Shame washes over me. “I didn’t go because I wanted to make up with him, Mum. I went to get his help.” She frowns. “I thought he could find out who’d been arrested and if they’d really done it.”
She cups my face, “Darling girl, why would you think he could help?”
I shrug, “He wasn’t squeaky clean was he. I thought maybe he’d ask around.”
“No, he was a scum bag, running around for bigger scum bags. He doesn’t have those connections, Leoni. He severed them when he did what he did.” I stare blankly, and she sighs heavily. “He turned informant for the police. No one would help him even if they could.”
“Are we in danger?” I ask, my voice trembling.
She smiles. “No, it’s been years. If anyone was coming, they’d have come by now. Besides, it’s him they’d go for.”
I nod, relaxing. “Who was it? The people he worked for?”
She shrugs, getting up to grab two mugs. “I can’t remember now, Lee. It was years ago.”
The door opens, and Jordan walks in. The second he sees me, he comes over and gives me a half-hug in the way teenagers do when they’re really happy but don’t want it to show. He rests his head against my shoulder. “Sorry,” he mutters, barely above a whisper.
I smile, rubbing a hand up and down his back. “Sorry I left,” I reply. “It won’t happen again.”
He pulls back and lets out a breath, “Are you making a cup of tea, Ma?” he asks.
She laughs, “Yeah, Jord. It’s all I ever seem to do.”
He sits down. “Did Mum tell you they charged him?”
“I saw the text,” I say with a nod. “That’s good news, right?”
He nods. “And we can have the funeral now.”
I sigh with relief. “I think we need it.”
“They can do it as soon as Friday,” Mum adds, glancing to gauge our reaction. When neither of us speaks, she continues. “And I think it’s best we do it sooner rather than later. Whilst it’s hanging over us, we can’t move forward, and Isaac wouldn’t want us fussing. This is the next step. And then all we have to do is get through the trial.”
“If there is one,” Jordan cuts in. “If he pleads guilty, won’t he just be sentenced?”
I nod, but it doesn’t feel like closure when I picture it. Maybe a trial is what we need so we can hear the details. So we can understand and make sense of it all.
Friday comes too quickly.
There isn’t enough time to brace myself, not enough time to process that this is really happening. The funeral is arranged too fast, and my father doesn’t get permission to attend. Being back in segregation doesn’t help, but I think Mum wanted it this way. Quick. Clean. Before he could make arrangements to be there.
We keep it small. Close family only. Apart from Courtney, who grips my hand so tightly, as if she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
The chapel smells faintly of polish and of flowers already wilting. The words blur together, hymns, prayers, murmured condolences, until they all sound the same. Empty. Inadequate.
Because none of them know Isaac like I did.
They don’t know the way he laughed loudly, or how he used to steal food off my plate just to annoy me. They don’t know the stupid arguments or the way he looked at me that last day, like he was trying to remember my face.
When it’s time, we follow the coffin outside.
The sky is overcast, thick with grey clouds that feel like they’re pressing down on my chest. As they lower Isaac into the ground, something inside me cracks open. I don’t sob. I don’t scream. I just stand there, numb, while the earth swallows him whole.
Mum sobs quietly beside me, her hand gripped tightly in mine. And next to her, Jordan stares blankly into the ground.
I look up as a sleek, dark car sits at the edge of the cemetery. The window is lowered just a fraction. Not enough to see him. Just enough for me to know he’s there.
Warren.
