AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I slide off the bed, turn, grab her by the waist, and set her on her feet on the floor.
“Get your coat and boots,” I tell her, reaching for my shirt and pulling it back on.
Her eyebrows pucker. “Why? Where are we going?”
“We’re going to visit your mamma.”
Chapter 39
Deirdre
I’m still not entirely sure how I’ve ended up in Elio’s car, heading towards my mother’s grave, within an hour of losing my virginity. The place between my legs feels tender and wet and strange. I hunker down in my coat, wrapping my arms around myself. Elio flicks at a button on the dash, and soon I feel gorgeous heat rising from the seat and seeping through my coat and pants. The heat soothes the ache between my legs and eases the muscles in my back. Another uncanny reminder that maybe Elio really does know what I need before I do.
As we pass through the gate and then turn onto the street, Elio calls someone on his phone. It takes a few rings for the other person to answer, and when he does, I can hear a sleepy gruffness to the “Hello?”
“Tony, get out of bed and get down to the store,” Elio says without greeting or preamble. I hear the muted response of acquiescence before Elio hangs up. I have no idea who Tony is, or why we need to go to a store right now when it’s past midnight, but I don’t bother asking. I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.
And I do when we pull up in front of a small shop called Rosetti’s Blooms. A short, balding man is hunched down in a leather bomber-style jacket. When he sees us pull up he nods deferentially and unlocks the front door. Elio opens my car door for me and helps me out, murmuring to watch the ice as he guides me up onto the curb. Lights come on in the shop just as we pass through the door.
It’s a flower shop. I stand there, basically dressed in pyjamas under this four-figure-price-tag coat, my face and hair a mess, and I blink like a mole against the bright light. Elio clearly doesn’t feel any of my hesitation or confusion. Instead, he sweeps through the shop, taking bunches of flowers from different tables and fridges and peppering Tony with orders. I stand there, still and slow and watching him. He moves with such merciless competence, such dangerous grace, that I can’t look anywhere but him. Soon enough, Tony’s got a whole array of blooms before him on the counter – red roses and white lilies and delicate little snowdrops – and he gets to work arranging them. When he’s finished, he ties the stunning bouquet together with a white silk ribbon.
I don’t know why I expect Elio to pay, but of course, he doesn’t. He probably owns this shop, or at least controls a good part of it. Even though we’ve dragged him out of bed, raided his flowers, and haven’t paid him, Tony’s the one who says, “Thank you,” as we leave.
We get back in the car, and I hold tightly to the bouquet as Elio drives us out of downtown. Frankly, I’m shocked that Elio even thought to do this. That he cares about things like flowers for the dead.
“Why’d you do this? The flowers,” I ask him as the cemetery comes into sight.
“There’s no way I’m going to your mamma’s grave empty-handed,” he says firmly, keeping his eyes ahead as he pulls up and stops. He pauses, like he’s not going to say the next part, but then does it anyway. “Never got the chance to lay flowers at my own mamma’s grave.”
I shunt the flowers over to one side, then reach out with a free hand, capturing his gloved fingers in mine just as he takes them from the steering wheel. He stares at me in silence for a long moment, then raises my hand, brushing his lips over my knuckles before letting go.
He doesn’t let me go for long. Once he opens the door for me he grabs my hand and holds it all the way to Mom’s grave.
I know where it is even though I haven’t been here in a few years. It’s always been hard for me to come here alone, and Dad always got all weird and flighty when I asked him to come with me, so eventually I just kind of stopped. I tried to tell myself that she wasn’t here, anyway. She was in other places. The sky, the sunshine, the music she’d once shared with me. And yet, it feels good and bad and right that I’m here now. It hurts, but in a satisfying way. Like I’m doing something I’m supposed to do.
And I’m supposed to do it with him.
It’s the strangest feeling. The feeling that I’m where I should be, even though it’s Elio beside me. I look down at our interlocked hands, then the striking profile of his face, his expression sombre, and I’m glad he’s with me.
The snowfall stopped at some earlier point in the evening, and the sky is clear, a bright moon illuminating the carpet of white between the gravestones. I see Mom’s, and my heart lurches in my chest. It’s a feeling of pained remembrance. Of homecoming and knowing that my home will never exist again.
We come to a stop before her grave. I clench my teeth and try not to cry, because crying outside in the winter is horrible, and I’ve already shed enough tears tonight. But I can’t hold them back when Elio lets go of my hand, gets down on his knees in the snow, and starts clearing off her grave. I sniff hard, over and over again, watching him meticulously clean snow from every surface, every angle, every letter of the stone slab. When he’s done, I assume he’ll get up, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lays his dark glove against the stone beside my mother’s name, Fiona Kathleen O’Malley. Finally, he rises, turns to me, and nods.
I nod back at him, stepping forward with the flowers.
“Hey, Mom,” I whisper. It’s all I can manage at the moment, and I know she’d probably think that was good enough. I was always good enough for her, even when I didn’t feel like it. I bend and lower the bouquet, admiring the silver sheen of moonlight on the blooms, turning them from fresh flowers into what look like crystal carvings.
And then there’s a sound. A sound that makes me think of birthdays and blood. The bouquet explodes in my hands, petals ripped and falling like snow.
“Get the fuck down!”
Something solid collides with my back. It’s Elio. He crowds over me, shoving me down against the gravestone, before spinning with his gun in his hands. He’s so fucking fast I don’t even see who he shoots before they fall.
“Elio! What-”
I can’t finish my sentence because Elio has turned and aimed somewhere over my head.
He fires, then fires again. A man I can’t see screams.
