“I know this must be hard.”
“Do you?” I snap, looking over. “Is it hard for you?”
Her brows pull together, an indent creasing between them. I’ve offended her. “How can you ask me that, Colson? Of course, it’s hard for me. She’s my sister.”
“One you stopped coming around for,” I mutter.
She shakes her head and clutches her bag on her lap like it’s her lifeline. Like it’ll help her find her way out of this house, out of this town. Like if she touches anything else she might succumb to the same fate as her sister. “There are reasons for what I’ve done, the decisions I’ve made. Janie was a flight risk. If I didn’t walk away and take care of myself, she was going to take me down with her. She already was beginning to.”
I don’t remember Aunt Bess succumbing to the pressures of dealing with Mom. But maybe I was too young. Too in my own head to see how much it affected her. I don’t care to pick apart the pieces of that puzzle right now.
“I wanted to wait for you, but you haven’t been around. I had to make the executive decision on her burial.” She rubs an open palm on her leg, and I realize this is more than uncomfortable for her, and it should be. We’re talking aboutherdead sister.Mydead mother.
I move my elbows to my knees and drop my head in my hands. Just thinking about her being six feet under makes me want to fucking puke.
“I wasn’t sure what her wishes were or if she had any.”
“What did you choose?”
“I wanted her close to her family,” she says. “We picked a burial site for her at Willow Creek Cemetery near Chatham Hills. She’ll be laid to rest tomorrow morning. It’ll be private, just family, but we want you there, Colson. It’d be wrong to send her off without her son present.”
My heart kicks at my ribs.
“And if I don’t show?”
“Don’t do that to yourself.” I can feel Aunt Bess’s eyes on me again, burning a judgmental hole in the side of my head. “Don’t give yourself a lifetime of regret.”
I thought dealing with Mom’s erratic behavior was difficult. The mood swings. The cravings. The mornings she’d walk through the door like it was no big deal that she stayed out all night while she had a kid at home. The guys she’d bring back with her just to manipulate into giving her drugs or money. The money she stole from me—directly and through the money I gave Finn.
I’d deal with all that ten times over if it meant I didn’t have to have this conversation.
A thought hits me, one I’ve had many times since Uncle Thad finished the words Aunt Bess couldn’t say at the fundraiser. “I don’t understand how she got the drugs in the first place.”
“You know how it is. Even when everyone is supposed to be locked up and doing their time, things still sneak through the cracks.”
My gut knows that’s true, but I also get the feeling that it’s not the entire story. I hate knowing that someone handed over the very thing that took her life without caring that they were taking away someone’s mother and sister.
Aunt Bess gently rubs my back. “Your mom was a recovering addict who was in the thick of her addiction. Withdrawal can turn someone into a totally different person. Can desperately convince them that they need more of what they long for than they do. It was a tragic accident; one we should be grateful didn’t happen sooner.”
I rub my hands over my face to keep the emotions that want to wrack my chest all over again at bay. Perhaps she’s right in saying it was just a freak accident. Maybe it all came down to Mom taking more than she could handle. She was always good at biting off a bigger piece than she could chew.
“There’s something else we need to talk about,” Aunt Bess announces. “As you know, your grandmother left me and Janie an inheritance. It’s the same money that we used to set up the recurring payments on the mortgage and utilities here. My lawyer is drawing up the paperwork to have it transferred into your name as we speak.”
I remember Sebastian saying something about money.
“I don’t want it,” is what comes out of my mouth instead of asking more questions. I don’t want something that was hers. If I take it, it writes her death in stone. It makes it permanent.
“Yes, you most certainly do,” Aunt Bess rebukes. “If you don't claim it as her next of kin, the bank will absorb it. Do you want to say no to almost a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, Colson?”
My ears perk at her words.
A hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
I’ve never known how much money existed in that bank account. I was too young to understand the details of my grandmother’s death. The only thing that mattered was having a roof over our heads and knowing that Mom and I wouldn’t end up on the streets or have the power shut off.
I look over at my aunt. She’s wearing an expression like she knows I won’t say no to it. How could I? That’s a…literal shit ton of money. The kind that takes peopleoutof this town.
So, as much as I want to, I can’t pass it up.
