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Adelaide’s lifelong friend and Tiffany’s mother, Leann, soon joined them. Again there was not a word or gesture of greeting between the first row and the second, and for the same reason.
Adelaide by herself was an evil force to be reckoned with. Add in her best friend, and any sane person would run in the other direction. Two more manipulative women I had never met. They were a team made in hell, and if they were ignoring me, all the better.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”
~William Blake
Dante’s father Leo sat on the row with us, but not close. Father and son did not speak. Husband and wife, one mere feet in front of the other, did not exchange greetings of any kind.
That was the normal way of things in the Durant family.
The sight of the father had me doing another surreptitious glance around the room, clocking at least four of his other sons, all by different women.
I wasn’t sure if somehow Leo had only sired boys or if he just never acknowledged the daughters. With what I knew of Leo, if I had to guess, it’d be the latter.
None of the siblings were sitting together, none of them so much as acknowledging each other.
Only one of them ventured into our row. It was Bastian, Leo’s second oldest son, his first child with mistress number one, born mere months after Dante.
Bastian sat on the far side of Leo, exchanging a brief but civil greeting with his father.
Dante was Leo’s only legitimate child, but he was far from his favorite. If I had to guess which one was, it’d be Bastian.
Dante stared straight ahead, not acknowledging his half-brother. Again, expected, but I sent Bastian a little nod of a greeting that he returned solemnly.
I’d never had a problem with Bastian. Despite getting along too well with his bastard of a father, he wasn’t a bad sort, which was not something you could say about all of Dante’s half-brothers.
I made another scan of the swiftly filling room. It would be standing room only soon it’d gotten so crowded, but still most seemed loath to take the front row seats, which were traditionally reserved for family.
My eyes stopped dead on a familiar face.
I nodded at my grandmother.
Her tightly drawn mouth drawing tighter at the sight of me, she nodded back.
I hadn’t seen her in almost ten years, but I was still shocked at how much she’d aged, how haggard her homely face appeared.
I knew Gram’s death couldn’t have been easy on her. I had never been sure if my grandmother loved me, but I was certain of her love for Gram, and losing her must have hit her hard.
After that I faced forward and looked neither left nor right. I’d seen enough familiar faces for the moment.
The service was brief but emotional. Even Leo’s speech had me struggling not to lose my composure. Leo was a shitty human being and a worse father, but he had loved his mother and didn’t even try to hide his grief at her passing.
For Dante’s speech, I had to put on the dark sunglasses I’d stowed away in my bag and look down at my hands while Dante spoke of his grandmother and all that she’d meant to him.
His words were sparse but worthy of her.
The shades hid my eyes, but they couldn’t hide the tears that ran under them and down my face.
When he finished and came back to sit beside me, I covered his hand with my own for a few brief moments, Adelaide and my grudges be damned.
We were at the front of the procession that flowed out of the funeral home, into cars, and along the short drive to her gravesite.
She’d been allotted a beautiful spot in the sprawling cemetery, right next to her long deceased, much beloved husband.
