She was wrong, but I knew she wouldn’t listen to me on that score.
She offered to come down from Baltimore to “be with me,” but I knew she just really wanted to go to the funeral. I told her no, that I was fine, and that I was certain the funeral would be private. She seemed to accept that, and I mentally sighed with relief, dodging the bullet of her making a play for my father while standing at the graveside of his dead wife.
Yes, ex-wife, but I knew my father still thought of Caro as his wife.
I wanted to reach out to Stick, ask him how he was doing, if he’d been there with her at the end. But I didn’t.
I did tell Grayson that I wanted to go to the funeral even though it would be a private one. I thought I might have to negotiate on that one, assuming Betsy would not want me there. And maybe she didn’t, but Grayson said right away that of course I would be on “the list,” and gave me the details.
I wanted to pay my respects to a woman I admired. And, yeah, it was hard to admit, but I wanted to be there for my father too, who surely would be taking this hard, given their history and their…unfinished business.
But mostly, selfishly, I wanted to go just to see Stick again.
* * *
Lily wentto the funeral with me, and I was grateful for the company. We drove out to the Chesney cemetery in Yvette, me in a tasteful black dress borrowed from Lily—who apparently had a closet full of them, because she wore one too.
When we parked at the curb amidst a small group of cars, I looked around for Stick’s Charger, but didn’t see it. Surely he would be invited to the funeral?
“He sold it,” Lily said.
“What?” I said, playing dumb. “Who sold what?” But I knew. And I also knew why he’d done it, why he’d sold his baby.
For his other baby.
“Stick. He sold his car. And the one Lucas was using, and I guess he had a third one. He sold them all and got something different, something…”
“Kid friendly,” I finished.
Lily had known Stick and I broke up, but I didn’t tell her about his impending bundle of joy. Lucas must have. And bless her for not wanting to talk about it with me—I didn’t think I could have handled it.
I looked at the group of cars, wondering if one of them belonged to Stick. It must have killed him to sell the Charger, he loved it even more than I had come to love Yvette. And that was a lot.
But he did it for the greater good. Much like why he’d stopped seeing me. Or at least that was what he’d told me.
We walked up the grassy slope, careful to mind our heels on the soft grass, to the area with a small gathering of people. Grayson came down and met us, giving Lily a hug and then even awkwardly hugging me. He escorted us up to the site and maneuvered us into the second row, where he had saved chairs for Lily and me next to him and Lily’s mother.
I wondered about my being so close, if maybe I shouldn’t move to the back, or even be one of the group standing behind the four or five rows of chairs. But my father was in the front row, just ahead of me, and he turned around and gave me a nod and a smile, so I stayed where I was.
It was a lovely service. After the minister spoke, Betsy said a few words, barely able to make it through, one hand clutching her notes, the other a linen handkerchief she needed throughout her eulogy.
Joey spoke too, and I could see both of his parents in him. A golden boy with his father’s easy charm. He might abhor the limelight of the political world enough to give up his job and head to Africa, but if he ever changed his mind, he would make an excellent candidate.
My father was the last to speak. He was eloquent and charming and, I believed, totally genuine. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when he was done.
People started walking by the casket, still up on some kind of stage thing, hovering above the dug grave. Then they’d make their way past Betsy, Joey and my father and say a few words, or just shake hands. My father and Joey stood up for this, but Betsy stayed seated.
People were moving in an organized fashion from the back to the front, so we stayed seated in the second row until it was our turn. It was kind of nice, because I got to watch everybody else go through, hear what they said to the Strattons. A nice voyeuristic treat.
Until I saw Stick. I shouldn’t have been surprised; I’d expected he’d be there, had even looked for his car. The car he’d sold.
But seeing him, and not being able to touch him, or throw a zinger his way, or run my hands through his messy hair—it was more painful than I would have imagined. I’d gotten pretty damn good over the years at pushing the bad stuff away, putting my shield (Stick’s word for it) in place and letting painful things ping off of it.
But the shield was pretty thin on the day we were burying Caro Stratton, and what shred of it that was left was obliterated when he looked over my sister’s shoulder and met my gaze.
He was wearing the suit he’d had on for my birthday party. He’d told me the next morning that it was the only suit he owned, that he’d gotten it for his father’s funeral and hadn’t worn it since before my birthday.
So, two funerals and a surprise birthday. Sounded like the title of a bad romcom.
