Then she drops her hand and looks back at her book.
I stay where I am for just a moment longer.
Then I stand up, and I go back to working on my plan for the Holt family.
Thirty-Four
Olivia
The funeral directorhas kind eyes and a soft voice, with a clipboard in his hands and I’ve been staring at a point somewhere past his left shoulder for the last ten minutes. I can’t focus on anything.
He's talking. I know he's talking because his mouth is moving, and sound is coming out. Hayden's mom is beside me on the sofa, filling in the gaps I keep leaving. I should be grateful. I am grateful. I just feel lost at the moment.
Flowers.
He asked about flowers.
My mother's funeral flowers. There’s a correct answer to this question and it’s somewhere inside me; I can’t find it.
"Olivia." Hayden's mom, gentle. "Did you have any thoughts on the flowers, sweetheart?"
The word sweetheart goes in like a key turning.
Something behind my sternum gives way.
"I don't know," I snap and yell. "I don't…I don't know what flowers. I don't know what outfit to put her in, I don't know what she'd want, I don't— My voice breaks clean across the middle of the sentence. "I don't know." It comes out as almost a shout,cracked and raw and completely beyond my control. "I don't know, I don't know any of it, I can't?—”
And then I'm crying again.
My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking.
Hayden’s next to me. I don't know where he came from, whether he was already in the room or heard it from somewhere else, but he's there, both arms coming around me from behind, pulling me back against him.
"I've got you," he says quietly. Right now, this is all I need. Him.
I press my hands over my face, and I fall apart in his arms in front of the funeral director. The grief comes out of me in waves, each one worse than the one before, my mother's face behind my eyes, the warmth of her hand. I miss her.
Hayden doesn't move through any of it. His arms don't loosen. His chest is steady against my back, and I focus on that, on something solid in the middle of all this water I’m draining in.
Slowly, gradually, I come back to the room. I take in a deep breath, trying hard to settle myself again.
The funeral director is in the hallway with Hayden's mom.
Hayden moves around to face me. He crouches down to my level, his hands on my arms, and waits until my eyes find him.
"Breathe," he says.
I breathe.
"Again."
I breathe again.
"Good." He holds my gaze. "Do you have faith in me?"
"Yes," I say.
"Then hear me." He keeps his hands on my arms. "Whatever you want for her, the flowers, the outfit, all of it, you choose it. Whatever feels right. That's the only job you have."
