Then I turned to see Foster, dressed out fully in his SWAT uniform, even the hood still partially covering his beautiful face, standing behind me.
His eyes, though. Those were haunted. Devastated. Gutted.
“Foster,” I cried softly. “He’s gone.”
“I know, baby girl. I know,” he said.
“Do you want to donate his organs?” A brave female voice asked from in front of me.
I looked up into the eyes of a small woman with dark black hair the color of ash.
I nodded, knowing that was exactly what he’d wanted. “Yes.”
Then they took him away, and I lost it.
I’d never hear him call me baby girl ever again either.
Never again.
Never.
Ever.Chapter 23They say time heals all wounds…well those fuckers can suck it. Time doesn’t heal nothing. Only Jack Daniels does.
-Note to self
The funeral of Officer Louis ‘Shank’ Rhodes
Three days later
Blake
I had a rose in my hand, and I plucked the petals, one by one, as I listened to my Uncle Darren give a speech about what a difference my father made in his life.
It was a good one.
A really good one.
But I knew if I listened, if I actually became invested in the speech like others around me were doing, that I’d crumble.
I’d fall to my knees and start wailing like a child.
I knew I couldn’t do that.
Not in front of this many people.
Oh, they’d understand, but I’d never forgive myself.
I just had to be strong. Just had to get through the next three hours, and then I could go home. I could curl into Foster’s arms, and cry myself to sleep like I’d done the last two nights in a row.
The stupid knot, the one that’d been there for days, started to widen as my uncle walked down the stairs and moved straight to my father’s coffin.
The coffin itself was beautiful. But you couldn’t see much of it due to the American Flag that draped the coffin.
A large picture of my father in the last photo he’d ever taken. It was standing behind the coffin with a huge sash of the metals my father had collected over his career hung off the frame’s corner.
I gasped.
I’d been trying so hard to keep the cry in that I’d inadvertently attracted more attention to myself.
“Baby,” Foster said, pulling me into his side.
Then my tears burst free, and I cried in front of a couple thousand people.
Broke down was too small of a word.
More like broke period.
But then the funniest thing happened.
Instead of Tears in Heaven coming on, like I’d chosen, I shot the Sherriff blasted through the speakers instead.
My head snapped up, and I looked around, startled.
Finally, I found the source of the mischief.
It was the expression on the attendant’s face that had my giggle escaping.
That was so like my father, controlling things all the way from heaven.
I stood up, and walked straight to the attendant who was frantically trying to change the song.
It was divine intervention, though. In my opinion, it wouldn’t be changing any time soon.
Placing my hand on the man’s hand that was furiously clicking the huge X at the top of the screen, I stilled his fingers and said, “It’s okay. I like this song better.”
He looked at me, searching my eyes, then reluctantly withdrew his hand.
Taking over the mouse, I turned down the volume instead of turning the song off completely, then made my way to the podium.
A new strength taking over my body.
As I passed my father’s casket, I ran my fingers over the length of it, smiling sadly.
At his picture, I pressed a kiss to my fingers, and then laid it upon my father’s cheek before climbing the stairs.
We were having the funeral at the local stadium.
There was literally nowhere big enough to hold the people that were expected to show.
And show they’d done.
Every single bleacher, fixed seat, and hill top was taken over.
Hell, there were even some on the crosswalk that ran over the street.
I took in the people.
Familiar faces, and not.
I skipped over my mother.
She was in the very back, standing next to her sister.
She was wearing all black, as if she hadn’t just served my father with divorce papers only three days before he’d died.
He’d chosen me when she’d made him choose, and she’d followed through with her promise of divorce. She’d gone so far as to have it all done online, having the papers sent to my father while he’d been at work.
And I hadn’t spoken to her since
Skipping over my mother’s scowling form, I finally focused on Foster.
Uncle Darren and Aunt Missy on the other side of him. A space in between them where I’d been sitting only moments before.
“I wasn’t going to get up here,” I told the crowd, eyes roving over the many sad faces. “In fact, up until that song came on, I was fairly sure I was going to die of heartache.”
I wasn’t going to lie. It still hurt. Hurt so hard it was hard to breathe…but I knew I’d survive it.
If only for him, I’d be strong and say what was in my heart to make him proud of me from where he was watching over me.
I’d kick ass at life, and make him proud.
“A few days ago, I was interviewed by the local paper,” I swallowed. “I really, really didn’t want to talk to the reporter, but I felt that my dad’s story needed to be remembered. That he deserved to be remembered.”
I looked down at the podium and told them what I’d refused to tell that reporter.
“She asked me what my favorite memory was of my father, and I couldn’t pick one,” I swallowed. “I was lying, though. I had one. Everyone has one. But one in particular, changed the course of my life. And it only happened a few weeks ago. The last time I was able to spend with him before he was shot and killed in that shooting.”***Foster
I held Blake’s gaze as she said what she had to say next. And I knew before the words even left her mouth that they were going to gut me.