I liked them.
The empty seat next to me weighs heavy, and I wish Jake was here. He offered, didn’t he? I had to open my big mouth and refuse.
I haven’t eaten much since I arrived, either. The food here tastes different.
“I spoke to him on the phone while you were there,” Mirai tells me. “Your uncle, I mean. I was afraid he’d be a jerk.” She laughs a little. “He had a real attitude.”
I smile to myself, looking back out the window. “Yeah, he does,” I whisper.
But I’m full of pride. I like him that way.
“I invited them,” she says. “I offered to bring them out.”
“They’ll never leave Colorado.”
Noah, maybe. Jake, unwillingly. And Kaleb…I can’t see him anywhere else.
My breathing turns ragged as I think about what time it is there and what they’re probably doing right now. Noah would be off doing his test runs, wasting way more time than he was allowed, and Jake will yell at him when he gets back before ordering him inside to help me with lunch…
But no. I drop my eyes.
I’m not in the kitchen. Noah will make lunch himself.
; Or run to town for cheeseburgers.
I wonder if he got that stain off the seat. Knowing Noah, he just left it. He’s so lazy about some things.
“The reverend will speak first,” Mirai speaks up, “followed by me, George Palmer, Cassidy Lee, and then Delmont Williams.”
I sit back in my seat and look out the front windshield, past the driver, to see the hearse carrying my parents. First to the funeral. Then to the crematorium.
My throat swells.
“The reverend will then ask if anyone else would like to say something,” she continues in a slow, soft voice. “If you decide you want to speak, feel free to go ahead then, okay?”
Her voice is like she’s explaining this to a child. Like she’s afraid I’ll wake up screaming if she’s too loud.
“You don’t have to do that,” I tell her. “You don’t have to talk like that. I’m not asleep.”
She stares at me, drawing in a deep breath as her eyes start to glisten. And then she turns away, so I won’t see.
“Do you remember your night terrors?” she asks, staring out the window. “We talked about them when you were little.”
They came back in Colorado. I haven’t told her that, and I won’t.
“It happened every night,” she explains. “We would wake you up, stop your screaming, and then put you back to sleep.”
I vaguely remember it. I was so young.
She swallows. “One night, I just waited for you to fall asleep,” she says, “and I crawled in next to you.”
She looks back at me.
“Nothing. No terrors,” she tells me. “And the next night, the same thing. No terrors when I slept with you.”
My chin trembles, and I clench my jaw to stop it.