But now the emptiness was the size of two dads.
My ribs were stuck in place, not expanding or retracting, glued with grief.
When she heard me take a deep, desperate breath, my friend Willa reached over and covered my hand with hers. "You're okay," she mouthed. Always the mother hen, even at a funeral. She handed me a tissue and then reached past me to hand one to Sadie who was sitting on my left. Sadie took it without looking, her eyes faraway, dreaming of being in some place nicer than a funeral home at ten in the morning on a gray November day. Willa nodded as I wiped my nose. "You're okay," she repeated, nodding like the force of her love could make it true.
I nodded, my eyes filling with tears, but she was wrong. I wasn't okay. Gideon was in that box. My second chance at a father figure, my mentor at the school, and he was gone now.
I knew people thought it was strange that a twenty-three year old woman and a forty-six year old man could be such good friends. Good friends without a trace of the weirdness that usually plagues male / female friendships. Gid said it was because I was an old soul and he was a big kid. I told him he was right, then admonished him to sit up straight before he threw his back out.
He always roared with laughter at that.
He was never going to laugh again, and that was the part that hurt the most. How a man like him could just...end. How was I supposed to do anything now?
I dragged my eyes away from that box where Gideon lay silent and still, and back up to the podium.
Mr. King cleared his throat. "Thank you all," he said into the small mic, voice catching before growing stronger. "I am glad to see all of the people here today. My little brother was a hard guy to get to know." His voice caught again. "But an easy guy to love all the same."
Mrs. King was nodding in front row. Claire rested her head on her mom's shoulder, letting her muss her blonde hair absently. Of course my best friend needed to be up there with the rest of her family, rather than sitting back here with her friends. After all, Gideon was her uncle and lived on their property. But if always made me feel unstable when we got together and one of the four of us was missing. Like a bench with only three legs.
Next to Claire, her brother Beau was listening to their father, his spine very straight and tall. Finn, his twin brother, was leaning forward so I couldn't see his face. But I could see their brother Gabriel's face all right, and I had to look away because I knew exactly why he looked so angry.
It was because the seat next to his was empty.
"I know Gideon wouldn't want us to let our sadness cloud the good memories," Mr. King said. His voice was fading and he had to strain it to get to the end of his eulogy as the wind picked up outside. I touched my cheek, feeling the tears start to track their way down. Willa silently handed me another tissue. Sadie blew her nose quietly. "We all loved him," Mr. King went on. "And I know he loved all of us." His eyes glanced up towards the back and stayed there for a moment.
I held my breath, wondering if Jonah King had finally arrived.
But Mr. King just shook his head and looked down again, disappointment flickering across his face. "We're gonna miss you, Giddyup," he said, gruffly patting the casket. "I hope the angels can handle your singing."
A small ripple of nervous titters came up from the crowd. There was a sound of shuffling and then coughing. I looked over to see that everyone was looking at Isobel Tanner, but she showed no sign of moving, only staring straight ahead with a dazed look of disbelief on her face.
Dizzy Izzy, as she was known throughout town, was Gideon's long-term girlfriend. At twenty-eight, she was eighteen years younger than him, much closer to my age than his. I felt a burst of sympathy to see her hunched shoulders, suddenly frail looking without her man at her side. They'd been together ten years now, the only love she'd ever had, and to hear Gid tell it, the only one he'd ever had too.
A hot knife of anger at the unfairness of this all twisted in my gut again as I looked at her. Izzy was fragile, Gid was always saying so. Izzy was the kind of sweet, innocent person the world rushed to protect, to cushion from hurts as deep as this. She should have been selling her herbal tinctures at the Winter Market right now, smiling at all the bundled up kids and touching their heads. She should have been waiting for Gid to pull up in his van to collect her, ready to leap into his arms like their separation had been years instead of hours. This shouldn't have happened to her and it made me so angry that it had.
Izzy was wearing this light blue dress, totally inappropriate for a funeral, like she had no idea where she was. Her legs were bare, even though it had been sleeting freezing rain this morning when we arrived and...
"Oh shit," I murmured.
"What's wrong?" Willa hissed, leaning in.
"Izzy's barefoot."
Willa looked over and rolled her eyes. "Oh lord. Where are her shoes?"
"No idea." I shook my head. The priest had stepped in and was now talking about eternal rest, which sounded like something Gideon would have hated. I tried to look anywhere else, but those bare, dirty toes seemed seared into my retinas. "I have a pair of sneakers in my car," I whispered to Willa. "I'm going to go grab them for her."
"Don't worry about it, honey," Willa whispered back. "I'm sure she just left them in a corner somewhere."
I glanced at Izzy again. "Maybe, maybe not. I want her to have the option, though."
"Don't try to adopt her now," Willa warned. Which was pretty rich coming from a girl who tucked seven packs of tissues into her purse before coming this morning because she thought Sadie and I would forget. Never mind she was right.
"I'm just getting shoes for her," I said, a little too loudly. Willa's mouth twitched and I knew what she was thinking and she was wrong. I wasn't trying to take care of Izzy just because Gid was gone now. I just...
I had shoes. She needed shoes. Seemed like a no-brainer. It was the right thing to do.
"If it ends before I'm back, tell Claire I'm coming," I told Willa. She shook her head, but Sadie snapped out of her daydream and nodded, still wiping her nose.
I ducked past Willa into the aisle and scooted towards the doors in the back, pausing to rest my hand on Izzy's shoulder as I did. My threadbare woolen coat was hanging in the vestibule. I never wore the thing, but my usual practical bright purple puffy jacket seemed the wrong attire for a funeral.
I was still buttoning up my coat when the car screeched in to the lot of Lowry Funeral home. It had the shiny glaze of newness on it, and the plates were from out of state. I tracked it as it circled slowly before it finally, almost begrudgingly, shoved its way into the last spot in the row.
My heart was already racing. Grief and worry spun around in my head, crashing into each other until a new emotion was born.
Fucking rage.
I threw open the funeral home door, ignoring the slam that ricocheted like a gunshot off the low rolling hills, and tore down the stairs to stand guard. Fuck him if he thought he was going to rush in and interrupt the service like some hero. He could wait til it was all over and live with the fact he'd missed it. Like hell was I going to let him make Gid's funeral all about him.
The car sat silent at the end of the row for a moment. Leaves skittered across the pavement in the chilly breeze, but anger had me warm enough that it may as well have been a blazing hot day in June. I took a breath, ready to storm down to the car and confront him right then.