Page 36 of Ashes of Saints

I’ve been biding my time to ask Aurora on another date—she’ll say yes—and the funeral might be the perfect time to find her vulnerable and open to talking about her mother.

I’m not a saint.

I’ve told you that.

I find the notice and check the date. Tomorrow. Taking a mental note of the venue, I wonder if I’ll recognize any of the attendees. I must go.

It would be a missed opportunity not to.

CHAPTER TEN

AURORA

“What the hell?” I whisper quietly as my gaze locks on a man dressed all in black standing under the trees in the near distance.

I know who it is.

I recognize him immediately.

I feel Chloe, more than see, her turn her head in question.

“What?” she asks just as quietly.

Someone gives us a dark look, but they can shove it. This is my mother’s funeral. The celebrant keeps speaking as her coffin hovers over the empty grave ready for the moment she’s lowered into it.

I’ve cried, but it felt empty. I am sad, don’t get me wrong, but I never felt close to her. The older I got, the more obvious that became.

Then her sudden show of wealth and angry resistance to any reasonable questions I had—I honestly don’t know who it is I’ve lost.

Yesterday came an even bigger shock. The lawyer phoned me and told me the legal name of my mother was different from the one I knew her as.

What the actual fuck?

Mary-Anne Whitlock is actually Marianne Baker. She was born in Chicago—not New York—and is a year older she told me she was.

Why?

“Are you sure?” I asked Mr. Lynch, feeling like I was going to throw up as my world wobbled on its axis.

“What does that mean for me? What is my real last name?”

He was quiet for a while, then replied, “I don’t know. There are papers here you should look through. When we read the will you might get some answers.”

Would I?

It was as if life had pulled the rug out from under me.

There were no relatives to give me any answers, and most of the people standing around her grave were strangers to me. The odd face I mildly recognized but no one I could walk up to and say hey, so Mom wasn’t who she said she was, do you know anything?

I’d sound crazy.

I listen to all the official words being said while my eyes remain on Parker, wondering why he is here.

Spring had sprung back into winter for a couple of days, so I was also wearing a long coat to keep the chill off and was grateful for the feeling of comfort it gave me. An insane desire to have his arms wrapped around me hits as he watches me just as intently back.

“Babe.” Chloe squeezes my arm.

Snapped back to the funeral, I glance between her and the celebrant. “Oh.”

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