Scattered Ashes (19 page)

When the waitress came to give him his check, she hedged close and smiled again.  “So, are you from around here?”  Her fingers still held the check by the edge as it lay on the table, as though she wasn’t quite ready to let it go.

Jordan shrugged.  “Not really.  I’m just passing through.  Sorry.”

She nodded reluctantly.  “Okay.”  Her fingers eased from the check, and she said, “Well, have a nice day.”

“Thanks.”  He pointed to the newspaper.  “Could I possibly take this with me?”

“Sure.  An old man just left it after he'd finished his coffee.”

“Thanks.”

The waitress nodded one last time and then walked away, pulling out her pad again as she spotted a couple darting into the restaurant.  At that point, Jordan noticed the overcast sky had finally opened, pouring rain down,  just like the last time he'd been here, causing residents to scurry down the street, hurrying toward their destinations so they wouldn’t have to swim.  Amazing how some things never changed.

For a moment, Jordan just watched the rain as it fell in a silent deluge.  He’d always loved the rain, but he seriously doubted that either he or Nicole would love it in a few hours, when they were both at the funeral.  The best thing that could be said for it was that it would effectively disguise the tears.

He purposely waited for a while longer, putting off the inevitable.  He finished the paper, set out a healthy tip for the waitress, and paid for his coffee before walking out into the deluge.  As he stood unlocking his door, he glanced around at all the little shops that had been there since before he’d grown up.  At once, he felt grateful to be home, even though he knew his parents probably weren’t going to take his news very well, not considering they had managed to hold their marriage together no matter what, and even Jordan had to admit that couldn’t have been easy.  Somehow they had something he and Alyssa had lacked, but even to this day he couldn’t begin to say what that magic ingredient had been.

He wondered if Nicole knew.

* * *

Nicole lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as the baby slept in a bassinet next to her.  She glanced over at her son, marveling at how lucky she’d gotten for him to sleep through the night at only four months, and staring at him kept much darker thoughts at bay—thoughts of her father lying in his casket, looking nothing like the man she’d grown up admiring.

Why couldn’t the funeral home people get it right?  Ed O’Roarke wasn’t some kind of new medium to create a work of art out of.  He'd been her father.  He should look like the man, imperfections and all, not someone she'd never known.

Tears stung her eyes, and she tried not to think about the way the last few days had played out, all the places she’d been with her mom, trying to keep everything together.  Nicole hadn’t broken down once.  Instead, she'd drawn the numbness around her like a thick blanket which would block out all the horrible things she didn’t want to deal with right now.

Her mother had been a mess, acting like she'd been doped up when it had just been grief, and Nicole knew she never would've been able to get through putting the funeral together alone.  So it had fallen to Nicole, not that Nicole minded.  It had just forced her to remember things she wanted no part of, and she knew she didn’t have time for her heart to break, not today of all days.  She had to get through this service.  All the people at Daddy’s church were expecting it, and most of them had known Nicole since she'd been really young.  She was a deacon’s daughter and she couldn’t fall apart.  Period.

Her cell rang, and she resisted the temptation to simply open it and greet whomever was calling.  It turned out to be a good thing, really, considering the caller was Michael.  Michael in Japan.  How convenient.  Yes, he had explained to her that this was a critical case he couldn’t miss.  There were millions of dollars at stake.  What could she offer that would make coming home so necessary?  It was, after all, just her father, and Michael had told her she was strong enough so that his presence would be completely unnecessary.

Unnecessary, her ass--Michael was a moron.

She tossed the phone against the wall, and doing so must have broken it because the ringing stopped.  Sitting up, she looked out the window at a grey, storm-tossed sky.  Rain spewed from it, gently tapping at her window, and she sighed and shook her head.  Yes, rain had been the perfect set-up for a funeral, but she hated the thought of her mother standing out in the cold and wet.  It was bad enough that right now Nicole was sleeping in her old bedroom just to keep an eye on her mom.  She was worried about when the numbness finally wore off and what would come next.

Nicole glanced at the clock and realized she had only a little while before she was expected to be sitting in a front-row pew, facing a casket she couldn’t bear even to look at.  Maybe that was why corpses never resembled the people who'd lived in those bodies.  Maybe the funeral directors somehow thought disguising them would make it so much easier just to get through the service.  They were wrong--oh so wrong.

As she forced herself to get up and go to the closet to find something to wear to the service, Nicole thought she heard noises from the kitchen below.  She took one last glance at the baby and headed that way, an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach as she wondered what her mom was doing.  She took the stairs two at a time and headed into the kitchen to find her mom standing in her cotton nightgown and robe in front of a skillet full of eggs.  She had buried her face in both hands, and her normally styled platinum blonde hair fell in disarray around her face.  Nicole glanced at the table and saw three place settings when there should have been two.  She swallowed hard, strode to her mom, and wrapped her arms around her.

“Mom, it’s okay.  It’s really okay.”

Her mother leaned against her and sobbed loudly.  Nicole rocked them both gently back and forth, hoping doing so would ease things.  She didn’t know what else to do.  She felt tears pooling in her own eyes and kept trying to blink them away.  She didn’t want them to come out.  After today, she’d deal with them.  Just not today.

It seemed to take forever before her mother finally calmed down and slowly pulled away to look at Nicole who smiled.  “That’s better,” Nicole whispered, kissing her forehead.  “What happened, Mom?”

