Page 79 of Love is a Game

Even Brady confessed that he would have failed as a parent back when he was making his way in LA, just as Finn was born. Could I have handled a kid before even hitting my twenties?

We’ll never know.

But I know this—Pen is an incredible person who deserves better. Whose father should be prepared to do whatever it takes to win back her affection.

That’s his burden to carry.

Mine is making damn sure Pen never has to question whether I’ll fight for her. That whatever happens, when she needs me, I’ll hold steady. That I’m nothing like the man walking away from her now.

Which means it’s time to take action. The starter gun has fired.

Chapter 24

Penelope

The sun hangs high, slicing through the stained glass windows in sharp beams, spilling colors across the stone floor. Inside, the stillness is heavy, pressing against my ribs like a physical weight. I pass my hands over the waist of my jacket as if I can smooth the unease beneath it, then return to my place at the entrance.

I’m here to greet the mourners…what few of them there are. To explain: “There’s no large family contingent…”, “…no formal seating arrangement”, to “…please take the front pews”.

And a silent request I try to press into every consoling hug, every gentle handshake:Help me make it look like a decent small-town funeral, even if she mostly kept to herself. Even if her life barely left a ripple.

Everything is ready. Mom is in there. Inside the church. Inside the antique-white coffin with the padded lavender interior, she requested. Inside the blue dress, the one she splurged on to look elegant at a wedding. A design she apparently perceived as so perfectly timeless it could hold up through all eternity.

When I viewed her body, so carefully made up and embalmed to conceal the inconceivable impact of metal, asphalt, and the solid, immovable tree that ended her life, it was like slipping through the seams of reality. Like someone had peeled back the edges of the world to reveal the stage props beneath.

Because it wasn’t my mother anymore. The longer I stared, the more she looked like an empty shell. A stand-in. A trick of lighting and makeup meant to mimic someone I once knew.

But I couldn’t mistake the tiny mole by her eye. The distinctive cleft in her chin. The faint creases and lines she never got to age into fully. And her hair, though streaked with gray, in the same soft waves. Except the part was wrong. I had to fix it, threading my fingers through the strands and finally requesting a brush from the funeral attendant to get it just right.

Maybe she was just a shell, her spirit long gone. But still, I had to make sure she looked like herself. Even though the coffin would be closed, it was the last small dignity I could give her.

I kissed her cool, stiff cheek. Held her hands, heavy with death. The hands that raised me. That fed and clothed me. Hands that were always moving, always busy with some quiet, unseen task. A mother’s hands. Now, at rest. Nothing more left to do.

And now I wait…wait for this day to be over.

I unbutton my jacket against the fragrant summer air. Tug at my bracelet for the hundredth time since my father showed up on the doorstep spouting all his lame excuses. Huh. Just when I thought I might skip my next therapy session, he opened up a fast track to my pit of rage.

But stop.What have I learned? Don’t let outside forces determine your emotions.

Yeah right.

But I try. Try to relax into my surroundings. To be present. To control my breath.

A bee drifts past, and I track its looping path, wondering at the world it sees—prisms of color shimmering in the churchyard garden, a spectrum invisible to me. And I think of how we reject color in the face of death. How black represents the absence of color, like the absence of the person taken away from us.

Then, Misha and Steven arrive. And strangely,that’swhat prompts my tears. Just the pure and generous kindness of it. They never even met my mom, but they came anyway. Forme.

Did they somehow sense how desperately I need these seats filled? That if enough warm bodies gather, if enough voices murmur her name, it might stitch together a meaning, a legacy, something lasting in the wake of Mom’s absence?

They join the core group I knew I could count on: Susan and Keith, Nora and Harvey, Brady, Vivian. And, of course, Tuck. Keeping his distance, giving me space, but somehow managing to press a tissue into my hand before I even register the tears brimming.

Then, Violet arrives. And I begin to feel so grateful for…these small mercies. That people I’ve only just met would take the time to show up. To offer such kindness. Such decency.

The carload of Safe Haven staff I was expecting— but still crossing my fingers would actually come— pulls in next. Then John and his wife, Sheila. I allow a sigh of relief to escape. This I can handle. This will at least fill the front pews.

But then more cars roll in, one after another, and I start to wonder if we’ve been double-booked. A wedding, maybe? Some other service on the church grounds?

But no.

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