36. Lottie

Hunter had handled absolutely everything.

As if he were my knight in shining armor, he'd organized everything the way I would have wanted it. I didn't have to go back to the funeral home. It was decided that Dad would be buried here on our property, the land he loved so much. I didn't have to pick out flowers and music or create a slideshow—Hunter had somehow fit all of that in around his busy schedule on top of being here every single night. He'd given me room to breathe when I didn't think I could. He'd given me comfort, peace.

I stood in front of the open casket. We'd already done our speeches, allowed those who wished to pay their respects to come up and say goodbye to him. But I couldn't finish it. It wasn't right; his casket was empty save for his body.

I'd love to be buried with your mother's ashes in my casket.

"I don't know if I can, Dad," I whispered, staring down at his lifeless form the same way I had when he'd taken his last breath. But he was still warm, then, his skin felt normal instead of waxy. Letting go of the one tangible, holdable parent I had left felt like an axe to my chest.

A large warm hand came down gently on my shoulder. I looked back at Hunter. In his all-black suit he was almost a void in the sunshine. In one hand, he held me, and in the other, a small, ornate urn.

Mom.

"I know you aren't sure," he said softly, "but I brought her down just in case."

His hand stretched toward me, offering her as easily as one would give another a card or a birthday present. I gently took her from his grasp and held her tight against my chest. "He wants her," I breathed. "Am I a bad person if I can't do that for him?"

Hunter's arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me back to his chest. "No, sweetheart. You aren't a bad person."

The backs of my eyes burned hot with the threat of tears. It didn't feel real, any of it, and as Hunter pressed his lips against the side of my cheek, I tried to swallow any hint of sadness. "He'll be closed up and lowered once I say my goodbyes, right?"

"He will."

"Okay."

Hunter took a deep breath and squeezed me gently. "I'll let you do what you need to. I'll be inside, okay?"

I nodded, and his arms slowly released me, leaving me alone with both of my dead parents. One in a casket, one in an urn. They should be together for eternity.

I'd spent most of my life with Mom just being an urn. She'd lived on the mantel for so many years, occasionally disappearing when I'd had a nightmare or Dad needed her closer, but she'd always find her way back in the morning. I turned to the back sliding door.

Hunter had closed it behind him, locking in the sounds of the service and drawing the curtains. All that accompanied me were the empty chairs, the howling wind, and the plot dug out for him next to his favorite spot on the porch.

"I'm sorry I lied," I said quietly, looking up to the sky instead of down at my father. "I'm sorry for putting on a charade, you deserved better than that. I just wanted to give you some peace of mind."

I turned the urn over in my hands, memorizing the feel of it, the patterns on it. I wasn't even sure if I had a photo of it.

"I can make up for that now," I whispered.

Slowly, achingly, I laid the urn down beside Dad inside the casket. I knew it would be hard emotionally on me but I wasn't expecting him to still be stubborn, even in death. His arm barely moved as I tried to slide her beneath it. I thought would be an easy task but I was wrong. I finally was able to wedge her in and as I did, I felt a calmness envelop me.

Mom had always completed him.

"I hope she brings you as much peace now as she did before." I took a deep breath, pushing down the grief once again. "I love you, Dad."

————

I stayed inside, socializing to the best of my ability, as they lowered him into the ground and began packing the dirt on top. Many people at the service didn't even know my father, yet still turned up to pay their respects. Friends from high school that I hadn't seen in years were there. A handful of people from work even stopped by, which surprised me. Hunter's brother and his wife turned up as well as their parents. Through it all, Hunter stayed by my side, my rock.

There were far too many people in my not-so-large house and I was grateful for every one of them. But after he was fully buried and everyone left, I would need to adjust to my new normal. I would need to learn how to live without parents.

"I'm so sorry," Holly, Hunter's mom, said softly to me as she squeezed my arm lightly. "I'm so happy he was able to make it to the wedding, at least."

I nodded, giving her a half-hearted smile. "Me too."

"Hunter better be giving you all the time off you need," Edward, his father mumbled.

"I have. Do you think I'm some sort of tyrannical overlord?" Hunter chuckled, pulling me just a little closer. "I wouldn't make any of my employees work after the death of a parent. Especially not my wife."

"What are you going to do with the house?" Holly asked, motioning around her as if I wouldn't understand what she was talking about.

I shrugged. "Don't know yet. Probably fix it up. It needs a lot of TLC, but I don't want to sell it. I could split my time between Hunter's and here?—"

"Don't be silly." Hunter interrupted me, his fingers squeezing my side. "If you want to keep it, we'll live here. I'm happy to sell my house."

"What?"

His parents looked between us then at each other before scurrying off into the crowd toward the finger food Dana had laid out.

"I mean it. I can sell my house," he said.

I didn't know how to respond. Did I want him to move in with me? He'd practically been living here for the last three days, but we'd hardly spent any time together. He slept in the same bed as me, but I assumed it was because he was worried I wouldn't sleep otherwise. Playing house like that wasn't enough for a proper test run of living together.

