Wildflowers from Winter (10 page)

I reached over and placed my small hand over Grandpa’s broad one. He turned up his palm, laced his fingers with mine, and held on as if the world wobbled for him too. My throat became tight and hot, and before I knew it, my cheeks were just as wet as his.

He reached over and scooped me into his lap like I weighed nothing at all. I leaned against his chest, rising and falling with each one of his breaths, wishing I could stay like that forever. But a question niggled into my brain. A question I’d been thinking on ever since Aunt Sharon dressed me in that black, itchy dress for Dad’s funeral.

“Grandpa?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“Who’s going to walk me down the aisle now that Daddy’s gone?”

His chest expanded—nice and big—pushing me up. He turned me around to face him—his tears all dried. “What made you think of that?”

The question wasn’t what a typical nine-year-old might ask, I guess. But ever since I’d seen my other grandpa walk Aunt Sharon down a rose-covered aisle eight months ago, I’d been obsessed with weddings. I shrugged and stared down at my skinned knees.

Grandpa Dan placed his knuckles beneath my chin and lifted my face, his blue eyes filled with such steadiness that I snuggled farther into his lap. “When the time comes, I’d be honored to walk you down the aisle.”

Even though he kept my face tilted toward his, I managed to cast my eyes away. I wanted to hold on to Grandpa Dan’s promise for the future. And I wanted to stay with him on the farm now. Everything I loved was being stripped from me. Too many things were changing. “Grandpa?”

“Hmm?”

“Why can’t we stay here and live with you?”

“Bethany,” he said.

I looked up into his eyes, and mine started burning all over again.

He stretched his callused palm flat against my cheek and curled strong fingers around the back of my neck. “You’re welcome here anytime you want. This farm is just as much yours as it will ever be mine. And no matter where you live, that won’t ever change.”

TEN

B
ethany hitched the strap of her purse over her shoulder and stared at the mortician hunched in front of her. Talk about solidifying a stereotype. Spending so much time among dead bodies had turned Floyd McCormis into an eerie replica of his craftsmanship. When Bethany shook his hand, she imagined squeezing a refrigerated nectarine. She hid her grimace and spotted Evan, scrutinizing her from the opposite side of the table, looking in dire need of a hot shower, a thorough shave, and a good night’s sleep.

She swung a bagged suit over the table and set her purse on the ground by her chair. “I bought a suit. For Dan. I wasn’t sure if he had anything to wear.” The plastic crinkled as she slid it closer to the mortician. “It’s Ralph Lauren.” A blush crept up her neck. Who cared if it was Ralph Lauren?

She slid to the edge of the seat and massaged the tops of her knees. “I’m not sure what we’re supposed to discuss. I’ve never had to plan a funeral before.” She resisted the urge to glance at Evan, who no doubt had just helped with Micah’s.

“That’s what I’m here for, Miss Quinn. All you have to do is answer some questions, and I’ll take care of the rest.” Floyd’s voice rattled when he spoke, as if he needed to clear his throat.

A shiver scurried up her spine. She bent over and rummaged through her purse, pulling out files and papers and whatever else she’d been able to
gather in such short notice. “I brought insurance papers, Dan’s birth certificate, and a few other things—”

Floyd reached out and patted her hand. “All in good time, Miss Quinn.”

She pulled away from his cold touch and rubbed warmth into her arms. Evan didn’t speak. He didn’t even move. He just sat there with all the world’s grief gathered on his shoulders. She imagined scooping hers up and putting it there too.

“I have some standard questions I’d like to ask, if you wouldn’t mind.” Floyd picked up the list in front of him and clicked his pen. “Where would you like to hold the service? Our funeral home is available, or perhaps you have a church in mind.”

“Here will be fine.”

“Do you have a pastor or a priest you’d like to direct the service?”

“No.”

“Yes.” Evan leaned over the table. “The same pastor who spoke at my brother’s funeral offered to speak at Dan’s. His name is Pastor Gray.” He motioned to Floyd’s pen, as if to indicate that the old man should make a note of his suggestion.

Bethany leaned forward. “No pastor will be necessary. I spoke with one of my grandfather’s cousins. He’s prepared to give a eulogy.”

“Dan would want there to be a pastor,” Evan said.

“No, he wouldn’t.”

Evan’s eyes glinted. “How would you know?”

“My grandfather wasn’t religious.” As far as she knew, he didn’t even go to church.

“What does religion have to do with anything?”

Her mind sputtered, but she couldn’t find a single word to throw at his question.

Evan turned to Floyd, who stared at the pair of them with his pen
poised over the paper, mouth ajar. “If Dan’s granddaughter doesn’t want a pastor, that’s fine. I’ll be saying a prayer.”

Floyd’s pen didn’t budge. He looked from Bethany to Evan, then back to Bethany again. “Is that okay with you, Miss Quinn?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Fine.” If it made Evan feel better, he could say his childish prayer. It wasn’t like it would bring Dan back. No amount of praying, no amount of crying, would undo the truth. Her grandfather was dead.

Evan stared into the casket and took in Dan’s appearance. Closed lids molded together as though made of candle wax, gray hair swept across his forehead, rough hands folded over a black suit. In the five years he’d known Dan, the man had never worn a suit. They should have buried him in a pair of grease-stained overalls and his Carhartt jacket, with a can of Copenhagen in his pocket.

He slid his hand across the pine and prepared himself to receive the line of guests waiting to say good-bye. The whole familiar scene picked at his overstretched emotions with the sharpness of a vulture’s beak. First Micah. Now Dan. Only this time, instead of a broken widow standing by his side, he had Bethany.

