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Liam’s staring at the photo now; I can tell by the way his chin bunches and trembles.
Threading my fingers between his, I try to offer what comfort I can.
He squeezes back but doesn’t look at me.
Sofia is sitting on his other side. She looks sad but not devastated while Maria sniffles into a tissue. Her boyfriend has his arm tightly around her, murmuring soft things into her ear.
I glance over my shoulder and share a pained look with Mikayla and Ethan.
This is going to be a hard service.
It brings back memories of my dad’s funeral, and my gut drops as thoughts I’d long buried start to surface. Mom was a wreck. I was numb. The minister spoke about my father, and then three of his friends got up to talk about what a great man he was. There was laughter despite the tears. And there was love. So much love. The church was bursting with it as we celebrated my dad. He was taken too soon, but the years he was on this earth, he lived his best life.
My heart thuds with a sad beat as I compare it to the feeling surrounding me now.
Bobby Carlisle made some bad choices. His life—especially the last ten years of it—was not the best. So how do we laugh and celebrate? What do we even say to commemorate this man who left so much destruction in his wake? He hurt the people who loved him the most. He turned his son against him.
My throat swells with the onset of tears as the chaplain steps up to the microphone.
He has a soft, lilting voice. It’s calm and clear as he goes through the process. Everything feels so formal and wooden. His eulogy is brief but interesting. I didn’t realize Liam’s father was captain of his football team in high school. He was a motivated and driven man. A romantic.
My eyes dart to Mrs. Carlisle, and she’s staring up at the chaplain with a tumultuous smile. He must be talking about the guy she fell in love with. The one who brought her flowers and serenaded her. The one who proposed at a baseball game, asking her to marry him on the big-screen TV. She said yes while the crowd cheered and whistled.
This man he’s talking about doesn’t sound a thing like the one Liam described. War transformed him.
The chaplain rushes through the latter part of his life. Of course there’s no mention of beatings and rampaging through the house. That truth can’t come to light in this small chapel. It must remain buried and secret. Part of me wishes it’d come out. I don’t want people judging Liam for not visiting his father in those last few days of his life. People don’t understand what Bobby put his family through, and a big part of me thinks they should.
“And now I’d like to take a few moments to allow people the opportunity to share any stories or memories they might have of Bobby. If you’d like to speak, please come up now.”
The room goes silent… and not the pleasant, peaceful kind.
A heavy stillness settles over all of us, and it’s more than awkward.
No one’s getting up.
I glance around me, stealing a look at Liam’s mother, whose expression is crumpling. She knows. She knows that the freshest memories are the most painful. She knows Bobby spent the last decade of his life driving people away from him.
Rubbing my thumb over Liam’s hand, I try to give him some comfort, but he pulls away, his jaw clenching tight as he glares at the photo on the coffin, then glances at his mother.
With a heavy sigh, he stands up, buttoning his suit jacket and walking toward the microphone.
Oh no.
I whip around to send a silent SOS to Ethan.
His brows dip together and he shuffles to the end of the row just as Liam clears his throat, the ominous sound echoing throughout the room.
CHAPTER 40
LIAM
I don’t know why I’m standing up here.
For a second, I think about telling the room what an asshole my dad was. That eulogy painted a very different picture than the life I experienced after he returned from Afghanistan.
But as I gaze out at the rows of people, at my mother’s desperate expression, I can’t bring myself to say any of that shit.
So what the fuck am I gonna say?
