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Jake stayed put and watched her as she walked toward the open burial site, all laid out neatly on green canvas, with far too many white chairs arrayed on the lawn. And a great many expensive floral arrangements. The people who’d been unable to stomach the funeral of a man who’d been caught doing what likely every one of them had done themselves had salved their guilty consciences with five-hundred-dollar wreathes and sprays of lilies.
Petra had taken about ten steps across the lawn when a throaty, metallic roar filled the air. Drawing to a stop, she turned to look back at the lane and saw ... a dozen? motorcycles rolling into view. When they began pulling up at the curb and parking, she couldn’t make sense of it. Her father didn’t know any bikers, and all those Petra knew were here already.
But Willa’s arm tightened around hers. “That’s the rest of the club. And there—” she nodded farther up the lane, where several SUVs were pulling in as well—“is the rest of our family.”
“The Bulls? The whole club?”
Willa nodded. “They didn’t come to the service because they didn’t want to be disruptive in the church, but they’re all here.”
“But why? They didn’t know my dad. They don’t know me.”
“Jake is a Bull, and he’s in love with you. That makes you part of us. We show up for our family.”
The contrast between this teeming horde of strangers showing up because they valued asfamilysuch a fragile, barely formed bond, and the vast desert of the people who’d known and ostensibly respected and cared about her father—or at least had for most of his life—crashed together in the middle of Petra’s chest, and she couldn’t breathe.
“It’s alright,” Willa crooned softly, rubbing Petra’s back. “It’s okay, honey. Try to inhale to a count of three.”
Petra shook her head. It wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. She was putting herfatherin theground. Beside hermother.
Nobody would ever call her Petey again.
“I can’t do this,” she gasped.
“Yes, you can. I’m right here. I know you don’t know me, but I’m here. Jake’s close and will be with you again in a minute. I saw how many people love you at the service. People are here for you. To take care of you. You’re not alone, Petra.”
I know I’m not leaving you alone in the world.
As she tried to make her lungs expand, Petra watched the small but steady stream of people crossing the lawn, toward her father’s resting place. They were regulars at Gertrude’s. They were her dance friends. They were a few of her students. And so many Bulls. They wore somber funeral clothes, or funky goth clothes, or leather kuttes, and they’d shown up.
Dre wasn’t here, the only one in her life who’d truly known her father, but Dre had told her they were done, the bond completely broken, and they’d obviously meant it.
But as Petra stood in Jake’s mother’s arms, halfway between the road and the grave, she watched those white chairs she’d thought were far too many fill up.
Of people there for her. Her friends. Her lover’s family, who now claimed her as family, too. Filling in the space her father had left. Trying to, at least.
“They’re coming, hon,” Willa said, and nodded toward the hearse. The pallbearers were carrying the casket. Jake was up front, his eyes focused on her.
Petra took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and said, “Okay. I’m ready.”
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~oOo~
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While Petra’s fatherhad been raised in the Greek Orthodox church, he’d been only nominally religious. Her mother, a Presbyterian, had been a bit more religious, attending services on the important days and for short stretches of regular attendance during occasional bursts of piousness. They’d married in Mom’s family church, and Dad had attended services with her sporadically throughout their marriage. The only ministers Petra had known at all were Presbyterian. So her father was getting buried like a Presbyterian.
That the Presbyterian Church had a progressive stance on LGBTQ+ people and issues was definitely a bonus, especially considering that her father’s mourners were her friends and not his own.
The graveside service was brief. Petra sat beside her father’s coffin, her fingers laced with Jake’s, and stared at that mahogany box with the brushed-nickel fittings. Such a beautiful thing, and so expensive, to be immediately buried under six feet of common dirt. Funeral traditions were truly bizarre.
The minister’s voice was soft and somber, but Petra wasn’t really listening. He hadn’t known her father, so anything he’d said in church or here was a boilerplate platitude.
No one had spoken for her father but the minister. Petra had planned to, but in the moment she’d been stunned by the dearth of people in the pews who actually knew Dad. As she’d comprehended that virtually no one in the room would have any context at all for anything she might say, she hadn’t been able to make herself go up to the lectern.
Boilerplate platitudes. Those were the words sending her father on his way to whatever lay beyond.
Suddenly, it was over. Petra was surprised to see people standing, beginning to cluster. She looked around. The cemetery staff who would lower the expensive box on its mechanical bier stood just off to the side, waiting to do their job.