It made him grit his teeth.

She offered no explanation for her sudden departure from the hospital, no apology for abandoning Robin, no excuses for missing Micah’s funeral. And now she was back, plowing her way through Dan’s funeral arrangements like a combine. She treated the entire thing like a to-do list. If she had any emotions, she vaulted them behind steel-reinforced concrete.

“Your judgment is palpable,” she whispered.

He jerked his head. “What are you talking about?”

“You think I’m horrible for forbidding a pastor.”

Evan forced a smile and shook hands with a family shuffling through the line. “That’s not true. I think you’re horrible because of the way you left Robin last week.”

Her posture went from stiff to full-blown rigor mortis. “I had to leave. I have a life in Chicago, you know.”

“I didn’t say
because
you left.” He pushed the words between his teeth and forced himself to shake hands with another family in the line. “I said because of the
way
you left.”

She shifted beside him.

“You could have told Robin you were leaving.” Never mind the ridiculous notion that she could have said good-bye to him as well. One minute the woman was comforting him at the hospital. The next, she’d disappeared. He had no idea why it made him so angry.

The DeLuves stepped forward. They lived down the road from the farm, and Mrs. DeLuve played pinochle with Dan on Sunday evenings down at Gurney’s sports bar. She hobbled forward and reached out her arms in an attempt to hug Bethany. But Bethany stuck out her hand, stopping the old woman’s gesture. This didn’t thwart Mrs. DeLuve. The two ended up in an awkward side-hugging shoulder pat. When the old woman reached Evan, he welcomed her embrace to make up for Bethany’s coldness.

“He was a fine man,” Mrs. DeLuve said, dabbing her dewy eyes with the tissue she’d pulled from her purse. She turned to her husband. “Wasn’t he a fine man?”

Mr. DeLuve gave a somber nod. “One of the finest.”

The old man grasped his wife’s elbow and moved her through the line. They paused in front of Dan’s casket, bowed their heads, and crossed themselves. Their mirrored actions looked choreographed. Fifty years of marriage had turned them into two parts of a whole, a right and a left hand, working together in perfect unison. Exactly what a marriage should be. Exactly what Micah and Robin’s had been. Now Robin had to find a way
to adjust to life without her right hand. After seven years, it was bound to be a long and heartbreaking process.

Evan cleared away the tightness in his throat and peered down the line of people, his mind giving no thought to the faces before him until he came across one that was much too familiar. Robin stood in line—sunken cheeks and swollen eyes—a postcard for grief. His eyes widened. She shouldn’t be here. Not three days after Micah’s funeral. This was too much. He took a step toward her, but Bethany let out the faintest of gasps and halted his movement.

He looked at her, but Bethany’s eyes were glued to the lectern at the entryway, where the guest book rested. Just beyond that, he spotted Bethany’s mother, Ruth, being escorted by Pastor Fenton, the pastor of First Light.

When Pastor Fenton took Ruth’s coat from her shoulders, the hardness in Bethany’s eyes vanished, replaced by a vulnerability that parted her lips and stirred something foreign in the pit of Evan’s stomach. By the time Ruth and her guest reached the front of the line, the rapid pulsation ticking in Bethany’s neck made Evan wonder if she might faint from the sudden onset of arrhythmia. His own muscles tightened, and he didn’t even know why.

“Bethany,” Ruth reached out to touch her daughter’s arm, but Bethany pulled away.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

No hug. No greeting. No smile.

“The same reason everybody else is here, Bethany,” Pastor Fenton said. “To pay our respects.” He turned to Evan and stuck out his hand. “We’re deeply sorry for your loss.”

Evan shook the offered hand. Fenton’s grip was firm. Confident. For whatever reason, Dan had never liked this man. He wasn’t the only one, either. People talked in town, and not everything Evan heard about First Light was good. But Bethany’s reaction went much deeper than dislike.

She scorched Pastor Fenton with a stare that could wilt Evan’s crops. But the man did not wilt. He gave Bethany an indifferent smile, positioned his hand on the small of Ruth’s back, and guided her past the casket.

Bethany’s eyes fastened upon Fenton’s hand. When they passed and the Crammers stepped forward, she spun around, hair whipping about her shoulders, and stalked away. Evan stared after her, a million questions zinging through his head. What in the world had just happened?

Bethany zeroed in on the bathroom door, counting the steps until she reached her escape. Ten. She refused to look anywhere else. A few people might have smiled at her, and somebody patted her elbow, but she paid no attention. Seven more steps.

Her entire focus rested on the Ladies sign. She needed to escape, to get inside, so she could lock herself away and soothe her frazzled composure. Five. She could not believe her mother had the nerve to come. And with
him
. She stepped around a gathering of people. And just before she slipped through the door—

“Bethany.”

The sound froze her momentum. Her mother stood off to the left, her waiflike frame blending in with the wall, hands clasped together in front of her. “I know you don’t want me here, but I had to come and pay my respects.”

“Since when have you ever respected Dan?”

Her mother flinched. “Please. I don’t want to fight.”

Bethany ground her teeth, so sick of her mother’s timidity. She hadn’t always been this way. She used to have an ounce of backbone. “Why did you really come?”

Mom twisted her hands.

“To see for yourself he was dead? To make sure the last keeper of our shameful secret was no longer a threat?”

Mom’s eyes zipped one way, then the other, as if searching for potential eavesdroppers. She dipped her chin and leaned in close. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bethany.”