Jacked (48 page)

DECORATIVE VICTORIAN LAMPS
hung from the statuesque pillars outside Baylor Funeral Home, illuminating the evening sky with a soft, ethereal glow. It was as if they were trying to soften the dread building in my stomach with a false sense of serenity.

Adam backed his truck into a spot at the edge of the parking lot near a sedan I didn’t recognize, but directly in front of us next to the walkway was my dad’s current dealership car. I stared at the
Novak Ford
emblem instead of the other apparitions violently swirling about in my thoughts.

I felt Adam’s gaze. “You okay?”

My heart swelled even more, taking in the breathtaking sight of him dressed up in a new suit and tie. I brushed my fingertips over his freshly shaven jaw. His familiar cologne scented the air, wrapping me in a sensually comforting cocoon. I was so glad he was here with me, just like he had promised. “You are so handsome, and you smell really good, too.”

Adam’s smile warmed me. “Glad you like it. I couldn’t decide between Smelly Garbage or Wet Dog. I went with Wet Dog.”

I burst out laughing. “That’s from, from, from Monsters, Inc., right?”

He winked at me. “Figured I’d be meeting your family tonight, so I thought I should smell it up.”

I snorted. “That’s funny, Cop.”

“You know once you name it you’ll start getting attached to it.”

My belly actually started to hurt, but in a good way. “Is that your favorite movie?”

Adam shrugged. “One of them.”

“I love that movie too, although
The Incredibles
is still my favorite. ‘I never look back, darling, it distracts from the now’.” I took a few sobering breaths after our mutual laugh. “You’re going to meet my family at a viewing. My mother is never going to forgive me.”

He captured my hand and pressed it to his lips. “You worry too much.”

As soon as he released me, he gently nudged my elbow so he could get into his center console. I watched him pluck several tissues out of a box, fold them, and slip them into his suit pocket. The console lid fell back in place with a thud. “Ready?”

My chest felt heavy as I nodded. There was no delaying the inevitable.

Adam held my hand as we ascended the five steps up to the front entryway. I tugged my black skirt into place.

“You look beautiful,” he said, pausing to kiss my cheek before opening the ornate door.

I can do this
, I chanted silently, taking his warm hand in mine.

“You lead,” Adam murmured, though he never wavered from my side.

I signed my name in the guest book resting on the podium next to a lavish floral arrangement. The sickly sweet scent from the roses perfumed the air, churning my stomach from their attempts to disguise the smell of embalming fluid. Adam swallowed noticeably when I handed the pen to him. He hesitated, nodded once, and then signed his name under mine.

Even though we were fifteen minutes early, a line had already formed. Several people held conversations; a few hugged and rubbed hands over backs in solidarity. I spotted my sister, Kate, wiping a tear from her eye as she chatted with some friends of the family.

She looked thinner, as though her inner mourning had wilted her somehow. The moment she spotted me, she politely excused herself and rushed over to me. I pulled my sister into my arms, feeling her sadness mirroring my own.

“Oh, E.” She sniffled on my neck.

I squeezed her harder, wishing I could take on her pain, too. My baby sister had endured enough obstacles in her life; she didn’t need any more. “I know, hon.” I swept Kate’s blonde hair back so I wouldn’t cry on it. That’s when I noticed three distinct black and blue marks in a vertical line up her neck.

“What are these? What happened?”

Kate quickly backed away and covered her neck. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she dismissed. “Struggled with ah… an animal… a dog during labs.”

“A dog?”

Kate nodded and scanned the growing line of mourners. “He was a handful. Got me good.”

Her feigned disinterest was what gave her away. I hated pretenses, especially from her. I glanced around, trying to spot her current boyfriend, the one that made me tense up the moment I met him. “Is Prick here with you?”

“Prick?” Adam questioned.

Kate flit her eyes, incensed. “His name is Nick.”

My sister may be brilliant veterinarian in training but she was a lousy actress and a worse liar than I was. “And no, he’s not. He, um, has a paper due. I drove up by myself this morning.”

