“Who are the ladies? Did they even know him?” I snap. I can’t help the harsh tone of my voice, and I feel slightly guilty when my mother frowns. The guilt is pushed back when she glances around the church to make sure none of her “friends” caught my disrespectful tone.
“Yes, Theresa. Some of them did.”
“Well, I’d love to help as well,” Karen interrupts as we walk outside. “If that’s okay, of course?” She smiles.
I am so thankful for Karen’s presence. She’s always so sweet and thoughtful; even my mother seems to like her.
“That would be lovely.” My mother returns Karen’s smile and walks away while waving at an woman unfamiliar to me in the small crowd across the lawn of the church.
“Do you mind if I come, too? If not, I get it. I know Hardin’s here and all, but since he’s the one that called me in the first place . . .” Zed says.
“No, of course you can come. You drove all the way here.” I can’t help but scan the parking lot in search of Hardin at the mention of his name. Across the lot, I spot Landon and Ken getting into Ken’s car; as far as I can see, Hardin isn’t with them. I wish I had gotten a chance to speak to Ken and Landon, but they were sitting with Hardin and I didn’t want to take them away from him.
During the funeral I couldn’t help but worry that Hardin would tell Ken the truth about Christian Vance right in front of everyone. Hardin would be feeling bad, so he might want someone else to feel bad, too. I pray that Hardin has enough decency to wait until he can find the right time to disclose the hurtful truth. I know he’s decent; deep down Hardin is not a bad person. He’s just bad for me.
I turn to Zed, whose fingers are picking at the dots of fuzz on his red button-down shirt. “Do you want to walk back? It’s not a far walk, twenty minutes at most.”
He agrees, and we slip away before my mother can shove me into her small car. I can’t stand the thought of being trapped in an enclosed space with her right now. My patience with her is growing thin. I don’t want to be rude, but I can feel my frustration grow with every stroke of her hands over her perfectly curled hair.
Zed breaks the silence ten minutes into the walk through my small hometown. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t know. Anything that I say probably won’t make any sense.” I shake my head, not wanting Zed to know just how crazy I’ve become during the last week. He hasn’t asked about my relationship with Hardin, and for that I’m thankful. Anything involving Hardin and me isn’t open for discussion.
“Try me,” Zed challenges with a warm smile.
“I’m mad.”
“Upset mad or crazy mad?” he teases, playfully touching his shoulder to mine as we wait for a car to pass before crossing a street.
“Both.” I try to smile. “Mostly just upset mad. Is it wrong that I feel sort of angry at my father for dying?” I hate the way the words sound. I know it’s wrong, but it feels so right. The anger feels better than the nothing, and the anger is a distraction. A distraction that I’m in desperate need of.
“It’s not wrong to feel that way, but then again it sort of is. I don’t think you should be mad at him. I’m sure he didn’t know what he was doing when he did what he did.” Zed looks down at me, but I look away.
“He did know what he was doing when he brought those drugs into that apartment. Sure, he didn’t know he was going to die, but he knew it was a possibility, and all he cared about was getting high. He didn’t think about anyone except himself and his high, you know?” I swallow the guilt that comes with the words. I loved my father, but I need to be truthful. I need to let my feelings out.
Zed frowns. “I don’t know, Tessa. I don’t think it was like that. I don’t think I could be mad at someone who died, especially my parent.”
“He didn’t raise me or anything. He left when I was a little girl.”
Did Zed already know that? I’m not sure. I’m so used to talking to Hardin, who knows everything about me, that sometimes I forget that other people only know what I let them.
“Maybe he left because he knew it was better for you and your mom?” Zed says, trying to comfort me, but it’s not working. It’s only making me want to scream. I’m tired of hearing this same exact excuse from mouth after mouth. Those same people claim they want the best for me, yet they make excuses for my father, who left me, acting like he was doing it for my own good. What a selfless man, leaving his wife and daughter all alone.
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “Let’s just not talk about it anymore.”
And we don’t. We stay silent until we arrive at my mother’s house, and I try to ignore the annoyance in her voice when she scolds me for taking so long to get home.
“Luckily Karen is here to help,” she says as I walk past her and enter the kitchen.
Zed stands uncomfortably, unsure whether to help. Quickly though, my mother hands him a box of crackers, ripping open the top and pointing wordlessly to an empty tray. Ken and Landon have already been put to work chopping vegetables and arranging fruit on my mother’s best serving trays. The ones she uses when she wants to impress people.
“Yeah, luckily,” I say under my breath. I thought the spring air would help cool my anger, but it hasn’t. My mother’s kitchen is too small, too stuffy, and it’s filling with overly dressed women with something to prove.
“I need air. I’ll be back, just stay here,” I say to Zed when my mother rushes down the hallway for something. As thankful as I am that he drove all the way here to comfort me, I can’t help but hold our conversation against him. I’m sure once I clear my head I’ll see it differently, but right now I just want to be alone.