Page 50 of The Dearly Departed

Leonard Llewellyn.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I stood frozen at the entrance of the dining room, as if my bones were locked in place, while my mind swam with jumbled questions and belligerent accusations.

A parade of party guests cursed beneath their breath from behind me. As they managed to squeeze inside, they shot angry glances in my direction before walking off to find their spots at one of the three long tables.

Move, I told my legs, and although it took a few seconds to find the strength to comply, somehow, they eventually listened, carrying me farther into the room and toward the center table. But my eyes remained fixated on the two men who’d had the biggest, most meaningful impact on my life.

Yet, at this moment, I felt the betrayal of only one.

What the hell is he doing here? I thought, watching as Leonard took a sip from his glass of water.

I wanted to scream, to cry out, to make a fucking scene and demand an answer from him. But I knew I couldn’t do any such thing if I wanted to remain hidden in plain sight. So, instead of throwing my fist through a wall, I found a seat close to his. I was far enough away that he might not notice my presence—there was a young guy with a buzz cut wearing all black—but near enough that I could watch him inconspicuously and hopefully hear any conversation he engaged in.

It was pure coincidence that the empty chair I found was also beside the woman who had stolen my ability to care much about anything other than being as close to her as possible.

God, how I wished I could smell anything outside of this mask.

Her hair, her skin. The expensive perfume she undoubtedly wore.

Anything that might help me to know her better without asking, without talking and helping her to know me.

The chairs were too close together for a guy as big as me to sit comfortably, and my elbow bumped into hers as I tried to get situated. Her eyes lifted to where mine should’ve been had the mask not been in place, and she tittered with a nervous laugh, her cheeks flushing beneath the chandelier light as the confines of the mask grew hotter, tighter.

“Sorry,” we both said in unison, and she laughed again before her lips formed a tight smile, like she was intentionally holding herself back from relishing in the mirth.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said as I shook my head and lifted my hand to dismiss her apology away.

She quelled her laughter, but her smile remained as her gaze lingered, like she could see through this mask and into my eyes, and then, after a moment or two, she said, “This is going to sound so weird, but … do I know you? Like, have we met somewhere?”

I started to shake my head, because of course, we hadn’t met before. I wished we had. I wished she could suddenly be that girl I’d failed and lost, but she wasn’t. And I wanted to say something to lay those thoughts to rest, something just for her, but at that moment, Gerald stood and cleared his throat above the cacophony of utensils and chatter and chairs being pulled out and in. My attention was reluctantly pulled away from her to his short stature and the tuxedo he wore.

He’d gained weight since I’d seen him years ago, I observed. I hadn’t noticed it earlier when he approached me on the porch, but I saw it now. He looked healthy, more so than he’d ever been. Like his skin was his and not just something borrowed and three sizes too big.

“My friends,” he began with arms outstretched, his voice booming and echoing off the high ceiling, “my family …”

His hand dropped to the shoulder of the expensive-looking woman sitting at his side, diagonal from where I sat. She smiled at him with sheer adoration glimmering in her eyes, as brilliant as the diamonds dangling from her ears.

I set my jaw and kept my gaze fixed firmly on her and took note of her features and the pale silk gown she wore. The slender column of her neck, the toned line of her jaw, the subtle lines etched into her face, and the strong point of her chin.

She was a beautiful woman, dressed both exquisitely and expensively. If I had to guess how old she was, I’d have put her in her mid-fifties, a bit older than Gerald, and she carried her age well—although I wouldn’t doubt she’d undergone plastic surgery a time or two to maintain her striking appearance.

Yet it wasn’t her beauty that attracted my attention.

It was how much she looked like my mother—had my mother been allowed to live a long, full, rich life. Their resemblance was so uncanny that I could’ve believed they were cousins, had the possibility not been so unfathomable. God, sisters even. And I would’ve bet money on that being why my father had chosen her—or at the very least part of the reason.

“Thank you all for celebrating with me tonight. And thank you to my beautiful wife, my Virginia, for insisting that my … questionable life was worth celebrating in the first place.”

Virginia. I committed her name to memory, wondering how close it was to my mother’s, and a pang of heartbreak struck my chest due to the fact that I had never known and I likely never would.

Funny how I could recall times where my father had shown up in one alleyway or another to use her body again and leave. I could recall her digging through dumpsters behind restaurants, looking for food. I could recall the night I had woken up to her lifeless body lying beside me with such vivid detail, but I couldn’t remember something as basic as her name.

A person was nothing without their name, and suddenly, that was all my mother felt like now, as I was surrounded by all this grandeur and beauty.

Nothing.

A round of chuckles and snickers erupted from all around the room, suggesting that every one of these people was aware of the way my father had lived his life thus far. The drugs. The robberies. The things he’d forced into my life on the few occasions we were together. Undoubtedly, there was more he’d filled his years with, things I wasn’t aware of, and I wondered how many of these guests knew more than I did.