“Dad.”
The only answer is silence.
I grip his blanket, and when I blink, tears splash down my cheeks. “Dad, how am I supposed to survive with you gone?”
There’s no reassuring voice to tell me everything will be all right.
Concerning arrangements, I don’t have much to do. Dad took care of everything.
The funeral service is taking place in a few hours. After that he’ll be laid to rest in the cemetery right next to my mother. The memorial service is tomorrow. That one I’ll find harder to face, because all the people who knew and admired him will be there and I’ll have to listen to them remind me of my grief.
There’s a knock on the door and Gertie opens it and steps inside the room. “We should leave in about thirty minutes,” she says softly.
I nod. “I’m ready.” Though I’m not. I’ll never be ready.
She sighs. “He’s here again.”
I pull in a painful breath.
Aidan.
“You have to see him sometime,” Gertie urges. “He’s been here every day since your father passed. You can’t keep sending him away.”
Why not? I don’t have the strength to face him, to remember that while I’d been reeling from his rejection. I’d lost my father.
I wipe my eyes. “I’m coming,” I tell Gertie. “He can wait in the study.”
After she leaves, I rise from the chair and smooth my clothes. My plain black dress is a metaphor for my mood, dour, dark and bereft.
In the study, Aidan is standing in front of the shelf of plaques and pictures, wearing a dark suit to fit the occasion, and looking down at the picture of us with my father at the opening night of the Edge of Madness. As I watch, he reaches up a hand to the frame, only the glass stopping him from touching my face from seven years ago.
I step into the room and he turns to face me. As our gazes lock, I pull in an aching breath. His hair is neatly combed and laying almost smooth on his head, and on his face, there’s so much compassion I almost start crying again.
It takes all my strength to resist the urge to run into his arms, bury myself in him and let him take away my pain, because I know he would. I can see it in his eyes.
“Come here.” He holds out his arms to me, his voice so gentle I could cry.
I walk into his outstretched arms, and he wraps them around me. He smells like comfort and peace. Like love.
>
“I’m so sorry, Liz.”
I step back from his embrace, breathing deeply. Being so close to him puts me in danger of losing myself, of forgetting how much he despises me, and how his presence here is nothing more than pity. “He’d been sick for a while.” I smile wanly. “I was trying to spend as much time with him as possible without letting the world know how bad he was.”
“The play.” There is a sudden realization in the blue depths of his eyes. “That why you wanted...”
“Yes…to an extent.”
He exhales. “How are you Liz?”
Miserable, despondent. Desperate to come back into your arms and cry if you’d let me.
I shrug. “I’m holding on, I guess. I’m sorry I couldn’t see you earlier.”
“I understand.” His eyes bore into mine, vivid and searching. “After the things I said. I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to see me again.”
I blink back tears. “The funeral is today.”