A Beautiful Funeral (The Maddox Brothers 5)

“Yay!” Camille said, clapping. “How exciting!” She looked at me with a fake apology in her eyes. “You promised.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I grumbled, tossing Olive the keys.

Olive clasped the metal in both hands and then giggled, running for the door and out to the driveway where Camille’s truck sat. As I walked down the flagstone walkway, I noticed Olive hop in and pull the seatbelt across her chest, buckling in and grabbing the wheel with both hands.

“Oh, stop. You’re not bad luck.” Camille opened the passenger door of her Toyota Tacoma quad cab and then pulled open the backward-facing rear door. She clicked her seat belt as I sat next to Olive. She immediately connected the Bluetooth on her phone to the truck, carefully choosing a song. Once the music began to play, Olive twisted the ignition and backed up. A new energy settled all around us. Camille rubbed my shoulders for a second to the beat thumping through the speakers.

“Maybe we should turn off the noise and let Olive concentrate,” I said.

Camille’s massage turned into a playful karate chop. “Noise?”

If I hadn’t experienced it, I would have never known she was crying in our bathroom ten minutes before. She was recovering quicker each time, but part of me wondered if it was real, or if she was just getting better at hiding it.

Just as we pulled into Dad’s drive, I noticed thunderheads building in the sky just west of town. Thomas and Liis were flying in with their new baby sometime soon, so I checked my phone for the seven-day forecast—something that wouldn’t have occurred to me to do ten years ago. Funny how time and experience completely rewired your brain to think about something other than yourself.

Dad wasn’t waiting on the porch as he usually was, prompting Camille to curse.

“Damn it, Jim Maddox!” she said, gesturing that she was in a rush for me to open the door. She scrambled out onto the grass, ran all the way to the porch, jumped the stairs, and yanked open the rickety screen door.

Olive parked and tossed me the keys, waving. “Going next door to tell Mom I’m having dinner with Papa!”

I nodded, feeling a small lump in my throat. All the grandkids called Dad Papa, and I loved that Olive did, too, even though she didn’t know how right she was.

I followed Camille into the house, wondering what we would find. The paint on the porch was peeling, and I made a mental note to bring over my sander. The screen door was barely hanging on, so I added that to the list, too. Mom and Dad bought the house when they first married, and it was nearly impossible to get him to let us make changes or updates. The furniture and carpet were the same, even the paint. Mom had decorated, and he wasn’t about to let anyone go against her wishes, even if she’d been gone for almost thirty years. Like Dad, the house was getting so old that it was becoming unhealthy and, in some cases, dangerous, so in the last few months, Camille and I had decided to start fixing things without asking.

Just as the hallway opened up into the kitchen, I saw Camille running toward Dad, her hands held out in front of her.

He was bent over, just putting the aluminum-covered potatoes into the oven.

“Dad!” Camille shrieked. “Let me do that!”

He slipped them in and closed the door, standing and turning to face us with a smile.

Camille pulled a pair of oven mitts out of the drawer, shoving them at him. “Why don’t you use the mitts that I bought you?” She walked over, inspecting his bandaged hands.

He kissed her knuckles. “I’m fine, kiddo.”

“You burned them so badly last time,” she said, wiggling out of his grip to further inspect the wounds under his bandages. “Please use the mitts.”

“Okay,” he said, patting her hand. “Okay, sis. I’ll use the mitts.”

Camille began opening cabinet doors to find the oil, seeing that the drumsticks had already been dipped in Dad’s special flour mixture and were sitting on paper towels next to the pan on the stove.

She waved us away. “Go on. I’ve got this. Yes, Dad, I’m sure,” she said, just as Dad opened his mouth to ask.

He chuckled. “All right, then. Dominoes, it is.”

“Aren’t you sick of losing? We played dominoes for two hours this afternoon.”

“Did we?” he asked. He shook his head. “I can’t remember to wipe my own ass most days.”

I blinked, surprised he didn’t remember, but he didn’t seem concerned.

“Cards, then?” he asked.

“No, we can play dominoes. I owe you a rematch, anyway.”

Thunder rolled in the distance as we sat down at the table. The front door opened and closed, and then Olive appeared at the end of the hall, holding her hands out to each side, dripping wet. “Oh. My. God.”

I burst into laughter. “Ever heard of an umbrella, Ew?”

She rolled her eyes, stomping over to sit on the dining chair next to me. “Will you ever stop calling me that? No one gets it.”

“You get it,” I said. “How hard can it be? Your initials are O.O. Together, they make the sound ew. Like moo. And too.” My gaze drifted up to the ceiling. “Shoo. Boo. Coo. Goo. Poo. I could go on.”

“Please don’t,” she said, grabbing a domino and turning it over in her thin fingers. It was getting harder and harder to impress her. She used to think I was god.

“Oh! Damn!” Camille yelped from the kitchen.

I pushed out my chair, standing halfway. “You okay, baby?”

“Yeah!” she called back, appearing with her jacket and her keys in hand. “Out of oil.”

“But I just bought him some last Friday,” I said, looking at Dad.

“Oh. That’s right. I knocked it over Sunday.”

I frowned. “We had sandwiches for lunch and pizza for dinner Sunday. You didn’t make chicken.”

He mirrored my expression. “Well, damn it, one of those days.”

“I’m going to run to the store. You need anything else?” Camille asked.

“Cami, it’s pouring,” I said, unhappy.

“I’m aware,” she said, kissing at me before heading out the door.

Dad brought down the dominoes from the shelf, and we made small talk. He asked me a few of the same questions he’d asked me earlier, and I began to wonder if he’d been forgetful all along and I was just noticing it, or if his memory was getting worse. He had a doctor’s appointment that Friday. I’d bring it up then.