“Asha, there was another accident. I need you and Faith to come with me.”
HOMEGOING
ASHA
The casket was closed out of necessity.
Nobody wanted to see a skeleton that had been charred to nothing more than the bone marrow they’d used to identify my husband.
His funeral hadn’t been anything I could plan because his wishes had already been laid out. Not that I would’ve been any good in the first place. Apparently, with the way his job was he’d had arrangements made as soon as he entered the military, which mentally was a relief but emotionally made me feel disconnected.
Abandoned again.
We hadn’t been married six months but his absence felt like my soul had been ripped from my body, leaving a hollow shell.
He’d promised.
On the bow of the yacht, dancing beneath the stars he’d promised he’d never hurt me. And I believed every word because he had never broken a promise to me. And now he had.
My penance for believing in him and thinking I would get a fairytale.
I should’ve never let him in.
But that was the harsh lie I couldn’t tell myself. I wouldn’t have changed anything. The year I had with Ori was worth feeling this pain that would last me until I took my last breath. Ihated that I now knew that I was truly better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
The ground was almost too cold for them to bury him. Special tools, they said were necessary to bring in; they were the only way they’d been able to get the job done. Even the earth knew that his not being here with me was wrong.
A sacrilege. Unnatural.
It wanted to reject him and force him to stay with me always. I wouldn’t have minded. Wanted to have some piece of him with me even if it meant I could only talk to him as a pendant worn close to my heart or contained in ceramics on the mantle. Because, of course, he would have pride of place no matter where I was.
But even that couldn’t be done.
The funeral home was one of the few that had scruples and no amount of money was worth them going against Ori’s wishes. My father tried, the sum astronomical hoping to bring back my smile and they’d refused.
This is why I preferred the morally gray.
He had taken in account my every comfort when it came to him being gone but hadn’t accounted for me wanting a part of him. That was what hurt the most. There was a time when he knew I didn’t love him and didn’t put that on me.
I was numb watching as his friends attempted to remain stoic but their sunglasses betrayed their emotions. Xerxes had an arm around his wife who was pregnant and my heart near broke thinking about how Ori and I would never be in that position. I wasn’t even sure that kids were in the realm of my desires but to have the decision be made so unilaterally in the direction of no without any input seemed again like I was being punished.
Abandoned again.
“Do you need to—”
I shook my head wishing that none of this was real but knowing that it was. We’d just been together with his cousin watching him win another championship and celebrating his joy. And now, somehow, we were supposed to live after this loss? Grant’s wife, Lyric seemed to be holding him up but she was so small next to him that her brother was assisting her. He broke free from them both walking over first to Ori’s mother and hugging her, then to his grandfather who he bent down to and said something in his ear. Although he was only a few bodies away from me I couldn’t hear what Grant was saying. Within seconds, Pappy was nodding his head as tears continued to stream down his face.
I stuck with British tradition and wore a hat to cover my hair but I refused a veil. I didn’t care if the world saw how I was dying inside. My mother’s face held a satisfied smirk. Happy my husband was gone and I was again suffering. I was sure the way Ori doted on me when we saw them for Christmas angered her. We’d stayed at my home in London before going to spend the day at their place in Kensington Palace Gardens. My mother had attempted to shun me by buying Ori extravagant gifts and gifting me with items she’d picked up at Primark. As if they knew she’d behave this way both my father and Ori had gone decidedly overboard. A conversation must have been had between the two of them because boxes of custom jewelry, a floor-length fur, dozens of cold-weather clothing for the house there in London, which Ori said he’d be using more often since he’d retired. I hadn’t gone back to GW for the fall semester and was going to have to take a leave of absence now.
Not that it mattered.
The most thoughtful gift was the last one from my husband. Besides the expensive gifts, he’d gotten me something so thoughtful. He presented me with wallpaper. A custom print from Sheila Bridges that had been printed on a deep turquoisebackground. He stated it was for my new office inside the home he’d started to remodel. A gesture, one that would include me in a home that had been in his family for generations and he wanted me to put my mark on it. He’d ordered her entire tea, bar and china set to be delivered to our home there and the penthouse. His explanation was that when he looked at it he thought of me. The love of self while also not shying away from luxury. I hadn’t eaten off another plate or drunk my tea out of anything else since.
Watching Pappy look so defeated made the tears stream down my face again as he put his forehead to Pappy’s before walking toward me. I wanted to stand but I knew my legs were too weak to even attempt it.
He didn’t seem bothered but leaned over and gave me a hug. Despite the strength in his arms, I could feel them shaking as he embraced me. “I… I’m sorry for your loss, Ka’i.”
The tears crested again and I was fighting to offer him condolences as well, since it wasn’t like he hadn’t lost his cousin. And then for him to call me by the name Ori did make it feel even more real.