My sadness turned to angered disappointment hearing that her boyfriend couldn’t adjust his own agenda to support her. I reached for her shoulder. “Kate.”

She brushed me of and fixed her silk scarf so it would cover her neck, and then wiped under her eyes. “I’m serious. Stop looking at me like that. It was a dog. Mom’s been waiting for you to get here. She’s a mess. They had Aunt Karen cremated and put her remains in with Uncle Cal’s body.” She shivered and then became entranced by Adam.

“Kate, this is my… Adam. Adam, my sister, Kate.”

Adam offered his hand and a warm smile. “Nice to meet you, Kate. I’m her Adam.”

Kate smiled shyly, letting her long bangs drop over the scar that ran from her temple to her cheek. Her coping mechanism instantly reminded me of my failures.

“Nice to meet you, Erin’s Adam.” She eyed me speculatively. “I didn’t know you had an Adam, sis.”

I hadn’t told anyone I was dating him; why set false hope? “I just got him a couple of days ago.”

Her eyebrows rose.

I went for distracted levity. “Macy’s was having a sale.”

Adam laughed lightly and recaptured my hand in his.

Kate’s eyes followed his gesture, her smile wavering. “And you didn’t get one for me? Lousy sister.”

“I was the floor model. She got a discount,” Adam joked.

It almost felt sacrilegious to be sharing a small laugh at a funeral.

Kate scanned him from head to toe. I could read her mind as clearly as my own. “I’d say she got quite a bargain. Have Mom and Dad met your Adam yet?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

Kate gazed up at him again. “And you’re meeting our parents for the first time at a funeral?”

Adam shrugged and gave me his attention. “Seems so.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any single brothers, or do I have to run to Macy’s?”

Adam squeezed my fingers. “I’ve got three single brothers, actually.”

“Three?” she said, her voice etched with hope.

I don’t think she was expecting that answer. “I can’t let Nick ever know that.” Her hand shook a bit, reaching back up to fuss with her scarf.

I immediately started cataloging her appearance and outward symptoms. I hadn’t seen her in a few months, but she surely would have told Mom if she’d had another seizure. “Have you been feeling okay?”

“Huh? Um, yeah. Yeah,” she stammered and then blanched that I’d even ask.

I caught Adam scrutinizing her too, though I suppose there were detectives ingrained in both of us. I could see our concern was making her uncomfortable. She was retreating into her own protective bubble. I was used to it, as it was a trait we both shared. Adam, however, was surely questioning my sister’s demeanor.

“Mom will want to know you’re here.”

“Maybe we should get in line,” Adam suggested, motioning with his head.

“I’ll see you in there then,” Kate murmured. “It was nice meeting you, Adam.” She quickly leaned in to kiss me on the cheek, barely making eye contact with Adam as she hurried back through the pillared threshold.

Adam was quite cordial and charismatic as we made small talk with the older couple in front of us. It was easier to distract myself that way then to watch my mom sitting front and center across from Uncle Cal’s open casket, weeping.

The burn in my throat was becoming unmanageable.

Adam put his arm around my shoulders and turned me so I was facing the heavy floral draperies instead.

I took a calming breath when I felt his lips press into my forehead.

“Thank you for being here.”

He leaned his ear closer. “Sorry. What?”

I looked into his eyes, hoping with every fiber of my soul that his sweetness wasn’t just a cruel ruse. “Thank you for being here.”

His receptive smile warmed me but then it quickly faltered. “No problem.”

I leaned into him and chewed on my thumbnail, wishing I could disappear into the protectiveness of his broad chest.

Adam shuffled us forward a few steps and pulled my hand from my mouth, holding me firmly by the wrist. “You keep gnawing like that you’re going to make yourself bleed.”

But I was frustrated and bordering on emotional overload. “There’s something fundamentally wrong with how we parade ourselves past the dead like this.”

