The ride to the funeral directors, where we’d meet the hearse with my aunt’s body, was silent. When I saw the casket, I felt a painful lump growing in my throat. I would not cry now. I would not. I clenched my hands into fists, my nails dug into my palms until it hurt. I needed to keep it together.
Nikolai watched silently, in the back of the car with me, as they brought the casket out and loaded it into the hearse. Since I was the only family that my Aunt Carol had left, I had asked him to ride with me. I didn’t want to be in the car alone. Whether or not he noticed that I was barely holding myself together, he didn’t make any indication.
Before long, we were off again, driving in a slow procession to the church. I hated this pace. But I knew this was just the speed hearses went when they carried the burden of a life lost inside them. I took another deep breath and steadied my nerves.
The service at the church was short, so short in fact that I wondered if the people who had come to pay their respects to Aunt Carol thought it was worth the effort. They all joined us at the graveside though, for the second part of the service.
A lot of them, her artistic friends and her gardener friends had brought tokens and trinkets to place in the grave with her or as a memorial on top, next to the headstone. When I saw them, I wished I’d gone by the house, my father’s house, to pick up one of her scarves or one of her gardening tools, just something. Something of hers to keep and something of hers for her to take with her.
That was the thought that had tears burning in my eyes.
As the Reverend Carmichael brought the second half of the service to a close, he invited the congregation to bring the gifts for my aunt forward. So many people were here. So many people would miss my aunt’s presence in their lives.
Had any of them noticed my disappearance? Had any of them been this affected when I’d disappeared? I bet not.
My aunt had worried though, for which I’d apologized profusely. As I looked back I regretted not being as close to her as possible over the last few months. A few phone calls were all we’d had, and it hadn’t been enough. I recalled the last phone call, I had snapped at her for making assumptions. If only I could go back in time and tell her that it didn’t matter - that her assumptions had been correct.
None of this could have been foreseen. And these were things that I’d have to live with forever. I just wished that I’d had the chance to be honest with her, it was the least I could’ve done.
She would’ve had a field day if she hadn’t known the truth. Unlike everyone else, she would’ve thought this was all pulled out of one of the romance novels she loved so much. She would’ve said, grab life by the balls and run with them.
She would’ve loved Nikolai.
It was a saddening thought that she’d never get to meet him. He’d never get to meet the only other person of significance in my life, the lively woman that had a steady hand in raising me.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my chin from wobbling. My aunt’s boyfriend, a much younger man, I noticed, was crying loudly into the shoulder of another funeral goer. I had never met either of them. Or even, really, any of these people. I had never felt so incredibly alone.
“It was such a lovely service.” Arms crossed, I had to pinch myself in an effort to stop my eyes from rolling into the back into my skull.
One of my aunt’s friends stood before me, eyes watery, a sympathetic smile wavering on her face. I forced a small smile to my lips and uncrossed my arms.
I didn’t know how long I had been lost in my thoughts as the gathered mourners dropped off their tokens of appreciation, greeted me and gave their condolences, then walked away. The faces had started to blur together. I couldn’t deny that my aunt had been loved within the community.
“Yes,” I said, as she moved in to hug me. I was tired of hugging people. I desperately wished to be alone. But still, I hugged them. I shook their hands. I played the good, grieving niece. Nikolai was stoic at my elbow the whole time.
“Anastasia, please, get in the car.” Nikolai was doing his best to be patient with me, I was sure, but I knew he was getting antsy.
“I don’t wanna leave her yet. I’m not ready.” I scowled at him as I sunk down onto a nearby park bench.
“I’m sorry Ana. I know how hard this is for you, but we need to go home now,” he said. He’d said it at least three times before.
With our eyes locked I continued scowling until a minute passed, he wasn’t backing down and I didn’t have the energy to fight him anyway. No matter how mad or upset I was, I knew he was right.
All the guests had gone by now, the cemetery cleared out ages ago. But I couldn’t find it in myself to leave. All the family that I’d ever known were gone. My father and my aunt were laying side by side in their matching caskets, gone to me forever.
And that was it.
My eyes found their way back to the fresh tombstone. My chin wobbled as tears started clouding my vision, again.
I didn’t know how I had any tears left to cry. I swiped at my cheek to hide the evidence from Nikolai.
I didn’t want him to know how weak I was.
When Nikolai first kidnapped me, my father had just passed away. But at least then I’d been able to lock myself away in my bedroom. Nikolai never really had a chance to see me in my most vulnerable state.
But I couldn’t stop the tears once the floodgates were open. I cried over the memories she gave me, over the fact that I would never see her again. I should’ve spent more time with her, spent more time telling her how much I loved her. She was the only mother I’d ever had, and now I wouldn’t ever see her again.
The two people on this earth that loved me were now buried in front of me. What if no one ever loved me again. I cried selfishly for the love that I lost, and may never have again.
After I could see straight I looked up to Nikolai who was standing over me. He reached down his hand and offered it to me. “Let’s go home.”
“Home.” I threw a short chuckle at him as he led me back to the car. I wasn’t even sure if that was my home. Things between Nikolai and I still weren’t any further forward.
After everything that had been going on lately, I had thought we’d grow closer. Not further apart. Maybe things between us weren’t meant to be. Maybe after all this, I was just his captive.
What a waste that would’ve been.
“What’s to stop me from walking away now?” I prodded. I wanted a reaction out of him. I wanted to know if he would fight for me.
My breath caught in my throat, as a thought struck me out of the blue. Maybe it was just my rational brain taking a hiatus after all I’d been through over the past few months, but what if it wasn’t. “Speaking of which, how can I even be sure that you weren’t the one to kill her? A drunk driver? I’m sure you or Finch could’ve easily set that one up.”
“And you think I would?” he fired back. His lack of a fighting response had me pausing and rethinking my stance. I had expected more blowback but the power of his words was not lost on me.
I had no idea how to answer him because as truth had it, I couldn’t be sure. In the beginning, yes. He’d sworn no harm would come to me, but he hadn’t extended that same courtesy to my aunt, quite the opposite in fact.