“Get back in the car, Mother,” I say. I make a hasty motion with my hand.
“This is no way to treat your mother,” she says. Some of the sweetness has left her voice, but the mask isn’t coming off. Not yet, anyway.
“Mother,” I warn with a growl.
She heaves a sigh. “I just wanted to pay my respects,” she says again.
“Send a card,” I say.
She looks across the cemetery toward the grave, and her eyes narrow. “Are those the children?” she asks. Her face puckers as though she smells something bad.
“No,” I say.
“Then be a dear and tell me which ones they are, darling,” she says. “I want to meet them.”
“No,” I bite out.
“Rachel,” my father clips out as he quickly strides toward us.
“Oh, hello,” Mom chirps.
“Get in the car, Rachel,” he says. He takes my mother by the elbow and shoves her inside.
“But,” she sputters. He closes the back door on her and addresses her driver, who stands at attention near the car.
“Drive,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” the man replies, and he slides into the driver’s seat.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Dad says. “I need to get her out of here,” he explains.
I nod. “Why did she even come here?” I ask more to myself than to him.
“Because she is not in control of this part of my life,” he grinds out.
I look up at Dad. “Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you hadn’t married Mother?” I blurt out. No idea where that came from.
He presses his lips to my forehead really quickly. “Never, because then I wouldn’t have you.”
My gut clenches, and my head spins. “What?”
“Skylar, I love you,” he says. Then he slides in the car with Mother, and they pull out of the cemetery. I watch until their taillights fade in the distance.
“Everything all right?” a voice asks as it walks toward me. I look up and see Matthew Reed and four people who look remarkably like him.
“Fine,” I say, my hand waving breezily in the air because I don’t know what to do with it. “That was just my mother trying to insert herself somewhere she shouldn’t.”
Matt’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything. He points to the men next to him, introducing each in turn. “My brothers—Paul, Logan, Sam, and Pete.” Each of them reaches to shake my hand. There are three women with them, too. “And this is Logan’s wife, Emily, and you already know Reagan.” I met Reagan by accident the day Kendra died. We shared a car ride.
The last one, a pretty, black-haired girl with tattoos up the side of her neck, steps forward holding out her hand. “Friday,” she says.
“It’s Saturday,” I say.
She laughs. “No, my name is Friday,” she clarifies. She leans into the biggest of the brothers—I think his name is Paul, but there are so freaking many of them—and he wraps an arm around her shoulders. “I work with these big lugs in the tattoo parlor.”
“Tattoo parlor?” I say. I must sound like a parrot because all I seem to be able to do is repeat what everyone else is saying.
“Reed’s,” Matt says. “We all work there.”
“Oh,” I breathe. I am usually so much more eloquent than this. At least I hope I am.
I look around the brothers and see Seth standing with his sisters. Each of them holds one of his hands. Everyone else has left the cemetery already. Have we been here that long?
Matt motions from one brother to another. “We were going to go and get a pie,” he says. “We thought you might want to go with us.”
New York pizza is one my favorite foods. “I don’t know,” I hedge. Seth has walked closer with his sisters, so I look over at them. He looks hopeful. I haven’t seen him look interested in anything at all, aside from his sisters’ well-being, in a week now. I raise a brow, asking him what he’d like to do.
He nods. Then he looks away, almost like he’s afraid to feel hopeful. He looks toward the casket being lowered into the ground.
“We’d love to join you,” I say.
Joey looks up at Seth and asks, “Will Mommy come?”
Seth has been trying to tell the little ones all week that Mommy is gone, and they can’t seem to grasp the concept of death. They keep expecting her to walk through the door.
“No,” Seth says, and I see him swallow hard. “Mommy can’t come.”
“Maybe later,” she says quietly, her face falling. He picks her up, and she puts her head on his shoulder. Mellie takes his hand, and we walk toward the funeral cars.
“Rico’s is just a couple of blocks away,” Matt explains, looking at the car like it’s going to bite him. “Do you want to meet us there?”
“We’ll walk with you,” Seth says, and they all start in the direction of the pizza parlor. I look around, thinking I’ll see Phillip, my boyfriend, but he must have left. That doesn’t surprise me, not in the least. I pull out my phone and send him a quick text message.
Me: Where are you?
I shove my phone back in my pocket.
We all fall into a line, with me and Matt walking side by side at the back end of it.
“How are things going?” he asks.
“Terrible,” I admit, and I feel the dreaded tears sting my eyes. Matt pulls out a handkerchief and offers it to me. I take it and dab at my eyes. “It’s just hard. The kids don’t know me, and Seth’s not really interested in letting me get to know the little ones. He won’t even let me read them a bedtime story. He cooks, he cleans, he does laundry, he does everything, and I have never felt more useless in my life.” I look up and realize Matt’s listening. He’s really, really listening.