A Beautiful Funeral (The Maddox Brothers 5)

“Baby,” I said, tapping on the door with my knuckles. “Let me come in.”

“Just … just give me a second,” she said, sniffing.

I leaned my forehead against the door. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself. I think maybe it’s …”

“I’m not giving up!” she snapped.

“No. Maybe try a different avenue.”

“We can’t afford a different avenue,” she said. Her voice was even quieter than it had been. She didn’t want to make me feel worse than I already did.

“I’ll figure something out.”

After a few moments of silence, the door clicked, and Camille opened the door. Her red-rimmed eyes were glossed over, and red blotches dotted her face. She was never more beautiful, and all I wanted to do was hold her, but she wouldn’t let me. She would pretend her heart wasn’t broken to keep me from hurting as she always did—no matter how many times I’d told her it was okay to cry.

I touched her cheek, but she pulled away, her painted smile fading just long enough to kiss my palm. “I know you will. I just needed to grieve.”

“You can grieve out here, baby doll.”

She shook her head. “No, I can’t. I needed to take a moment for myself.”

“Because otherwise, you’re worried about me,” I scolded.

She shrugged, her feigned smile turning into a real one. “I’ve tried to change. I can’t.”

I brought her into my chest, holding her tight. “I wouldn’t want you to. I love my wife just the way she is.”

“Camille?” Olive said, holding one side of the of the doorjamb. Her waist-length, platinum blond hair cascaded in waves from her center part down each side of her face, making her sadness seem to weigh her down even more. Her round, green eyes glistened, feeling every disappointment, every setback as deeply as we did because she was family, too. By chance and by blood, whether she knew it or not.

As I watched her lean the delicate features of her oval face against the wooden trim, I remembered being blown away by the truth: Olive, my neighbor and little buddy since she could walk, was adopted, and somehow, her biological mother had fallen in love with my older brother Taylor almost a thousand miles away in Colorado Springs. By chance, I’d helped raise my niece—involved in her life even more than my brother or sister-in-law.

Camille looked at Olive and breathed out a small laugh, pulling away from me while simultaneously licking her thumbs and then wiping away the smudged mascara from beneath her eyes. Her hair was longer than it had been since she was a girl, grazing the middle of her back and the same hue as Olive’s, with a shaved patch just above her ear to keep it ‘edgy.’ I’d just redone the tat on her fingers—the first tattoo I’d ever done for her, and her first tattoo ever. It read Baby Doll, the nickname I’d given her early in our relationship, and it had somehow stuck. As hard as she tried not to fit in, Camille was a classic beauty. The name fit her then just as it did now.

“I’m okay,” Camille said, following with a cleansing sigh. “We’re okay.”

She walked over to the doorway to give Olive a quick hug and then tightened the folded navy blue handkerchief she was using as a headband. She sniffed, the pain visibly fading away and disappearing. My wife was a badass.

“Cami,” I began.

“I’m good. We’ll try again next month. How’s Dad?”

“He’s good. Talking my ear off. It’s getting harder to get him to come out with me. Tommy and Liis are bringing the new baby …” I trailed off, waiting for the inevitable hurt in Camille’s eyes.

She walked over, cupped my cheeks, and then kissed me. “Why are you looking at me like that? Do you really think it bothers me?”

“Maybe … maybe if you’d married him … you’d have one of your own by now.”

“I don’t want one of my own. I want our baby. Yours and mine. If not that, then nothing.”

I smiled, feeling a lump rise in my throat. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She smiled, her voice sounding relaxed and happy. She still had hope.

I touched the small scar at her hairline, the one that never let me forget just how close I was to losing her. She closed her eyes, and I kissed the jagged white line.

My phone rang, so I left her long enough to grab my cell phone from the nightstand. “Hey, Dad.”

“Did you hear?” he asked, his voice a bit hoarse.

“What? That you sound like hell? Did you get sick within the last two hours?”

He cleared his throat a few times then chuckled. “No, no … every inch of me is just older than dirt. How’s Cami? Pregnant?”

“No,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Yet. It’ll happen. Why don’t you two come over for dinner? Bring Olive.”

I looked at my girls, and they were already nodding their heads. “Yeah. We’d love to, Dad. Thanks.”

“Fried chicken tonight.”

“Tell him not to start without me,” Camille said.

“Dad—”

“I heard her. I’ll just get ‘em battered and seasoned and get the potatoes in the oven.”

Camille made a face.

“Okay. We’ll be over in a bit.”

Camille rushed around, trying to get out the door to beat Dad to the oven. He’d left the stove on more than once, fallen more than once, and didn’t seem fazed when he did. Camille spent nearly all of her spare time trying to help him avoid accidents.

“Can I drive?” Olive asked.

I cringed.

She smiled mischievously. I groaned, already knowing what she was about to say.

“Pwease, Twent?” she whined.

I winced. I’d promised Olive when she first got her license that I’d let her drive me when she turned eighteen, and her birthday was months ago. It was second nature to say no. I’d never had an accident, even as a teen. The two I’d been involved in were horrific, and both were with women I deeply cared about behind the wheel.

“Goddammit, fine,” I swore.

Camille held out her fist, and Olive bumped it with hers.

“Did you bring your license?” Camille asked.

Olive answered by holding up a small brown leather wristlet. “My new Eastern State student ID is in there, too.”