"They're getting it anyway," My dad tells him, because I think my dad knows there is no point arguing about this.
Hayden's mouth moves, "Yes, sir."
Dad turns to me a small smile forms on his lips. "Your mom," he says softly. "She always loved him, you know. She used to say she knew you two would find your way back."
My throat tightens so hard I can't speak.
"She got to see it," he says. Almost to himself. "She got that." He squeezes my hand. "She got that, Livvy."
I press my lips together and nod because it's all I can do, and Dad reaches up with his other hand and puts it against my face the way he used to when I was small, his palm against my cheek, just for a moment.
Then he looks at Hayden over my head.
Something passes between them. Man to man, quiet and complete, the kind of thing that doesn't need words.
Hayden gives him a single nod.
My dad nods back.
I wear her favorite color. That was the one thing I knew, her favorite color. When everything else felt impossible to think about, the flowers, the order of service, the words, all of it. Mom’s color I knew. Pale blue. She wore it to every important thing. My first day of school, parents' evenings, the day we moved, the day she sat across from a doctor who told her she was sick and she came home and made dinner and didn't say a word about it until she'd fed us both.
Pale blue.
It's the only decision I made entirely on my own and I made it without hesitating, and I think she would have liked that.
I'm dressed before anyone else is awake, mainly because I didn’t sleep all night.
I sit on the edge of the bed in Hayden's room in the pale blue dress and I look at my hands in my lap, and I breathe the way he taught me. In. Out. One thing at a time. Just the next thing, not all the things. Just this breath, then the next one.
Hayden stops in the doorway of the bathroom for a moment, taking me in, and then he crosses the room and crouches down in front of me.
He doesn't say anything at first. He just looks at my face with those beautiful eyes of his.
"She'd love that dress on you," he says quietly.
My throat tightens. I nod, because there’s nothing else I can say to him. I don’t have any words, but I’m scared if I open my mouth the only things which will escape are cries, and I don’t want that, not today.
He stands, and holds out his hand, and I take it, then he pulls closer and wraps his arms around me.
The funeral home is small, white and full of pale winter light.
Autumn has done the flowers and they're exactly right, soft whites and creams with small touches of blue woven through, nothing over the top. I don't know how she knew. I don't know how any of these people knew what my mother needed when I couldn’t piece it together myself, but they did.
The Crawfords fill the left side of the room. My dad’s in a wheelchair in the front row.
He wasn't supposed to be discharged yet. He told the doctors he was going to his wife's funeral, and they could either arrange transport or watch him leave. Eventually they arranged transport. They also sent a nurse with him, to make sure he’s okay, another thing I know Hayden has paid for, and I’m never going to be able to repay him.
Dad's pale, he hasn't said a word since we arrived, but he reached for my hand the moment I sat beside him, and he hasn't let go. I hold his hand, and I look at the coffin at the front of the room, and I breathe.
The service is short, the way Mum would have wanted. She had no patience for things that went on longer than they needed to. Meetings, queues, phone calls with people who didn't get to the point, she had a look, a particular press of her lips, and I find myself almost smiling thinking about it while the officiant speaks. Almost.
Someone reads something. A poem, I think. I hear the words going past without quite catching them.
They asked me if I wanted to say a few words, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew I would break down, and I needed to be strong today.
Then a song comes on, something she used to hum in the kitchen without knowing she was doing it. Beside me my dad'shand tightens around mine, his head drops forward, and his shoulders shake once. Just once, and I put my other hand over our joined ones, and I hold on.
Hayden's hand in on my lower back, letting me know he’s there for me.
