He nodded. Then he turned and left.
I followed Diego and sat opposite his desk in a leather chair.
“We received our confirmation from the doctor, and our coroner has gone to retrieve your mother,” he began. His words began to bleed together, as he explained that he would contact the U.S. Consulate in Curaçao and report the death to them. Death certificates would be generated in-house and delivered to the Consulate along with my mother’s passport so that a report of death abroad could be placed on file. Within a month, all of these things would be returned to me.
But for now, the more pressing issue was what to do with her body.
So there I sat, alone in a foreign funeral home, with menus of prices set in front of me, learning about the travel restrictions for transporting cremated remains versus the cost of embalming and transporting the body back to the United States.
And every time I thought that it would somehow be easier to get through this if only Beckett were beside me, I got extremely nauseous.
Guilt is a very real emotion.
Chapter 33
Beckett leans in to kiss me. Time stops, and we’re back on the island. It’s our second day there, and he teases me into the azure water—my first time bathing in it. He tells me he wants to kiss me, and my body becomes so excited that it almost borders on numbness. Beckett transfers his heat to me, with his hand on my waist, then on my lower back, pulling me in close to him. The feeling of his lips on mine is transcendent. Everything is wet. When he finishes the most satisfying kiss I’ve ever had, he tells me it’s a gift. Something I can write about.
“Stop,” I say now, forcing the memory away before our mouths touch. I place both of my hands on his chest and can feel his heart pounding beneath his sopping shirt. The rain somehow falls even harder. I’m not sure how that’s possible.
“Oh,” he replies. His gaze, which teetered on hopeful just moments ago, is now forlorn.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I add.
He removes his hands from my shoulders. “Go on,” he says.
“She died, Beckett.”
His expression turns sour. “Your mom?” he asks. “Birdie?”
I nod.
“I’m so sorry, Mel. When?”
“That night.”
“Wait. What?” His expression changes again, this time to horrified.
“Ournight,” I clarify. “I came back to the room and she was dead.”
“Oh my God,” he says. Rain be damned, he sits back down on the soaking wet steps of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs.
Pieces of a puzzle click together in his mind. He leans his head into the heel of his hand, rocking it back and forth, processing the implications of what I’ve just told him and the obvious ripple effect this event has had on the past two years.
I sit beside him.
“I had no idea,” he says.
“I know.”
“She was…”
“Yeah.”
He sighs. “I’m so, so sorry, Mel.”
Involuntary tears form in my eyes. “Beckett, I can’t do this.”
“Do what? Sit here with me and probably catch pneumonia?” He tries to lighten the mood.
