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“Ms. Callaghan?” Father Murphy’s voice cut through my nostalgia. “We’re ready for the burial.”
Standing, we joined the rest of the crowd where the coffin now sat on a metal frame that would allow it to descend into the grave next to Mam’s. There wasn’t a headstone yet, but the funeral home assured me that there was one being made per his instructions.
Someone directed me to a chair and I sat down gratefully, my knees feeling a bit weak from it all.
Then Father Murphy began to read out the burial rites, but I was only half-listening as I watched him move around the coffin.
This time last year, there was no way anyone could have told me that I would be willingly sitting at my father’s funeral.
Then again, they also couldn’t have told me that a pack that I loved very much would be there to support me.
Even if the support was just verbal and physical. I hadn’t opened my end of the bonds yet—not because I was still angry, no that feeling had faded almost completely as they showed me that they were there for me when I needed them most.
I just didn’t want them to feel the sheer level of sadness that had settled into my chest ever since Finneas died.
He hadn’t been a good father by any stretch of the word and I had two dads who had shown me what a good father actually looked like. But he was still my last genetic link in this world—and my last connection to Mam—until the babe resting under my heart was born.
It was all so damned complicated that I didn’t want them feeling it all with me. Not until I figured out how to pick all of the feelings about my father and our relationship apart and put them back together in a somewhat coherent way.
Father Murphy finished his end of the rites and the small crowd that had gathered chorused the final farewell which ended in Amen.
Then, one by one, people dropped a handful of dirt into the grave before giving me a solemn nod and heading off into the rain.
There would be a wake at Finneas’s home later in the evening, but most had told me that they wouldn’t be able to make it.
“Ciara,” Enzo called, bringing me out of the haze that I’d been in since the burial had begun. My entire pack was standing in a line in front of the grave, each holding a handful of dirt.
With a heavy sigh, I stood and grabbed my own handful.
They all dropped theirs first before giving me some space.
I let the wet dirt crumble slowly out of my fingers, watching as each chunk fell onto the black coffin.
“Bye, Da,” I whispered before turning and finding myself absolutely stunned to be in the arms of Alexei and Maxim.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Alexei said as he tugged me in for a tight hug, freezing for a moment when he felt the roundness of my stomach before he breezed past it in favor of comforting me.
“What are you doing here? Isn’t there a game this week?” I asked breathlessly as I looked over his shoulder to find the rest of my family standing a little ways away in black.
Brynn, Aurelia, and their families looked somber as they offered me soft smiles, their eyes going between where Maxim and Alexei were hugging me and the grave.
“You can thank Enzo for that,” Maxim told me as he pulled me in for a hug of his own. “He kept us informed about the funeral and we managed to get our bye week switched from the new year to this week so we could be here for you.”
I had no idea how they managed it, but I was so glad to see them that I almost immediately burst into tears.
“Whoa there, what’s wrong?” I heard Maxim say but I just buried my face in his chest.
“She’s been doing that a lot—crying I mean,” Wiz’s voice was muffled as Maxim and Alexei enveloped me in another tight hug. “The baby is making her pretty emotional on top of everything else these days.”
There was an audible gasp from the crowd. “Did you just say baby?”
Then the Peterson twins were being yanked away from me by Brynn and Aurelia as they got their first look at my little belly.
“Holy shit!” Brynn squawked, her blue eyes wide as she took it in.
Aurelia, whose belly was much bigger than mine, just looked like she was about to burst into tears herself.
“I’m so sorry, Ciara, that we didn’t tell you about the payments,” she said, her words wobbly as she reached up to grab my hand.
