At the mention of my grandmother’s name, my chest went tight. I hadn’t heard her name in… years. Not since I had gone to pick up Thea, Kyra, and Lily from her house.
Don’t come back here, Luna,she had told me the last time I’d seen her.Take them and none of y’all come back.
And I hadn’t. None of us had.
“Is everything… okay?” I asked, ignoring how quiet my voice had gotten.
“Unfortunately, Miss Miller passed away Saturday evening.”
I swallowed and blinked at the timeframe.
“I attempted to contact you when she first went into the hospice…” He trailed off before clearing his throat. “She specifically requested that I reach out to you.”
She had wanted me to know that she was sick?
I hadn’t….
Something heavy—guilt, it was freaking guilt—settled right onto my chest. Had he called me before because she’d been asking for… maybe notmespecifically, but my sisters? To see them one last time? To make sure we got to say goodbye, even if she wasn’t aware of it?
“I’m so sorry,” I muttered, trying to process his words. “I haven’t spoken to my grandmother in years.”
There was a pause on the other end. “I apologize for being the bearer of bad news, Miss Allen, but she made it very clear that when the time came, that she wanted you to be informed.”
It seemed like the words got sucked straight out of my mouth. I didn’t wonderwhyshe wanted that. I knew she had cared for my sisters. She had taken them in for three years before she had decided they would be better off far, far away from the rest of the family. She had told us not to come back.
We had never been that close in the first place, and… because life had gotten so crazy after that, I hadn’t kept in touch. I hadn’t realized that my siblings wouldn’t have either. We rarely ever talked about life before they had come to Houston.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked, heaviness still weighing down on my chest.
“She suffered complications from pneumonia,” the man on the line explained in a gentle but professional voice. “She had been diagnosed with dementia a few years ago. The funeral arrangements have been settled. There was an announcement in the paper. The funeral will be this upcoming Thursday.”
“This Thursday?”
“I apologize if this seems last minute,” the man apologized, too polite to say that he’d tried to warn me she wasn’t doing well. “I can provide you with the service information if you’re interested in attending.”
Interested in attending her funeral?
The reality of what that meant suddenly clicked but…
My grandmother hadwantedme to go. Or at least one of my sisters. Otherwise she wouldn’t have asked her lawyer to contact me. She had wanted us to know.
I didn’t want to go.
I felt terrible for thinking that but…
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want Kyra or Thea or Lily to go either. No. Way.
She had known there was a reason why we hadn’t physically seen each other since I was twenty. Yet she had still asked at some point when she had been well enough to make that kind of request. After everything Grandma Genie had done… taking in three kids while I’d been off in Houston, hundreds of miles away, working and trying to piece my life together, I could do it. For her.
Oh, God, but I didn’t want to.I didn’t freaking want to. I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t.
The idea of my little sisters going was even more unbearable.
Memories of my life before I’d been seventeen, before I’d gotten the hell out of that house, ripped right through me and one of my knees instantly went numb.
I didn’t want to go.
“Miss Allen?” the man spoke up.
