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Deciding to count my blessings, I held my hands out for the clothes. “I’ll take those.”
He gave them to me without protest.
“You need to take a nap,” I told him.
He laughed. “I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.”
With that ominous comment, he walked back down the stairs and started doing other useless things that he didn’t need to do.
This time, I left him to it.
It was only later that I approached him and asked him if he’d called Tara.
His answer had been an instant hard no.
But, my Abuela didn’t call me hardheaded for nothing.
“Would you want to know?” I asked softly, waiting for the anger that I knew that wasn’t far in coming.
His answer was vicious and felt like a whip against my sensitive skin.
“I would have never left my child in the first place.”
His snapped words made me brace myself for the next words that would follow once I said the next thing that was on the tip of my tongue.
And I knew it had to be said.
“Have you looked past the anger and the hurt of her leaving to question why she left in the first place?” I asked. “Everyone deals with grief differently, Rome Pierce.”
Rome opened his mouth to reply, to slap me with his words, taking his anger and helplessness of the situation out on me.
But, he didn’t get a chance to.
Mostly because I left before he could hurl any more words in my direction. But not before I said a few more words over my shoulder as I was leaving.
“Tomorrow we celebrate your little boy’s life.” I paused. “And your son asked you to forgive Tara. Maybe you should question why.”Chapter 8Nod and smile. Plot your escape.
-What to do during small talk
Rome
Funerals were depressing.
What was even more depressing was when that funeral was for someone you loved.
What was far more depressing than that was when that funeral was for a little boy who should’ve died well after you.
The order of our deaths was reversed. The parent is always supposed to pass before the child. That’s just the way it was.
Didn’t God know that?
The big man upstairs had gotten a lot of things right over the years. He’d brought my son to me in the first place. At first, I hadn’t wanted him. He’d been a constant reminder of something stupid I’d done while I was drunk. He might’ve been a mistake, but I had warmed up to the idea of him over the course of his gestation.
I’d been given that little boy, and I hadn’t even known that I’d needed him.
But, the moment his little fingers wrapped around my one, I realized that I’d needed him from the beginning, and someone upstairs had known it.
They’d known that my life was meaningless. They’d known that I was on the fast track to caring about nothing and nobody.
Matias had forced me to slow down. Matias had taught me lesson after lesson in humility, kindness, and perseverance.
I’d only had him for four years, but his presence in my life altered me to my core.
I thought I had no more tears left to cry…but I did.
Four years after he’d been given to me, he’d been taken away.
Today was the day that we’d celebrate his short life, and today was the day that I finally realized that he wouldn’t be coming home ever again.
I sat alone in my pew.
At least at first.
I wasn’t left there like I’d asked to be.
The entire row behind me was filled with the members of my club, while my pew was filled by first Tyler, then Reagan, followed shortly by my grandmother whom I hadn’t spoken to in well over four years—when I fucked up and lashed out at the one blood relative I had who’d ever given a damn.
It was nice of her to come, even though I hadn’t called her.
I knew that she’d seen my son. She’d been a part of his life.
Tara had allowed that, even taking it a step farther by inviting her over to help with Matias when I wasn’t there, knowing that we’d had a falling out.
Which was why a part of me was convinced Tara wasn’t all that bad.
Tara was a good person, even though she did some bad things.
So that had been why I’d called her to explain what had happened, hoping that she would answer my call when she hadn’t answered Izzy’s.
She hadn’t called back, but I knew she’d listen to the voicemail.
I also knew that she’d be at the funeral.
Though she wouldn’t come up here.
Last night I’d had a lot of time to do some thinking over the matter of Tara since being awake was way better than what I faced in my dreams—reminders that I’d lost something great—and what I’d come up with was that Tara hadn’t wanted to leave.
I’d gone back through the signs, remembered the way her eyes had looked bloodshot, and her face and skin pale. Her mouth had been drawn, and every step she took looked like she’d been slogging through mud up to her knees.