"Just think about it," he whispered.

————

The headstone atop the loose earth beside me would be my new form of company on the porch. I held my cup of coffee between my interlocked fingers, rocking slightly in Dad's chair, as I looked at the newly engraved piece of marble:

Brody Charles Hammersmith

December 15, 1954?November 28, 2023

Loving father and husband

Hunter had been able to put a rush on the engraving and convince the headstone company to deliver the stone the day of the funeral. They would be returning in a few days to cement it into the ground. I made a mental note to call the company and ask them to pick it up and add Mom before they did that.

The sliding glass door opened and Hunter stepped through, pulling my attention away from my father's final resting place beside me.

"Almost everyone's gone home," he said, stepping around me and plopping down into the other chair. "Dana's just getting rid of the stragglers."

I nodded. "Thank God. I'm ready for it to be over."

"I thought you might be." Slowly, he rocked, his eyes locked on me. I didn't care that my knees were pulled up to my chest and that he had a straight-shot view of my panties beneath the skirt of my black dress. He didn't seem to notice. "Can we talk?"

"Depends on what you want to talk about."

"Us," he said softly. "We haven't yet."

I pursed my lips and looked out at the silhouette of the mountains. The sun had set an hour or so ago, and all that remained were shadows and stars. "I don't know how I feel about you moving in here," I sighed. "Especially if it means selling your house. There's a lot that's still unknown, and I don't think either of us is in a position to make major decisions right now."

He nodded to himself. "You don't want me to move in?"

"We still have a lot of issues to work out before I'm fully comfortable with you."

"Like the forty-nine percent." He sighed.

"Like the forty-nine percent."

"I'm sorry I tried to go back on that." His chair stopped rocking, drawing my attention to him. "In all honesty, Lottie, I didn't realize that it was such a big deal when I offered it to you in the first place. I only found out later from my father that my mom had practically built that part of the business from the ground up as a labor of love. He's… very attached to it."

Oh. Why didn't he just say that to begin with?

"I panicked when he told me that." The shy little grin on his face made my chest ache. "I shouldn't have tried to take it away. That's on me."

I sipped my coffee, taking a moment to think about what I wanted to say. I couldn't come up with a response to him. I appreciated his apology, genuinely, and appreciated the explanation. At least he wasn't going to take it away from me without good reasoning. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Jared," I mumbled.

"You already apologized for that."

"I'm apologizing again." I glared at him. "I panicked when I realized that you knew who he was. And I knew the kind of shit he was capable of. I didn't want you to think that I was anything like him, but I kind of dug my own grave with that." I glanced down at Dad's grave beside me and snorted.

"I get that," Hunter sighed. "He's a piece of shit."

"He is," I nodded.

The sliding glass door opened again and Dana's head poked through. "Hunter, can you help me? I can't get your parents to leave."

"Of course." He pushed himself up onto his feet and leaned over me, placing the smallest and gentlest of kisses against my forehead. "I'll sleep at home tonight and give you some space."

"Okay," I said. Please don't.

"I'll see you soon."

————

Hunter had gone. Dana had gone. Every last guest had gone, and I was alone in a small house that felt too large and filled with ghosts.

There was a quiet stillness in the air as I finished up washing the dishes we'd used for the wake. The lights were on across the entire house, and I went through and flipped each of them off except the one by Dad's spot in the living room.

I sat in his chair. I turned on the television for the first time since he'd passed, a rerun of M.A.S.H. flickering to life on the old square box. On the coffee table in front of me, a little book poked out, threatening to fall off. I hadn't noticed it before.

I reached for it, saving it from a tumble onto the floor and dropped it in my lap. The front and back covers were blank and it was wide, like one of those display books you find at the bookstore, its only purpose to draw attention.

I flipped it open, a scratchy handwritten sentence filling the center of the otherwise blank page.

Our dear Lottie. Please don't ever forget us. —Mom and Dad

My fingers froze. That didn't look like Dad's handwriting. Did Mom write that?

I turned the page.

Photograph after photograph wedged between paper and plastic. There were some of just me, some of the three of us, ones of just me and Mom or just me and Dad. There were photos of us hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, photos of me learning how to ski, photos of me on the back of my childhood horse. I'd never seen a single one of them before.

I nearly dropped it from my lap when the doorbell rang.

Wiping away the tears I didn't realize had fallen, I sprung to my feet. A big part of me wished it was Hunter. The more I thought about what Dad had said in his video, the more I found myself wondering if maybe there was a shred of truth to it all. Hunter had been such a comforting distraction in my time of grief and had seemed so sincere when he told me that he loved me.

Suddenly I desperately wanted him to be the one behind the door. It wasn't unlikely. He could have come back, could have realized that I didn't really want to be alone. But I didn't want just anybody so that I wouldn't be alone. I wanted him. I wanted to spend my moments with him, wanted to immerse myself in him, wanted to love him.

I wanted to stop lying to myself, telling myself that I didn't.

I grabbed the handle and pulled it open, the words on the tip of my tongue, the want overwhelming?—

No.

God, no.