“I know,” Adam murmured and rubbed my shoulder. “It’s all about closure. Sometimes it’s just not enough.”

I studied everything while trying not to focus on the gleaming black casket adorned with an abundant spray of red and white roses. As soon as I spotted it, the ripping sorrow came back with renewed force.

I got that we needed to have closure; we need to have that final moment where denial and anger turns into acceptance, but for many, including myself, this experience was like pouring acid into the gaping wound.

Adam nudged me again to move us along.

I held my breath and the urge to sob, taking my moment to say my final goodbyes to a man who’d been like a second father to me.

I touched his graying hair, feeling how cold and still he was beneath my fingertips. How many deaths I’d witnessed in the ER, never allowing my mind to go beyond the clinical to the aftermath. “I’ll miss you. Watch over us, Uncle Cal. No more suffering.” I reached to touch his exposed hand; that’s when I noticed the slender, ornately carved wooden box clutched to his chest.

He was holding my Aunt Karen’s remains next to his heart.

My stoic façade crumbled, taking my knees out with it. Adam seized me around my waist, supporting me with his strength. He, too, was becoming emotional, appearing both extremely sorrowful and yet somehow resolved.

As I stepped into my mom’s embrace, I thought I heard Adam say, “I’m sorry we failed you.” I thought he was greeting my father, so I was surprised to see his head bowed, gripping the edge of my uncle’s casket.

I WAS LOST
in my thoughts while the miles of highway clicked by; the streetlights’ glow fractured by layers of growing fog hovering in the dark sky. I presumed Adam could sense I was in no mood to converse; I gathered he wasn’t either. We’d exchanged a few glances but that had been the extent of it since we left the funeral home.

My parents had accepted Adam with open arms, which I knew they would. His presence actually provided a wonderful buffer, giving my mother not only a reason to smile but a renewed sense of hope that all was not lost with the love life of her eldest daughter. While he’d been open and receptive to meeting a good portion of my extended family, Adam had been in his own sullen mood, making me worry that maybe this was too much on our new relationship.

He didn’t seem to appreciate being introduced as my
friend
, either, frowning or doing a small eye-roll each time, but I didn’t know if he’d run for the hills if I started to publicly refer to him as my boyfriend. Men were so fickle and I was used to walking on eggshells. The combination made me leery to place a label on us. After all, every guy I’d dated in college who just wanted to “chill” or “hang out” really meant they wanted a label-free relationship with a clean exit strategy. And Doctor Randy Mason had been the last grand reminder that even months of sex did not equal a future.

I’d mentally cataloged every one of my relationship mistakes, adding each new discovery to my list of “do not repeat.”

“Your parents are great,” Adam said, breaking our comfortable silence.

I was relieved to know he felt that way, considering that meeting the parents was usually the beginning of the end. Mentioning them meant it was in the forefront of his mind, which in itself was instantly alarming. It was one thing to be a teenager meeting your girlfriend’s parents. It didn’t have the same underlying meaning of the possibility of a future and/or marriage intentions like meeting the parents of your thirty-year-old girlfriend did.

I glanced over at him, diagnosing just how long this new relationship had before expiring from the acute stress of growth. “Thanks. Sorry my dad talked your ear off.”

Adam smiled. “He’s a nice guy. I actually learned a few things from him tonight.”

“Oh?”
Oh God! What did my dad tell him?
They were locked in conversation toward the end of the night for over an hour. Did he tell Adam about my past? I was afraid to ask.

He glanced over. “Well, beyond hearing that you once thought a Ford Mustang was a horse and your favorite color growing up was hot pink? Yeah, we had a great chat. He’s really easy to talk to.”

I held my breath.

While Adam recapped his conversation about anti-theft devices in new cars, my heart pounded like a bass drum in my throat. My dad was a car guy through and through, which, much to my relief, melded perfectly with my auto theft detective. But did my father share too much? My family never talked about my arrest anymore; it had become taboo to dredge it back up, just like we never talked about Kate’s accident. If we didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t happen.