Page 55 of Panty Dropper

Could it be…grief?

Yeah. The realization washed over me and gripped my heart painfully. I felt my throat close with emotion as tears drew in my eyes.

I realized the irony of being so shocked by feeling grief at a funeral—especially your father’s funeral. But I’d been convinced that his passing hadn’t really affected me that much. In my mind, I’d lost him long ago and any grieving I’d had to do, I’d done bit by bit over the years as he disappeared further into the bottle.

Apparently that wasn’t the case. Apparently there was still some lingering feeling in my heart that hadn’t been wrung dry by years of benign neglect.

And then Reagan’s words came back to me, “People don’t have to be perfect for you to love them.”

She was right. And it was even more than that.

It was the looks on folks’ faces that did it for me, I think, even more than their words. It was realizing that this man was more than just my father—he was a friend, a confidant.

There were people in this town, a lot of them, who’d cared about him. They hadn’t had the baggage with him that I’d had. They were able to look at him without having to see him through the lens of disappointed expectations.

And the man they’d seen without that smudged glass in the way had been funny, and caring, and even a little wise.

My grief was for that man: not only that he was gone now, but that I’d never really known him, even when he was alive.

“Billy?” Cheyenne leaned toward me and whispered. “Who was that man you were talking to right before you sat down?”

“He’s no one,” I clipped.

I didn’t want to waste my breath talking about that piece of shit.

“Oh.” She nodded and sat back.

I could feel that she had more to say but I didn’t ask her what. The last person I wanted my sister to be asking about was Jennings Fucking Abernathy.

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