Page 95 of Son of a Preacher Man
Linnea didn’t answer.
And taking her by the elbow, Kodiak led her to their pew.
One more hour.
Tops.
They just had to get through the graveside service, then they would be home free.
Moving at a snail’s pace, the Tahoe followed behind the hearse as the cortège made its way through town. Headlights on, a purple funeral flag affixed to their hoods, cars pulled onto the shoulder to let them pass.
Kodiak loosened his tie a little. Just enough so he could breathe. It was strangling him. Staring straight ahead, Linnea fidgeted with the bouquet of flowers on her lap. He laid his hand on hers, quelling her movement.
Diverting her gaze, she looked over at him. “I’d almost forgotten.”
“What?”
“How undeniably strange those people are.” Her green eyes grew big and round. “Having been away for all these years, I can see it so clearly now. It is a crazy cult. They’re all a bunch of brainwashed zealots, and I have a feeling Jeremy is going to be ten times worse than our father ever was.”
“We got out, and that’s all that matters,” he said, patting her hand.
Linnea tilted her head. “Did we?”
Perhaps not entirely unscathed, but somehow, they’d managed to survive it. Bringing her fingers to his lips, Kodiak kissed them. “We did.”
“I could feel their eyes on me, burning holes into the back of my head.”
“Ignore them.” Looking at Jeremy in the passenger seat of the hearse in front of them, he glowered. “As soon as we’re done at the cemetery, we’ll be on the road heading home.”
“What about the luncheon?”
“We won’t be attending.” With a smirk on his face, Kodiak glanced at his sister. “They can have their little repast without us.”
“I wouldn’t put it past Ada to poison the food,” Linnea said in a joking way and snickered.
Kodiak couldn’t say that very thought hadn’t crossed his mind. “Not Jeremy himself?”
“Nah, he wouldn’t dare get his own hands dirty.”
Crossfield’s only cemetery was very old. And very small. Everyone who’d lived and died in this town was buried here. Driving through the rusted iron gates, that sense of foreboding returned. His heartbeat quickening, the hairs on his neck prickled. Linnea must have felt it too. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
The lead sedan came to a rolling stop, the hearse pulling in behind it. One by one they all followed suit. Jeremy was the first to exit the vehicle. His Howdy Doody grin out of place, he directed the six teenage boys selected from the congregation to carry Jarrid’s casket.
“Ugh, I can’t.”
“It’s almost over.” Kodiak fixed his tie and got out. Then he went around to the other side, assisting Linnea, and her bouquet of flowers, from the passenger seat. “I’ll get Charlotte.”
Lining up behind the casket, he held the baby, and his sister held onto him. That’s when he noticed a patrol car parked some fifty feet away.
The solemn procession proceeded to the freshly dug grave. It was an archaic, morbid custom if you asked him. Kodiak saw no reason to witness the lowering of a coffin into the ground. He was just thankful there weren’t any bagpipes or a boys’ choir singing.
They took their seats in the first row of wooden folding chairs. Nobody else sat with them. Folks were standing at the back, while the seats beside them stayed empty.
Jeremy started the service, and softy, Linnea began to cry. Pale-pink roses trembling in her hands, Kodiak followed her gaze. The grave of the mother she never knew was right beside their father’s. Curling his arm around her, she laid her head on his shoulder.
“We commend to Almighty God our brother, Jarrid, and we commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
And then it was done.
