He ran a hand along the mahogany coffin with the lid closed, standing behind him. Then he walked silently back to where Casey now stood, still holding onto Bria’s hand.
Casey didn’t immediately address the crowded chapel. Instead, he stood in front of the coffin and tried to pry it open.
“Why won’t it open?” His broken voice carried through the hall, and the county coroner moved forward to help.
I didn’t even know that he knew Keegan. But there he was, helping Casey open the casket. After it was done, Casey looked apologetically back at Mom.
“He wouldn’t want it closed, Mom. He’d want to see the way we stare at him. We gotta give him that.” His voice hitched as the tears started to stream unchecked down his cheeks.
“I’ve lost brothers before,” Casey muttered after wiping his tears. “Overseas. I’ve stood in war, with shots being fired around my head. I’ve held a dying man’s hand. But nothing has ever hurt more than this .... This pain. This hollow ache. Knowing my little brother won’t be there to meet his nieces or nephews. That he won’t ever get to skydive.”
“Actually,” Mom cut in tearfully. “He went skydiving for his birthday this year.”
Scattered laughter filled the room around us.
“Well,” Casey sniffed. “Color me shocked. Keegan was scared of heights.” He laughed again, still crying. “That little shit had one more surprise for me up his sleeve.”
Casey wiped his eyes and looked straight at me and Cam. “I guess we’re going skydiving, huh?”
Cam and I both nodded, and Casey turned his attention to Bria, who Cam had wrapped in a hug.
My heart ached even more.
“We made a pact,” Casey explained to the crowd. “We’d all go skydiving together when Keegan turned thirty. But that little shit had to go three years early, didn’t he?”
Casey took one last look at Keegan and leaned into the coffin to place a hand on his face. “I’m gonna miss you.”
Shuddering sobs and gasps as the onlookers struggled and failed to hold together their emotions filled the air around us. And then it was my turn.
Bria grabbed my hand as I walked by and squeezed lightly. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered.
“No,” I answered her. “It really isn’t.”
Casey hugged me before he moved back to his seat on the other side of his estranged wife, and I stepped up to the casket.
“What did you do, Keegan?” My voice was low, barely a whisper, as I stared at his face. He looked like he was sleeping. Like any minute, he’d open his eyes and smile at me. Only, I knew it wasn’t ever going to happen. He was gone and he’d taken a part of us with him.
“Keegan made a choice.” I didn’t plan what I was saying. I couldn’t. After all, I didn’t actually want to speak at the funeral. Mom and Dad both said they couldn’t do it, they couldn’t stand up and speak about Keegan’s life. So that left Cam, Casey, and me to pick up the pieces.
“He became a cop, knowing the dangers. Knowing that every single time he put on the badge, he might not make it home.” I coughed, trying to hold it together. “He asked me when I joined the department, why I was doing it. Why I would walk away from the life I had, to stand behind the thin blue line. And I didn’t have an answer for him. He knew it, I knew it, too. I could have lied to him, and told him that I was doing it because our father had. Or that our uncle was. Or that our cousin had.” I shot a look at my aunt and uncle over my shoulder, who were sitting with our cousins from Sunnyville. “But that wasn’t the truth. The truth was, I felt it. In every pore of my body. Down into the pit of my soul. I felt the decision I made, and I knew it was the right one.” I looked back down at Keegan, resting in the coffin that would hold him forever.
“And he just nodded. But then, not even two years later, he was doing the exact same thing. Joining the force. And I told him. I warned him. I pleaded with him to make another choice.” I swear he was mocking me, with the smirk on his face, even in death, as I shared one small piece of who he was.
“This little shit,” I echoed Cam and Casey’s sentiments about our little brother. “He looked me dead in the eye and told me word for word what I’d told him two years before. ‘I have to, Carter.’ He said, ‘I have to. It’s calling to me from every pore of my body. I feel it. In the pit of my stomach, and when I close my eyes at night I know it’s the right decision.’ And what could I say to that.”
I turned away from Keegan and stared at my mom with tears in my eyes. “How could I stand in the way of that?”
“You couldn’t.” Mom’s voice broke out through the silence to answer my question. “He was more stubborn than any of us. He gets that from his father.” Her lips trembled. “Got. He got that from his father.” She leaned into Dad’s arms.
“I couldn’t stop him,” I said again with a nod. “I didn’t want to stop him. He was passionate. He loved the choice he was making. Loved it, lived it, and loved his life. He was a good man. A good cop. And I’ll miss him.”
I held it together. Barely. Just long enough to get back to my seat and lean forward with my head in my hands.
When the priest blessed Keegan, and the ceremony ended, I took my place next to my brothers and cousins. Pallbearers, carrying Keegan to the hearse that would take him to his final resting place.
“Gods above,” Grady, one of our cousins, groaned from where he stood across me. “Keegan’s heavy as fuck.” He wheezed.
“No, you’re just getting old.” Casey snorted. “You don’t see Grayson complaining.”
Grayson, Grady’s brother, chuckled mirthlessly. “That’s cause I’m not a wimp.”
The only two who didn’t speak were Grant and Cam. The both of them stayed as silent as I did while we walked through the chapel, surrounded by the crowd that had come to say goodbye.
It wasn’t until we were sitting on the grass at the cemetery three hours later, watching as a machine finished burying Keegan, that I found the courage to say anything. Neither Mom or Dad had come. Instead, Mom had gone home with our aunt, uncle, and Grayson’s son, Luke, to rest.
“This fucking sucks.” Cameron broke the silence, surprising the hell out of me. I figured he’d be the last person to speak.
“Yeah, it does,” Grady agreed.
Casey stood up suddenly. “I need a drink.”
“I guess we’re just gonna drink away our problems tonight.” Grant held out a hand for me to take, and I did it with a grim expression.
Even though the last thing I wanted to do was drink, I took his hand and got up. None of us would be okay, not for a long time. Despite that, the least we could do is spend the night together and have a drink or maybe six.
“Sounds like a plan.”
6
Avery
Bria shoved me out of the way in her haste to order a drink at the bar. After the funeral, Chris and I took one look at her and decided she wasn’t spending the night alone.
She might not be with Casey and their estrangement had broken her heart over and over again, but she still loved his family fiercely. So, the three of us made quite the trio as we stood in the middle of the bar. Chris, still wearing a suit, the tie slightly askew. Both Bria and I were wearing the same black dresses we’d worn earlier for the funeral. With red eyes, and puffy faces from all the crying, I was sure we looked exactly like a hot mess express.