one
CLEMENTINE
Silas Dupree needed to stop glancing at me like I might break into a million pieces at any second. I wasn’t going to break. Not in front of him. I wasn’t going to shed a single tear. He hadn’t bothered to call or text in more than eight years. Not even when I blew up his phone for weeks. Not even this past year, while his twin sister, my best friend, Sophie, was slowly dying. He didn’t get to pretend he cared now. And the fact that he was trying to just made me mad. I needed to be strong for Sophie’s daughter, Anna. I could cry once this graveside service was over, when I was alone and no one was watching.
Silas knew better than to have his eyes open while the Pastor was praying anyway. I mean,myeyes were open, but I didn’t care about showing Pastor Allen any respect. He’d hellfire and damnation’ed Sophie right out of his church when she’d come to his office terrified and knocked up at the age of fourteen and a half. He should’ve preached love and acceptance and offered his assistance. Instead, he’d terrified her with all the ways God would let her burn for eternity ifshe didn’t wrap herself in sackcloth, rub ashes on her head, and place that baby girl with another family through adoption.
I couldn’t care less if he was the minister to marry Sophie’s parents, Bo and Jenny, or that he’d baptized every one of their five babies—including the daughter they were laying to rest today. No, I wasn’t closing my eyes and bowing my head for anythinghehad to say. Sophie wouldn’t have wanted Old Fish Lips preaching her graveside service anyway. She wouldn’t have let him set foot on Dupree land much less in their family cemetery. But Bo and Jenny never would ruffle feathers.
“And dear Lord,” Pastor Allen’s jowls hung limp like my momma’s old basset hound, Buford. “Please forgive Sophie Ray Dupree for all her wrongdoings and mischief.” Spit shot out of the side of his mouth and landed on an old lady I didn’t recognize. She dabbed at her face with a handkerchief, but her eyes never opened. Silas should’ve taken note.
Pastor Allen continued, “Just like the Lord said of those two thieves on the cross, 'they know not what they do.' Was he seriously comparing my best friend, single-mom extraordinaire, loyal sister, and loving daughter with the two thieves? My eyes narrowed, and I tried with all my might to burn holes into the scalp he was hiding with that pathetic wisp of a comb-over.
“Okay, boomer.” Anna hissed next to me. “He’s probably still mad about the time you and Momma made him a dating profile on Farmers Only. And everybody swiped left.” I bit back a laugh and pulled Sophie’s thirteen-year-old daughter against my side, enjoying a brief lift from the boulder of grief residing on my chest.
“Either that,” I whispered back, “or the time we dressed up those chocolate-covered Brussels sprouts with Ferrero Rocher wrappers and gave them to him for Easter.” Everyone knew Pastor Allen was “deathly” allergic to Brussels sprouts. Apparently, the covetous clergyman had snuck one of the “candies”between the Easter sermon and the potluck afterward. By the time the blessing on the food ended, his lips had swollen up to four times their normal size, and his nose ran like a firehose, dripping all over Momma’s famous baked beans. Tragedy. But also hilarious. And also how he got his nickname, Old Fish Lips. Mrs. Allen had to rush him home to give him a shot with an EpiPen and pump him full of Benadryl. Said he didn’t wake up for two days.
Oh, Sophie,I thought.Will life ever be any fun without you?
A sob rose up in my chest, threatening to crack my heart right in two. As if he could feel the impending rupture, Silas’s gaze skittered to me. With the way the sun hit him right then, his gray eyes seemed almost translucent, especially against his chestnut brown hair. A muscle in his jaw flexed and his gaze narrowed, roving over my face. I held his stare, hoping he’d be uncomfortable knowing I’d caught him gawking. But he didn’t show an ounce of regret. The man had a poker face like no one else. And it was infuriating. I tried to out-stare him but, like always, I was the first to break.
The petite blonde next to him doubled down on the death grip she had on his hand. The laser-beam glare she shot at me could rival the one I’d aimed at Pastor Allen. What was she even doing here? A funeral wasn’t the time to meet your boyfriend’s family. And it wasn’t the time to be glowering at the deceased’s best friend.
Apparently, Silas hadn’t told her that I wasn’t someone she should be threatened by. Maybe Si and I had been close friends through childhood and high school, but the minute he left for college, he dropped me hard, only exchanging the occasional greeting whenever he came home. Beyond that, the only connection we shared was a very inactive Facebook friendship. As far as I could tell, Silas never even logged on to his account. Or if he did, he never so much as liked or commented onanyone’s status. And the past few years, up until Sophie got sick, he hadn’t even come home. He’d flown his parents, Sophie, and Anna to him.
Oh, I still knew plenty about him—in a newish relationship with pint-sized Barbie, named Wyoming’s Teacher of the Year last year, and had accepted a middle school assistant principal job starting this fall. But I’d learned all of that from Sophie or Bo and Jenny, who bragged about their kids every time they got the slightest chance. So, yeah, I may’ve known a fair bit about Silas, but Barbie over there could stop marking her territory. It was a waste of metaphorical urine.
Maybe if she realized that—even though this was a funeral and not a singles mixer—I was married, she might lower her hackles. I peeked over my shoulder, trying to locate my husband, Billy, at the back of the funeral tent, where he’d said he would be. Billy didn’t do crying. Or getting up in his feelings. Or anything that forced him to pretend like he did. But a look over both shoulders told me no, he was not here.
He’d actually skipped out on Sophie’s graveside service? I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket.
Me: Where are you?
A few seconds later, he replied.
Billy: Emergency at the office. A girl needed stitches.
Billy was one of the doctors at the only clinic in town, so it wasn’t unheard of…but he’d had an unusually high number of emergencies lately. It irritated me that he would let anything stop him from being here. Send them to urgent care, for crying out loud.
Just then, Pastor Allen must’ve said somethingelse offensive because I’d never heard someone clear their throat in as threatening a way as Bo did just then.
“Amen.” Fish Lips finished abruptly and scampered to the edge of the tent.
Everything went quiet. Anna nudged me. “Lemon, I think it’s your turn.”
Oh. Yeah.
The Duprees had asked me to give part of Sophie’s eulogy during the funeral, but I knew my limitations. So we’d compromised, and I was supposed to say a few parting words now. As I stepped away, Anna walked across the tent and sidled up on the other side of Silas. He pulled her under his arm, blinking back tears and failing, and pressed a kiss to her head.
Sophie’s mahogany casket had a spray of beautiful white lilies on top. I stood in front of it and turned to face everyone. All four of her brothers—Silas, Holden, Ashton, and Ford—were wiping their tears. What they say is true. Cowboys don’t cry. Except at their only sister’s funeral. And then they shake and whimper and blow their noses with the weakest of men.
Jenny and Bo sobbed against each other, still seated in the front row. Behind them, my momma pressed a tissue against her nostrils, her expression battle-worn. It’s how we all felt. Too tired for whatever came next. A year of watching someone die will do that to a person.
I cleared my throat, my hands mangling each other, and began. “Sophie didn’t say much about what she wanted at her funeral.” I chewed my lip and shrugged. “Not too many twenty-eight-year-olds have their funerals planned out. And she never let us talk about ‘what if.’” I cleared my throat and swallowed carefully. “Even when what if became when.”
I made the mistake of looking up. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It almost broke me.
I had to cheer them up. It was my responsibility. “Sophiewouldn’t have wanted this.” I shook my head. “She’d shake her finger at all of us right now.”
