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“There is the prettiest six-year-old I’ve ever seen.” I put a smile on my face, and all she does is smirk at me before I bend down and take her in my arms. I close my eyes, trying to fight the tears. “How are you doing?”
“I’m sad,” she admits softly, and I don’t have a chance to say anything else as Luna comes running to the door.
“It’s Uncle Chrissy,” she says, jumping up and down, excited to see me. I’m really hoping she doesn’t remember the next couple of days.
“There is the birthday girl.” I open my arm for her to run into the other side of me before I pick them both up and walk into the house. You can feel the tightness, and the tension fills the rooms. Even with the curtains all open and the sun coming in, you feel the sadness through the walls.
“You guys are getting heavy.” I kiss their heads, walking from the front door to the family room. Eddie is there, his eyes bloodshot and puffy, no doubt from crying all night.
I put the girls down on their feet before walking over and hugging Eddie. “Thanks for coming,” he says, and I look around for Koda.
“Where’s Koda?” I ask.
“She’s in the basement going through pictures to give to the…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. “You can go down there with her. I’m going to take the girls out to my house for a bit. Change of scenery.”
I nod at him, turning and walking to the basement stairs. Benji used to call it his man cave. I put one foot in front of the other but don’t race to get down there. My heart rises to my throat as I make it to the bottom step. The room has his jerseys hung in glass boxes from the whole time he’s played. Hockey pucks are also on display from different points in his career. Pictures of him with different family members throughout the years, and then the one of him and me at the Winter Classic from two seasons ago. We froze our fucking asses off, and you can see our ears and noses are bright red.
I look around the room and don’t see Koda anywhere. Then I hear the door open from the side, and she steps out. Her brown hair is piled on top of her head; she’s wearing leggings with a white shirt. She stops mid step when she sees me, her eyes wet from crying, her nose also pink. “Hey,” I say, not sure if I should go to her or not. “Eddie said you were down here.” She comes into the room and stands facing me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here before.”
“You’re sorry,” she practically hisses at me, and I can feel her anger. “I bet you’re fucking sorry.” Her chest rises and falls so much it’s almost as if she ran a marathon. “Good to fucking know.”
Her words shock me. “Koda,” I say softly, “what can I do to help?”
“What can you do to help?” She laughs, but it comes out in a sob. She holds up her hand when I step toward her, stopping me in my tracks.
“I don’t know, what can you do to help?” She shakes her head. “How about getting him some help?” She hisses out the words. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know something was wrong with him.” The words slice me right into the chest, and it feels like someone is twisting my heart and squeezing it all at the same time. “I bet the whole fucking team knew that something was wrong with him, but what did you guys do?” Her voice is low. “Not a fucking thing. You just ignored all the fucking signs. You guys had to have known.” She tilts her head to the side, her body shaking in anger and grief. “I mean, you spent more time with him than I did, and I fucking knew.”
“It wasn’t like—” I have no words left in me because she’s not fucking wrong. We knew there was something wrong with him. I knew he was off. I even tried to talk to him about it, but he blew it off. I should have persisted and made him listen to me. I should have done a lot of things.
“I found him,” she snaps. “I was the one who woke up and found him dead on my fucking couch while our girls slept upstairs!” She’s furiously wiping the tears away from her face as fast as she can, but they are coming out too fast. “Can you imagine if they saw him like that?” I try to take a step toward her, but she takes a step back. “Yeah, when you go to bed at night in your perfect little fucking world, you think of that.”
“Koda,” I whisper, begging to go to her and hold her. To let her know I’m sorry I didn’t do anything.
“You were his best friend.” She uses her fingers to do quotation marks. “You were there when we got married. When we had the girls, you were supposed to look out for him.” She shakes her head. “Get the fuck out of here, Christopher.”
CHAPTER THREE
christopher
I slip the black jacket over my white shirt, pulling out the cuffs. The pressure in the middle of my chest is tighter than it’s ever been in my life. My eyes burn since I’ve only slept maybe four hours in the past three days. Each time they blinked, it took all my energy to open them back up.
Stepping out of my closet, I find my father sitting on my bed, dressed in a suit similar to mine. His hand outstretched by his side, his eyes watch me as I tighten my tie, making it feel like it’s choking me. “Hey,” he mumbles, “how are you doing?”
“Does it matter?” I answer honestly. “I’m not the one who is going to bury my husband, father, or son today.” It’s been two days since the showdown with Koda, two days since she told me to get the fuck out of her house. Two days since we’ve said anything to each other. I’ve been in contact with Eddie, who filled me in on the plans for the funeral.
“No, but you are burying someone you called a brother,” he reminds me, and all I can do is stare at him. You knew, and you did nothing. Koda’s words repeatedly played in my head for the past two days. She was not wrong. I knew he was up to no good. Knew he was not himself. I knew, but did I do anything? No. I went away on vacation with my family as he died on his fucking couch, leaving his wife to find him. Anger creeps up, and I wish he was still alive so I could beat his fucking ass.
“I’ll be fine.” I ignore the way he’s looking at me. “We have to be at the funeral home soon.” I turn away from him to walk out of my bedroom. When I get downstairs, I find my house full of my family. All my uncles and aunts have descended to come and stand with me, and most of my cousins are here. Stone stands by the front door next to Dylan. “You guys don’t have to all come.” I look around at all the eyes looking at me. My mother stands in the hallway, wearing a black dress and holding a white tissue. Gabriella and Abigail are beside her, and a few of my aunts behind her.
“We’re going with you,” my father declares, looking around the room and getting a chin nod from Uncle Matthew. “If you need us.”
“I’m not the one who needs anything.” My voice goes higher than I want it to go, and my fists ball at my sides. “His wife and kids, who have to live without him, need…” I shake my head. “I’m going to take my own car.”
“I’ll drive,” Stone says quickly, blocking the door, and I don’t even bother answering him. Instead, I just walk out into the warm, sunny day and look at the sky, wishing today to be over.
We arrive at the funeral home at the same time as a black sedan with tinted windows pulls up. The media has already lined up across the street, making my hands ball into fists. “Can they do that?” I ask my uncle Matthew, who stands behind me. “Like, can’t they respect privacy?”
“Them standing across the street is them respecting their privacy,” he states. “Like it or not, it’s a public street. Anyone can stand wherever they want.”
