Money was probably the only aspect of my life that turned me into a chicken—accepting time and time again that the green stuff didn’t grow on trees like leaves.
Trees.
Groaning, I hid my face in my hands again, but I was too curious for my own good.
I peeked.
It seemed like the entire country was watching the televised funeral of Rosaria Caffi. Singers from all over the world, mostly her peers, sang tear-jerking melodies. They recounted stories of her greatest performances. Her dad, mom, and sister sat together, mom and sister mourning underneath black veils. She had four sons. A husband. But the camera never panned to them. Nor did I catch their names.
The camera zoomed in on the black casket with ornate bronze details. It was closed. Thousands of red roses mixed with canary yellow ones created enough sprays, I wondered if most of the roses in existence had been clipped to create them.
The entire funeral seemed almost…scripted, which seemed like a fitting end for a woman who seemed to love to perform. Her last moments came back to me in haunting detail. How she had accused me of stealing her spotlight, even though I had never met the woman in my life and only had asked her about her last words because I would want that. The chance to express my love before the kiss of death took me.
My hands fell from my face when her mom stood in front of the podium and explained that Rosaria had recorded the next song for her husband before her death, and it was being shared postmortem. And when the music started to play, the sound of her voice hit me hard.
It was the most beautiful thing about her.
It was pure.
When she sang, she turned into a stunning songbird.
And the song?
Heartbreaking.
“I Will Always Love You.”
It was a song on my playlist. I had been listening to it before the nightmare. Before the bus swerved…
It was as if the power of her headlights hit me square in the eyes and burned my retinas through remembrance.
I started to cry.
Hard.
Ugly.
Tears.
Tears that felt like they were made of blood instead of water and sodium.
I didn’t even think it was because of Rosaria Caffi, specifically, but…just a deep sadness that only loss could bring. A life had been lost. But the suffering inside of me because of this…just didn’t make sense. Which was a horrible feeling to have. There should be no confusion. I had caused this. Maybe not intentionally, but in a case like this, did it matter if it was or not? I didn’t think her family would separate the two.
Nonna’s death was still fresh in my heart, too, so maybe this entire scene was grating on already sensitive emotions. Nonna didn’t have all this fanfare, but loss was loss. It didn’t matter if we went into the grave in a five-hundred-dollar box or a ten thousand dollar one. Point still stood that whoever was in that box was gone. The absence caused a hole that no one else could ever fill.
I couldn’t seem to get my emotions under control. Especially as the funeral came to an end and Rosaria was being carried out to the song she had recorded for her husband.
Did he hate me?
Did he even know what I had done?
What about her sons?
Dad, mom, and sister?
A sister that might have looked like her. If she did, would she always be a reminder to Rosaria’s parents that she was gone? Or would they take comfort in seeing her face, the memories of the daughter they lost shining through?
I sniffled, sitting up, using the heels of my palms to dry my eyes. I took a few shuddering breaths and called Eva, the neighbor across the street from the Poésy family who had hooked me upwith the job on the private island. Eva had told me to call night or day. She answered on the first ring.
