“Jesus, Seth,” Noah had grumbled, which told me that he was still annoyed, but I’d at least diffused the situation. “We keep going until we find someone, even if they have to come from Charlottesville or Richmond.”
I’d wanted to ask about cost, whether it would be worth it to pay the expense for a funeral home to come all the way from Richmond, take her backto Richmond, and then drive all the waybackout here. Lulu could afford it, I was sure, but they shouldn’t have to. And because I couldn’t afford it, but I didn’t want to say so in case that would make Noah agree to something he didn’t want out of guilt. But I didn’t say anything, because it was clear to me that this mattered to Noah, although I didn’t really understand why.
But it didn’t matter. We were going to do it anyway. It would be fine.
Fortunately, Lulu found a place in Churchville—not too far away—that was willing to follow the terms of Momma’s will, specifically because it was in the will. They made it very clear that they’d need to see the document, so Humbolt and Walsh were headed over there from the morgue to present both a copy of the will and the paperwork from the morgue.
Noah seemed much more keen to make sure her wishes were followed than I was. Not that I wanted to deliberately thwart them or anything, I just… didn’t care. Which was proving to be rare a point of contention.
Apparently the only things Noah and I fought about were our romantic partners and our parents.
Noah, Lulu, and I were going to get lunch and then follow so that we could make all the other decisions about the funeral: what kind of casket, service, and so on.
Recent experiences meant that I could, in fact, think of several things that I would like doing less, but this definitely made the list, and between that, the pain, and the fact that I kept having nightmares, short as they were, I was extremely short-tempered.
I was trying to keep that to myself, although I wasn’t entirely certain how successful I was.
Because I didn’t care what wood made up the coffin, didn’t care if the silk or satin lining it was pink or white… Although I strongly suspected that my mother would have hated all of it.
“Momma wouldn’t like any of this,” I finally pointed out as Noah ran his fingers over the lining of yet another coffin, this one some medium-honey-colored wood that I hadn’t been paying enough attention to remember what it was.
“What?” Noah turned to look at me. Lulu’s expression asked me why I’d disrupted the process.
“Momma would hate all of it,” I said. “Silk. Satin. Polished wood. She’d hate all of it.”
Noah looked back down at the gleam of the curved coffin lid, the quilted interior a shell pink. “You’re right,” he said softly. “She would hate it.”
We got a simple pine box. I’d expected the funeral home people to argue about it, but they hadn’t, so props to them.
I thought about pointing out that Elliot could have made one for less that would probably look better, but didn’t want to volunteer him. Besides, he’d need a workshop to do it in, and I didn’t think the funeral home was going to let him work on a coffin we weren’t buying from them in the back, even if they hadn’t tried to up-sell us on a more expensive model.
Noah also way over-ordered flowers for the grave site, but Lulu had the money, Noah wanted to make sure it would be nice, and I didn’t care what we did or what it cost as long as it would be over and done with as soon as possible.
“I over-did the flowers,didn’t I?” Noah whispered to me.
I shrugged, trying to be diplomatic.
There were lilies, roses, and carnations in sprays and a couple wreaths. It was completely ridiculous. The funeral home people had agreed to put flowers on Rachael’s simple grave, too, which at least spread it out and made it a little less weird. A little. And while the wreaths would stay—allthreeof them—the other flowers could come with us back to our hotel rooms so that we could all experience the feeling of being in a funeral parlor for the next three to five days.
But I knew better than to say that to Noah.
So we stood there, my functional leg and armpits aching from spending too much time standing on crutches, while somevaguely clerical-like person said something about loss and love and parents making us into who we are.
The usual sort of thing that I’m sure was moving if you actually did love the person who had died, but to me felt almost hysterically empty. Platitudes that were so wrong they went beyond meaningless to insulting.
I twitched when Elliot’s hand closed around my forearm.
“Try to frown a little less, baby,” he whispered, his voice pitched so low that I barely heard him. Because, of course, Noah also had wolf shifter hearing.
I struggled to smooth out my features. “Sorry.”
“Not me who would be bothered,” he replied, just as softly.
I knew what he meant. Noah didn’t need my judgment along with everything else.
We stayed there after the officiant-person finished, inviting everyone to drop a lily into the grave on the coffin. I declined, using the crutches as an excuse. Elliot took mine from my fingers and dropped it gently into the grave. For some reason, that put a little lump in my throat.
Noah came over and leaned into me, resting his head on my shoulder and holding on to one arm around the crutch braced in my armpit. “She asked about you.” The words were soft and sad.
