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“He couldn’t have!” I shouted. “He didn’t even say goodbye. He was fine. There were still months, maybe even years.”
“There wasn’t,” she said gently. “It was the pneumonia.”
“No.” I shook my head again. I didn’t want to believe it. This great man had not been taken by a simple case of pneumonia. He was too strong for that. Too much of a warrior to go out like that.
“It can’t be true. I need to see him.”
Ace pulled into the driveway of Lucian’s home, but I wouldn’t get out of the car.
“I need to see him,” I demanded. “Take me to the hospital.”
He stared at the concrete again. “I’m sorry, Gypsy, but I can’t. He isn’t there.”
“Then where is he?”
“He’s been cremated,” Birdie said softly. “Everything was already set up. He didn’t want you to see him that way. He didn’t want you to remember him like that.”
“No.” The word came out too quiet, so I screamed it instead. Birdie tried to comfort me, but there was no comfort to be found. Because at that moment, I wanted to die too. And I finally realized what Lucian meant. I finally realized his pain.
He had left it behind and passed it onto me.
THE WEIGHT OF THE BED stirred me from sleep, and I felt his presence beside me. I listened to the sound of his breathing, and the horrible emptiness in my chest seeped away into the blackness as I extended my arm to touch him. “Lucian.”
“It’s me,” Birdie whispered.
My fingers fell away, and my limbs were so heavy I couldn’t move them at all as I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to stop the fresh onslaught of tears. “I thought it was a nightmare.”
And it was. It was a nightmare that would never end.
Birdie held me while I cried because she wanted to help. But I wanted to protect this sacred space where we had slept together. I vowed I would never wash these sheets. I would never lose his scent.
“I’m fine,” I told her. “I just want to be alone.”
“I’m sorry,” Birdie cried. “I don’t know how to help you.”
“You being here helps,” I lied. “But just… not on the bed.”
She understood then, and from that point forward, she and Ace slept on the bedroom floor beside me. Father Hawk was in the living room, and at some point, Luna showed up too. They all kept watch over me, hovering every second like I was liable to take a steak knife to my wrist at any moment. They could have been right, if it weren’t for the baby growing inside me. I clutched at my stomach, silently comforting the only part of Lucian I had left.
Over the course of three days, I hadn’t eaten or slept much. Most of my time had been spent holed up in Lucian’s bed, wrapping myself in his tee shirt and praying to a God that I didn’t know, begging him to give my husband back if I just believed.
Between those stretches, bouts of paranoia would set in as I patrolled the house and screamed at the guests not to touch anything. Birdie had tried to do dishes, and I snarled at her when she touched the cereal bowl Lucian last ate from. It still had milk in it, and I couldn’t bring myself to let it go. I couldn’t bring myself to let anything go.
I declared that nothing in the house was to be touched, cleaned, or thrown away, and everyone tiptoed around me as if I might attack at any moment. I didn’t know who I had become. I couldn’t recognize my face anymore or even feel my own body. I was numb. Heartbroken. And it didn’t matter if I was still alive because inside, I was dead.
“We should get some flowers,” I said numbly.
“Lucian said he didn’t need them,” Ace answered. “He already had everything set up.”
I stared out the window, battling my silent resentment and appreciation for the man I loved. He had planned everything, just as Ace said. I wanted to hate him for taking those decisions away from me, but I also knew I never would have been able to make them all.
“Just pull over and let her get some flowers,” Birdie whispered. “It’s what she wants.”
It wasn’t what I wanted. What I wanted was my husband back. I wanted our life back. The one that we would never get to have. I was lost without him, and I still couldn’t believe that today he’d be laid to rest.
Ace pulled over, and Birdie and I picked out the flowers. Blue, like the tattoo Lucian had on his chest. The one he said would keep me with him always. I never even got a picture of it.
As we drove to the cemetery, my fingers traced over the necklace Lucian had given me for my birthday. I’d looked up the scripture that had been engraved on it this morning.