Margaret O’Roarke looked at her daughter and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.  “I got out of bed and came down here to fix breakfast.  I was already halfway through when I remembered your father was…gone.”  Her voice shook with tears, but this time she managed to keep them from getting the best of her.  “And now there’s all these eggs.”  She slipped her hand over her mouth as though trying to keep the words tucked inside, where they couldn’t hurt anyone.

Although Nicole had no appetite, especially for eggs, she looked  at the skillet and said, “Well, I guess there’s more for us, Mom.  I’m really hungry, okay?”

Margaret nodded and looked at the floor as Nicole strode to the table and collected the plates.  She piled eggs on one and then filled the other.  “Let’s eat.”  She set the unused plate back in the cabinet and carried the others to the table.  Then she went back and grabbed her mom’s arm, leading her.

Once they had both been seated, Nicole took her mom’s hand and offered grace before they ate.

Jordan sat at the back of the crowded sanctuary.  Yes, he was under-dressed, but he didn’t care.  He glanced at his watch, feeling  uncomfortable in a church he didn’t know, surrounded by people he didn’t recognize.  Then again, he reminded himself, this was really for Nicole, so his feeling comfortable wasn’t really been part of the bargain.

Leaning back in his pew, he realized Nicole was coming in.  Her long, dark hair had been drawn up, and she wore a loose, black dress that flowed around her as she linked arms with an older woman, probably her mother, as they walked to the front and sat.  Jordan leaned forward, a frown on his lips, as he looked for other family members.  Where was Nicole’s husband?  Why wasn’t he here?

Yet even as he looked no one else came, and the service started.  Although Jordan tried to pay attention, he found himself staring at Nicole, worrying more and more that she might be alone during this awful time.  What kind of a man was Michael Adams?  He should have been here with her.  She deserved that.

The service blurred past, and Jordan followed the other cars out to the gravesite even though it was pouring, and while the church had been filled with mourners, the number quickly dwindled when it came to the cemetery.  Still, Jordan knew he had to go.  He kept watching Nicole, worried she might break down, but she remained in control.  Others might have thought it was a lack of feeling, but he knew better.  She was just trying to get through the worst day of her life the only way she could.

Jordan stood in the back even though the rain spewed toward him despite the tarp overhead.  There was no keeping the storm out, and the preacher tried to speak to be heard over the rain pelting down, which couldn’t have been easy.  Jordan tried to keep an eye on Nicole but the man in front of him kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, constantly forcing Jordan to move to see around him.

Jordan folded his arms across his chest, trying to ignore the wind and wet, never mind that the cold wouldn’t seem to leave him alone.  The graveside service was thankfully short, and when it ended, he waited until most of the attendees had already gone before he made his way to the front to express his condolences.

She was impassive as he stood before her, and only when he said, “I’m so sorry for your loss" and reached down to squeeze her hand did she look up. At first, there was only the unfocused glaze of grief in her expression, but then, recognition dawned as her fingers wrapped around his possessively, trembling.  The breath caught in her throat.

He could sense she was about to say something, but the words died before they came out.  Nicole looked at her mother.  Her lips closed, sealing whatever she wanted to ask away, so he said,  “I’m driving back to the church.  I’ll talk to you there.”

“Okay.”  The response came out as a relieved whisper.  He looked down at her hand, and she eased it free.  The rain had picked up, and on the way back to the Jeep, he ran, not that it mattered.  By the time he got there, he was soaked.

He shoved his keys into the ignition and started the engine so the wipers could clear the glass just as Nicole and her mother slowly made their way to the limo.  Nicole had wrapped her arm around her mother and lead her to the open door of the limo.  As Nicole’s mom made her way inside, Nicole turned and looked at his vehicle.  Their gazes crossed, and a small smile flitted across her face as if she were saying she was glad he’d come.

He nodded, not knowing whether she could see it then pulled away.  As he drove back to the church, the rain came even harder than before—a deluge that made him drive slowly, cautiously.   No matter how much he tried to tell himself not to think about Nicole and why in the world her husband had been gone during such a crucial time, he couldn’t help himself.  Her image came unbidden to his mind, and there was no getting it out once it had arrived.  More than once, he’d checked the rear-view mirror, expecting to see the limo, yet the rain obscured everything behind him.  It had a similar effect on everything before him as well, so he wavered nervously between the brake and the gas, never quite sure which he would need.

Once back at the church, he parked near the front and turned the engine off to wait for Nicole.  It didn’t take long for the limo to ease into the lot and pull beneath the awning where Nicole and her Mom got out.  That was Jordan’s cue.  He yanked the key from the ignition and got out, darting toward the awning as well, just as Nicole emerged from the back seat and gently pulled her mother out by the arm.

Another woman stood there, waiting as well, and even though he didn’t recognize her, she gave him a very strange look, as though she knew him.  In her arms, she cradled a baby swaddled tightly in a blanket.  That’s when a few things clicked.  Whomever the woman was, she probably held Nicole’s baby.  Of course, that still didn’t explain where Michael was.

All the women glanced up as he darted under the awning, and while he thought perhaps it had to do with looking like a drowned rat, he was probably wrong on that score as well.  As Nicole started to speak, the woman with the baby stepped toward her, trying to distract her.  Nicole nodded and said to Jordan, “Hang on a sec.”

She turned toward the woman.  “Sarah, can you drive Mom back to the house and watch Nick for a couple of hours?  Please?”