Page 164
I could do this.
By the time we reached the church doors, I was numb. I wasn’t sure I could survive this any other way. If I had to feel every moment of this, I’d break. I didn’t know how to say goodbye.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Dad’s voice made me stop just inside the doorway. Every muscle in my body locked up as I turned. He stood several feet away in the vestibule, his expression turning harder the longer he stared at me. “You get the fuck out of here.”
Jude tried to intervene—to catch our father before things got out of control.
“Dad—”
“Please,” I interrupted, my voice low. I didn’t have the strength for another fight. Not today. “We can do this tomorrow.”
“There is no tomorrow for this,” Dad snapped.
A few nearby conversations quieted as eyes turned our direction. Something about the unwanted attention made me shrink. Not because I cared about what they thought of me, but because this was Mom’s funeral. She deserved better than this. She deserved quiet condolences and stories that made people laugh through their tears, not another Kennedy family disaster unfolding before anyone had even taken their seats.
I forced my hands to stay loose at my sides as heat crept up my neck.
“I told you I never wanted to see your face again,” he continued as he stalked toward me. The first spark of anger surged through me. I’d spent days grieving the loss of my mother and, in a weird way, the loss of my father too, but apparently disowning me hasn’t been enough for him. He needed to make sure I understood I wasn’t welcome here either.
Jude quickly put himself between us.
“Dad, come on,” Jude said. “Not today.”
“I mean it! He needs to fucking leave—”
“It’s Mom’s funeral!” he exclaimed.
“I know whose funeral it is!” Dad replied, and my jaw ticked. “And that is exactly why he has no business being here.”
“Dad,” Jude said, his voice steadier than mine. “He’s her son too—”
“Don’t.” That single word in that tone made Jude and me both flinch. The reaction was immediate and involuntary. My reaction pissed me off more than anything he’d said so far, especially because Dad didn’t seem to notice. “He stopped being my son the minute he decided to humiliate this family.”
I swallowed hard. Sariah’s hand touched the back of my elbow, a quiet offering of support. The contact helped keep me anchored when everything in me wanted to push past Jude and ask Dad exactly who the hell he thought he was to decide whether I had the right to bury my own mother.
“Whatever you think of me,” I began quietly, “she’s still my mother.”
A bark of laughter escaped him, the sound ugly.
“Your mother?” he demanded. “You want to stand there and call yourself her son after what you did to her?”
Something inside me went dangerously still.
“Dad,” Jude tried again, “stop—”
“You started that fight!” His voice grew louder with every word until the entire vestibule was silent and staring at us. “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut for one goddamn dinner. She was sick! You knew she was sick!”
Each accusation hit the same wound I’d been picking apart for days.
“Dad,” Jude pleaded. “That’s not what happened—”
“She was fine before he showed up and decided Thanksgiving was the perfect time to make everything about himself!” Dad hollered, his voice bouncing off the marble wall.
My throat damn near closed up. Logically, I knew better. I’d fought myself on it for days. Cancer had killed my mom. Not me. Unfortunately, grief didn’t rely on logic, and my father seemed to understand that notion all too well.
“She spent her last few hours screaming because of you!” he continued. My hands curled into fists to hide the tremble moving through my body.
“Stop it!” Jude snapped, but Dad kept ignoring him.
