Page 113 of Pretty Lies

TWENTY

THE BEAUTIFULLY tragic thing about time?

It did, in fact, keep moving forward.

Those who moved with it—even when all they really wanted to do was curl into a ball and hide away from the world—were the strong ones. They all had moments when the grief caught up, and it hurt to breathe through the pain, but it was all one day at a time. From one to the next. Again and again. That was strength. A kind of strength that a lot of people didn’t understand or mistook it as something else.

Passing a look down the street at the line of homes before she pushed open the front door to her parents’ place, Della let out a sigh into the cold air. It felt appropriate to bury J on a mid-Autumn day like this one. With gray clouds overhead letting just a little bit of sun through. While the leaves were still changing colors on the trees, but the wind hadn’t picked up enough to rip them from the branches.

Nothing was dead yet from the cold.

Sweater weather, she used to tell her brother. Pumpkin spice season. She could still hear the way he used to laugh, see his signature grin form when he replied, “Girl shit, man.”

He wasn’t wrong. He still used to like her lattes, though.

Just before she stepped into her parents’ quiet home, that last look at the street had different memories bubbling to the surface of Della’s mind. Of her brother, of course. All the times they played in the front yard or when he chased her down the front steps after she stole his iPhone before her parents bought her own. Trick-or-treating when they were little.

God.

Shit was so much easier then.

Less complicated.

For a minute, Della would give anything … She would give it all to go back to that time with her brother for one more minute. But that wasn’t how life worked, and sometimes, one had to say goodbye to the people they loved sooner than they expected.

That’s what today was about.

Burying her brother.

Tightening her grip on the gift bag in her hand, Della shoved the thoughts aside that had made her eyes water. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to feel anything today, but rather … she didn’t want to cry. The nights leading up to J’s funeral had certainly seen more than enough of her tears, so why add more when she could do something more for her brother?

Something better?

She wanted to celebrate his life.

Not grieve his death.

Not today.

“Ma?” Della called down the hallway beyond the foyer. “You up?”

She sent up a quick prayer that today was a better morning for her mother than the last couple. It was a toss-up. Some days, Chloe made an effort to not get lost in the new, ever-present sadness in her heart. Other days, she tried to drown in it all. Della didn’t wonder why or feel any bitterness about her mother’s grief … she never wanted to lose her own child. She couldn’t imagine what this was doing to her mother. She did wish she could help more often, though, but sometimes that just couldn’t be helped.

It was the nature of her current life. The new responsibilities on Della’s plate where her father’s business was concerned kept her running from one side of the city to the other just so that every single fuck working under the Costello family knew who was in charge now. And the bitch wore heels when she arrived. Nonetheless, she made time for her mom.

Chloe needed it even if she wouldn’t ask her daughter for it.

“In the kitchen,” her ma called back.

That was a good sign.

She even smiled.

Della followed the new, faint smell of chocolate and nutmeg to the kitchen. Her mother stood straight up from the stove with a sheet of chocolate cookies in her hand. At her questioning stare, Chloe shrugged and laughed.

“I just … remember when I used to make you guys cookies for the morning on weekends?” her mother asked.

Della took a few steps into the kitchen and shrugged off her coat. Placing her jacket and purse to a stool along with the small gift bag, she waved a hand at those cookies. “I do—they’re the best. Hand one over.”