“I know. I know who she is. Or was. I’m sorry you lost your business partner. This isn’t the best time though. Maybe later this week—”
“No. Not my business partner. She was mypartner. She was… mine.”
“Oh. Oh!” I blink, hard, the reality of what he’s saying dawning on me. I scoff and stop myself before I smear my eye shadow. The only thing I can do is breathe. I glance over my shoulder and see that Pattie and George seem to be wrapping things up with friends, family and well-wishers. Meredith has found those same pine trees. She’s dashing her own tears away as she looks at her phone. There’s more. Hours more. I have to keep it together to get through this and then I can fall apart. Then I can deal with Vaughn Coleman. Another deep breath. “Okay.”
“I know I shouldn’t have come. Her family didn’t want me at her funeral. Showing up at her lover’s funeral is probably the definition of bad form.”
“Well, I just met the guy who was covering for them if you wanna talk about bad form.” He looks over my head and I consider pointing John Dipper out to him. Let Vaughn Coleman give him a piece of his mind, maybe a fist to the face, but I don’t. “I should get back.”
“Right.”
“But I do want to talk to you. This is some completely wild Random Hearts shit and you might be the only one who understands how fucked up it is that I decided to even come to this funeral. We won’t talk about the fact that I’m still wearing that asshole’s ring. We should definitely talk.”
“There’s someone else. My other partner, Shaw.”
My heart drops. How many people was Josh fucking? “Excuse me?”
He swallows, then straightens his shoulders. “Corrine was in a long term, polyamorous relationship with me and another man, Christopher Shaw. We both loved her very much.”
“Wow. Okay. Yeah, I can’t do this right now.” My vision blurs for a moment, but something in me refuses to pass out. Vaughn reaches out and takes my elbow. His touch brings things back into focus.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“Here. You can text me at that bottom number.” He hands me a business card. I take it.
Vaughn Coleman
Leeds, Parker & Coleman Patents|Trademarks|Litigation.
Boston, MA.
“You drove up here from Boston?”
“Yeah. I need to talk to you.” I hear it then in his voice. He needs exactly what I need. And he’s hoping I’m the one who can give it to him.
“Okay, thanks. You should go.”
He nods with a tight smile before he turns and walks back to the black Escalade parked near the cemetery gates.
“Who was that, honey?” I turn as Pattie comes up beside me. A wave of exhaustion hits me then. I’m so sick of being polite. I miss my parents. I miss my mom. I miss my sister and my friends. I see that moment again, a moment that almost was, the moment where Josh’s people nearly became my people. But they aren’t my people, because my people would know how unfair this is for me. My people would have given me options instead of insisting I come to the service to keep up the lie. To tell them that Josh did nothing wrong because, even in death shrouded in infidelity, I forgive him. My people wouldn't look at me with big watery eyes and tell me to keep wearing my ring.
“Oh, it was no one,” I say. “He was here to visit someone, but he’s going to come back.”
“We’re gonna head back to Josh’s Nana and Pop-pop’s house.”
“’Kay.” I follow her back to the family limo. As we drive back down the pine-covered road toward Josh’s grandparents’ house, I make up my mind. I never want to see the Delinskys again.
* * *
I groan as I hike Iona higher in my arms. It’s only been three weeks since I last saw my sister and her family, but this little one is growing faster than a weed. “What are you feeding this kid?”
“Only the finest breast milk, but don’t look at me. That is pure bone density. Blame her big-ass father. Why didn’t I marry a short man?” Liz says, letting out a fake cry as she turns off the sink. My sister got all the tall genes our dad’s side had to offer. She’s five eleven and I feel short beside her at five eight. Her husband is six five and built like a broadside of one of their barns. Small children were not in the cards for them, but damn.
“Some woman asked me if Palila was in the second grade the other day. Puberty is going to be hell for her,” Liz sighs.
“No one better to help her through it.”
