“I’m right here you know,” Abby said.
She came to me and fell into my arms.
“I’m sorry, Abs,” I breathed, holding her tight.
“Don’t be angry at Indy. I was coming here with or without her.” She looked up at me. “I need to say goodbye.”
I nodded. She was an adult. She knew what she needed to do and I wasn’t going to try to stop her.
Camila, the morgue assistant, greeted us and then led us out the back where the bodies were kept prior to being moved to the funeral home.
“Isaac’s hasn’t been autopsied,” she explained. “Dr. Sumstad will be doing that tomorrow. In the meanwhile, we’ve taken good care of him.”
Pain rose up from my core and I drew in a deep breath as we followed her into the cool room. As we waited for her to show us Isaac, Indy’s fingers curled into mine.
“Ready?” Camila asked. When we nodded, she opened the stainless steel drawer and pulled back the sheet covering Isaac’s body.
A strangled gasp came from Abby, and a pain as vicious as anything I had ever known tightened my chest.
Isaac was the pale color of death. He had been washed clean of all the blood and brain matter, and his hair hung in cold, damp tendrils off his face, concealing the crater in the back of his head where the bullet had exited. His eyes were only half-closed, and I was knocked on my ass by the milky lifelessness of them as they stared back at us, unseeing and empty. His mouth was closed, his lips pale, and just above his nose, right between his eyes, was the blackened, star-shaped bullet hole.
“No,” Abby sobbed.
Her knees went weak and I pulled her to me to stop her from collapsing. But I had no words to comfort her. My throat was cold and tight, strangled by grief. I felt her falter in my arms, her body wracked with pain as she sobbed into my chest.
“No,” she cried again, shaking her head.
She pulled away from me, and I watched with a stony face as she stepped closer to her brother and took his cold hand in hers. Her chin quivered as she tried to sniff back her tears. At first she just opened her mouth, but no words came out.
She exhaled deeply, tears spilling from her eyes with every blink.
“I just wanted you to know that I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else as my twin, Isaac. You were the best big brother that a girl could have hoped for. Even if you were only ninety-seconds older.” Her face screwed up as a rush of pain overcame her, but she drew in a deep breath to steady herself and licked her lips to steady her quaking chin. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay. So you go in peace, you hear me? And when it’s time, we’ll see each other again.”
I could barely contain my tears. They stabbed at my eyes and my face was stiff with the pain of holding them in. I looked at Indy and she was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks as she watched Abby say goodbye to her twin brother.
I couldn’t look anymore. I had to get out of there.
I needed to breathe.
CADE
It rained the day we buried Isaac. Thunder rumbled in a stormy sky. We rode in the usual procession of motorcycles through the streets of Destiny, the lights of our bikes cutting through the gloom of a cold fall day. I rode behind Bull, my heart heavy with pain and my face so stiff with grief I didn’t even feel the first drops of rain when they began to fall. I just rode.
When we arrived at the church, Indy waited for me at the base of the stairs. She had ridden with Lady, my sister Chastity, and my mom. She took my hand in hers and I barely held it together when I looked across the parking lot and saw Cherry and little Braxton making their way toward us. Oh Christ. Braxton’s face was crumpled with sadness and he looked so lost and confused, it tore me up inside.
I let go of Indy’s hand and went to them, scooping Braxton up and hugging him tight. Cherry started to sob against my mom’s shoulder, which set Braxton off.
“Hey,” I croaked. “It’s okay, buddy. I got you.”
I tried to hand him back to Cherry, but the little dude wouldn’t let go. He wound his arms tighter around my neck and buried his face into my shoulder. Cherry looked pleadingly at me. She wanted me to hold onto him, so I nodded and took him with me. I would be strong for him. For Isaac. For me. But when I walked through the doorway and I saw Isaac’s coffin at the end of the aisle, I faltered, and for the first time in my life, my knees were weak. Pain crashed through me, colliding with a grief so violent I was momentarily unable to move. It took Braxton burying his face into my neck to get me moving. Somehow I found my seat in the pew. Somehow I got through the service without breaking apart. I just focused on the coffin and let my anger take reign.