Page 49 of Ignite

Not today.

Dozens of small posies of fresh flowers with hand-written cards adorned his site.

Rylee Mettner saved our house in 2010. We’ll always remember him.

Thank you for your service. RIP.

Thinking of you this day and always.

Yet again, I was glad to have adopted my father’s name as mine. He might be the original and best Rylee, but I carried his legacy. I still ran his car restoration business. I still tinkered with the fire trucks and surf lifesaving boats.

I remembered and honored my parents every day.

I turned to the two large wreaths.

We live to serve. In service we live. Meringa Rural Fire Service

Thanks Korbin, I thought, recognizing his handwriting and appreciating the huge array of native flowers. All the shades of the bottlebrush mimicked the yellows, oranges, golds, and reds of fire.Appropriate. The sobs now took hold of my body, and I shook from head to toe and back again. Would the pain never go away?

Reading the cards, I could at least think about the people my father had helped. But looking at the flowers, just reminded me of how the town had stepped up and held me tight in the aftermath of daddy’s death. My brother, Campbell, had come back for the funeral, but his employer had given him an ultimatum; get his ass back to Darwin or they’d consider his resignation final.

I hugged the wreath to my chest, not caring that the sharp points of the leaves bristled against my face and bare arms. I missed my brother. I missed my parents. And damn it, the kindness of my RFS brothers just made me miss them even more.

I looked at my phone, thinking I should at least give Grace proof of life.

Rylee to Grace:Have decided to do up the garden out the front of the shop.

Rylee to Grace:Did you supply the wreath?

Grace:OMG, I’m glad you are alright.

Grace:That was stupid. Of course, you’re not ok

Grace:The one Korbin ordered? Yes.

Rylee to Grace:I want all those bushes in the garden. I want to turn their card into a brass plaque.

Rylee to Grace:I want

I pressedsendwithout finishing the sentence. I trusted Grace. Her nursery might not be as large as the majors, but she knew her plants and would make my garden happen. Eventually, I’d either get an invoice or she’d get a free car service.

Because that’s how small towns operated. We looked after each other. And if Ethan Bloody Cooper couldn’t understand that and appreciate the way we were, then I was better off without him.

I smiled at the case of beer from Campbell with a reminder that we’d drink it tonight. I assumed he must have arrived late last night and was either still with Brody or had hooked up with one of his exes. No one could stay mad at Campbell for long, not even me.

To the side of the grave rested a cheap bouquet of supermarket flowers from Darin. Again, I smiled. Not just at how someone had moved them from the grave out of deference to me, but also because his new fiancé had probably helped buy them. It didn’t matter who’d bought them, I thought, placing them back on the grave. Darin had remembered daddy and daddy had died before seeing Darin for what he truly was—a lying, cheating bastard.

The last wreath was black and gold, I didn’t need to read the card to know it was from the Meringa Hawks Rugby League Club.

Metts. You’ll always be part of our team. Your family will always be ours. Your lifetime commitment will never be forgotten. Hawks

Why had I read the card? I fell to the ground and just wanted to shove all the flowers away and hug the granite boulder covering my father. I couldn’t. People had come here to pay their respects and tomorrow I would draw comfort from knowing he hadn’t been forgotten. But today, it was too raw and too hard.

I read the card again, holding it so it wouldn’t get wet or smudged from my tears.

Daddy had been the Club’s longest-serving Treasurer and my business was still a major sponsor. The Hawks had made the collective decision to make me their honorary sister when my own brother left town for college. When he officially moved to Darwin, they’d sent him a video of an adoption ceremony which might have been legal if we hadn’t all been drunk. Then when Darin had cheated on me, they’d taken his betrayal personally.

The Hawks had my back.

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