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“Look, it doesn’t matter anyway. You won’t have to see her. A lot of Mom’s friends will be there. You can just mingle with everyone who isn’t Astrid.”
“I don’t want any trouble, especially today. As long as that girl is on her best behavior then I will have no qualms with her.”
Ethan smiled a tight smile. “Got it. Let’s head out now. People should be getting there by now.”
I followed them out of the house, and we made our way to the church.
The service was beautiful, and a lot more people than I had anticipated had come. I saw many familiar faces and made sure to stay away from all of them. I didn’t want people coming up to me, feigning interest to see what I had been up to.
Ethan’s speech had been so heartwarming and sad, it almost made me cry. Almost. He had barely held it together.
He talked about our mother with such fondness, and I would have been lying if I said that I wasn’t a little envious. From the way he spoke about her, you never would have guessed the woman had been high on drugs most of the time.
After Ethan’s speech, the preacher concluded the service, and we made our way to the cemetery. My mother was buried next to my father, as her last will had stated. They would finally be together.
Before the accident, my life had looked so different. My parents were like crazy-in-love teenagers. From a young age, I could see just how much my dad loved my mom, and I had longed for that as a little girl. I wanted a man to look at me the way my dad looked at my mom.
When he died, he left a gaping hole in our family that we had never been able to close. My brother found comfort in his academics. My mother found solace at the bottom of a wine bottle which later turned into white lines.
I had looked for comfort in my brother and my mother, but there was none to be found from either of the two. I didn’t blame Ethan because he was just a kid like me. There was not much he could have done for me, but my mother could have done so much.
I downed my third glass of champagne and looked at the clouded horizon of Riverroad. The wake was being held at Grayson’s mother's house. There were people all around me speaking so highly and fondly of my mother, it was like they had forgotten the last eleven years.
It felt like they knew a different Monica Masters than I did.
A low rumble of thunder came from outside. The rain had started just after we had laid Monica to rest. It was fitting weather for such a gloomy day, if I was being honest.
I turned away from the window and was about to head back to the bar to get another glass of champagne.
“Hey druggie.” Astrid stood right behind me with a glass of champagne in her hand. “I would say sorry for your loss, but I know you never gave a damn about Monica.”
Great. Now I had to deal with her. I needed something a little stronger than what I had been given to live through a conversation with Astrid.
I tried to sidestep her, but she stepped in front of me. I tried to move again, but she blocked my path yet again.
“What kind of daughter are you to not even come to visit your mother as she battled stage four cancer? You are a real class act, you know that, druggie?”
“What?” Had I just heard her correctly?
She rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t play dumb. I know for damn sure Monica went to New York to tell you what was going on with her.”
I took a step back and looked at her confused. My mother wasn’t sick. If she had been sick, she would have told me, right? I thought back to when she had come to New York, and I had lashed out and kicked her out of my life.
But if she had been sick, Ethan would have told me.
As if on cue, Ethan rounded the corner with Grayson on his left and Grayson’s mother on his right. I looked past Astrid’s shoulder to lock eyes with him.
At first, Ethan looked confused but as soon as his gaze landed on who I was talking to, his eyes went wide.
Maybe it was the alcohol driving me or maybe it was finally all those emotions that had been suppressed throughout the week. I brushed past Astrid and stormed to Ethan.
“I’m going to ask you this once and I need you to be honest with me, E.” I stopped in front of him and looked him dead in the eye. “Was Mom sick?”
Ethan looked to Grayson who, in turn, was looking at me with narrowed eyes.
“I-I-I…” he stuttered. He was trying to find a way out of this.
“Ethan!” I bellowed, gaining the attention of everyone around us. “Did our mother die of an overdose, or did she die because she was sick?”
Ethan was silent for a moment before he finally opened his mouth to speak. “She died from kidney failure which was a result of cancer. It was so widespread they couldn't do anything to save her."
Time stood still at that moment. I had heard his words, but they probably hadn’t sunk in yet. I knew coming back home would just open Pandora’s box. It was just like the gift that just kept on giving.
