Page 53 of Caden's Situationship

I was an emotional mess the entire plane ride to Dallas and even worse in the rental car as Caden and I made our way to Dandelion Hills.

Besides the call that I’d gotten from my mother’s best friend last night, I hadn’t heard from anyone else in my family. Lance hadn’t answered my calls and nor did my father. When I’d called my cousin Harper, she hadn’t even known what happened.

A part of me was hurt that such tragic news was delivered from someone who wasn’t my blood relative, but I guess the more I thought about it, I should be used to being ignored by my family by now.

“Do you need me to stop and get you anything before we get to your parents’ house?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.” Strangely enough, I really wanted a bottle of homemade sweet tea by the market around the corner. It had been my mom’s favorite. But I figured it was only because I was avoiding the inevitable. That the moment I walked into the home I’d grown up in, life as I knew it would be forever changed.

Caden had let me cry in his arms all night as every moment I’d ever shared with my mom came rushing to the front of my brain, the pressure forcing me to close my eyes.

When we arrived at the house, I wasted no time getting out the car and heading inside upon realizing the front door was unlocked.

Although my family hadn’t been returning any of my calls, I expected the house to be swarming with townspeople, but instead, I only found Tom.

“Where is everyone?”

“They are at your mother’s funeral,” Tom said.

I squinted my eyes in confusion. “A funeral? Already? I don’t understand, I just got the call that she passed away yesterday.”

Tom’s eyes widened as he shuffled from one foot to the other. “Ms. Cordelia, maybe you should just head to the church.”

I glanced at Caden who looked just as lost as I was, the sadness in my heart slowly morphing into anger.

“Do you think she passed days ago and they only told me last night?” I asked Caden after we’d gotten into the car and I’d given him directions to the church.

“You told me a lot about your family, but I didn’t think they’d be that cruel.”

Me neither.Yet, here we were. Rushing to get to the funeral, my mind such a rattled mess I didn’t even know what to think.

We arrived at the church and the parking lot was packed with cars I recognized, which could only mean one thing. “They really are having her funeral without me.”

Caden shook his head as he helped me out the car since I was a little unsteady. “Let’s get inside and see for ourselves.”

I didn’t need to see anything for myself. Between Tom’s words and the crowded lot, the last twelve hours had been unreal. It almost felt like I was watching someone else’s life instead of my own.

The closer we got to the door, the more my heart began to break. There were so many words I wanted to say to my mother. So many problems we still had to work through. Sandra Rose and I had her issues, but a woman needed her mother.

Caden opened the church door, the movement blowing back my sundress. I didn’t care if I wasn’t dressed for a funeral, I marched past all the townspeople, briefly noting that the church seemed filled with mostly women of the Dandelion Dolls organization.

I didn’t stop marching to the casket in the front of the church until the sight of a ghost stopped me dead in my tracks. Either my eyes were playing tricks on me, or it really was my, “Mother?”

With all the poise of a sophisticated socialite, Sandra Rose stood from the pew. “Cordelia, dear. Why are you late to my funeral?”

I stared at her, my heart beating out of my chest. “Patricia told me you passed away last night. I don’t understand how you’re standing here right now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Patricia said, coming up beside us. “Didn’t you get the group text I sent out right after I called you?”

“No,” I yelled through clenched teeth. “What group text?”

Patricia pulled up the message on her phone and within seconds, I noticed, “That phone number you have listed for me is wrong. How in God’s name do you text the wrong number when you called the right one?”

“Cordelia,” my mother whispered. “We are in church. Watch your mouth.”

“I called you from the main Dandelion Dolls line. I must have your phone number programmed wrong.” Patricia shrugged as if the mishap hadn’t caused me to age thirty years in less than a day.

Before handing Patricia back her phone, I read the text. “I thought my mother had died and you are telling me that the call was a joke?”

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