it was going to cleaning out his apartment.
Still . . .
“Do you have a card?”
He set the box of ashes back on the pedestal and pulled a card out of his suit, flipping it over and writing on the back of it. “Her name is Aliyah. I think you’d like her. Very no-nonsense.”
It was my turn to duck my head. “Sorry. About, ah, that.”
He waved it away. “Don’t think for a second that was the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Not even the worst today. Relationships don’t stop being complicated just because one of the people in them dies.”
I tucked the card into my jacket pocket and took the box of ashes from him when he held it out. “Thank you. For everything.”
“It’s what we’re here for.”
He walked with me out into the central hall, where people were gathering for a different service. A real one, I supposed, where the dead person had friends and family who would miss them.
Before he turned to join the people at that service, he stopped next to me. “You were a good son.”
For the first time since my father’s cancer diagnosis, I felt my eyes prickle, hot with unshed tears. He couldn’t know that. I’d told the man I hated him at his own funeral. The closest thing my father would get to a eulogy was me whining about how I hated him, and here was this near stranger assuring me I was a good son.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said with a secretive smile. “But you paid for it. And you showed up.”
It felt like the bare minimum, but in the moment, I decided to accept it. Needed to accept it, maybe. I inclined my head to him. “Thank you.”
I turned and stepped out the front door into the chill fall wind, and any threat of tears dried.
For a moment, I stood there on the curb, eyes squeezed shut and breathing deep. The chirp of a car alarm grabbed my attention, and I opened my eyes in time to see—and dodge—the man with the key fob in his hand, looking back at his car instead of forward at me. He stopped with one foot on the curb and one in midair, comically windmilling his arms for a second before he caught his balance.
He glanced down at the box in my arms and his eyes went wide. “Oh gods, am I late? Lilly Adler?”