“I knew him from primary school,” Valerie added. “He and Rudy were a couple for… How long was it?”
“Ten years,” Rudy said with a hint of pride. “Eighty-five to ninety-five.” For me and Laurence, he clarified, “He passed away from a long illness. Although he had such a bad habit of leaving wet towels on the floor, I would have killed him myself by ninety-six.”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.” I felt stupid and insensitive for not knowing. Neil had never mentioned Burt. Maybe he’d thought it wouldn’t ever come up, or that I wouldn’t care because my relationship with Rudy was antagonistic even on our best days.
Rudy shrugged one shoulder. “It takes a long time, but someone told me the same thing I just told you all. And they were right. I got there eventually.”
I wanted to believe him, but it might have been easier for him to say two decades from his initial loss. We were still mired in fresh grief.
He fixed me with a raised eyebrow. “Now enough of this sad bullshit. I think it’s time Laurence and Valerie hear the tale of how Emma and Sophie first met.”
I looked at Valerie. “She already knows, I’m sure.”
Valerie tilted her head. “I know she met you when you weren’t very dressed. Is there a story here?”
My face blazed hot, but Neil was laughing behind his hand, and I wanted so badly for him to keep laughing and feeling good. “Um, it was more like…”
Neil chuckled. “It was far more horrifying than Emma let on, if all you knew was that Sophie was pants-less.”
“She didn’t…” Valerie looked between us with widening eyes. “No.”
“I’m afraid so,” Neil confirmed with a nod, his lips pressed together.
“Her plane came in early, and I had spent the night with Neil.” How graphic was I supposed to get here? What the hell? If laughter was the best medicine, maybe it worked as an antidepressant, too. “She kind of overheard me…yelling something.”
“I believe it was ‘fuck me hard,’” Rudy supplied for me, giving me a shitty little smirk over the rim of his water glass.
Laurence looked absolutely scandalized, and Valerie let out a whoop of laughter, the intensity of which I had never, ever heard from her. “Oh my god, you’re kidding.”
“No, no. He’s got it wrong,” Neil said, giving me an apologetic glance. “It was actually, ‘I want you to fuck me harder.’”
Valerie snorted. “Sophie the power bottom. Am I using that right?”
Rudy and Neil both shook their heads, and Neil chuckled, “No, you are not.”
I covered my burning face with my hands. “She never let me live it down, either.”
“But that was hardly the best part,” Neil went on. “Sophie went skipping off to the kitchen for something, wearing one of my shirts, and that’s when she ran into Emma.”
“She asked me what grade I was in.” I shook my head. “But that was Emma, wasn’t it? She never pulled a single punch with me.”
“Nor with me,” Neil agreed.
“Though, she may have physically longed to punch you on numerous occasions,” Valerie teased him.
I can’t wait to tell Emma all the dirt we dished on her, I thought, and it sliced me up like a disposable shaving razor the hotel provides when you forgot your own.
It was almost as though everyone had the same thought right along with me, because we all went quiet and contemplative. Neil was the first to break from the spell. “So. We still have our paper lanterns to light.”
“Yes,” Laurence said, pushing his chair back a fraction. “What a lovely idea, Sophie.”
“Emma would have scolded us about sending trash into the environment,” Valerie began, and my heart fell at the thought that she would slam the memorial I planned, but she went on, “But I’m her mother, so I don’t have to listen to all of that nonsense.”
“Not to worry, I have that covered. These are made of one-hundred percent biodegradable rice paper and bamboo,” Neil assured us.
“What about the little bits of wire?” I asked. He shushed me with a look.
We filed out of the dining room, and everyone went to get their jackets. Though the days had gotten warmer, we were still on the Atlantic, and the wind could be brutal. I zipped Olivia up in her snuggly teddy bear coat with the little ear flaps on the hood and followed everyone to the patio, where the lanterns waited.