“What?”
“The family is ready,” he said.
“Is Ethan here?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then the family is not ready,” I replied, looking away from him. Because he was smart, he understood that I would not discuss it any further and left. But the foolish one came in his place. I knew his voice by heart now.
“You are the one who pushed for these funerals. We shouldn’t be late,” Wyatt said.
“Ethan is not here.”
“Ethan hasn’t been here in days. That didn’t stop you from planning all of this.”
“Now I have finished planning, so I must wait,” I said, looking to him.
Like me, like everyone, he was dressed in all black with a green Callahan pin on his suit lapel. His hair was combed a bit, he’d shaved, and yet with all the cleaning up he had done, you could clearly see the worry and exhaustion…the defeat in his eyes.
He exhaled slowly before stepping inside closer to me. “I understand why you want to wait for Ethan. But, Aunt Mina, Uncle Declan, and everyone out there is waiting to bury their grief. Making us all wait only makes them stand in pain longer. We can find an excuse—”
“There is no excuse for him not to be here. If you all like, you may go. Gigi and I will wait here for him to come back and leave with him for the funeral.”
“Calliope—”
“What? You don’t like the idea of standing out there as everyone watches the family, wondering where Ethan and his family are? You don’t want to be stuck there with the choice of whether or not to start the ceremony?”
“I’m not trying to argue with you, Calliope—”
“Good. Then everyone will wait—”
“What if he—”
“Don’t say it,” I cut in coldly, narrowing my eyes on him. “Don’t become any smaller in my eyes, Wyatt. When will you start to have faith in him?”
His jaw cracked to the side. “I have faith! I—”
“No, you don’t. All of you lack faith. It’s bothersome.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Ethan often rubbed his temples, but he did this, too, sometimes. A trait they had picked up from their father. I’d seen Liam do it almost twice a day, every day.
“We will wait then,” he replied, but instead of leaving, he took a seat across from me on the couch.
I tilted my head to the side, wondering what he was doing.
He shrugged. “I’d rather stick around you than deal with them right now.” He’d nodded to the door when he said them…them being his family. He leaned back on the couch, and I looked away from him, hoping he didn’t want to talk.
But of course, I didn’t have that type of luck.
“Ethan upset you, and you still blindly trust him. Why?”
I exhaled. “It’s not blind trust. I trust him with my eyes open. No one asked you to be blind, Wyatt. You can see Ethan for all he is. A liar, a killer, a selfish, manipulative son of a bitch—”
“Y
ou do love him, right?” He chuckled.
“You can see all the flaws in him. You can see all of his mistakes. You see it, you accept it, and you have faith in him anyway.”