He’s in good hands.
He won’t come to terms with this quickly or easily, but he’ll have us at his side every step of the way.
We’re in this together.
*
Per Lolly’s wishes, we hold a private visitation on Wednesday for family and the closest of friends; maybe ten people end up going, including Bill and Shannon and Landon’s oldest friend Robbie, who I meet for the first time. Then we have her funeral on Thursday morning, with Landon being the only permitted speaker aside from the pastor of the church she used to attend.
It’s hard to listen to him talk about her.
I know it’s even harder for him to have to.
He pushes through the eulogy, though, his raven hair rustling in the cold breeze, his wobbly voice carrying through the silence beneath the canopy we’re all seated under. He mentions how much Lolly and Pop sacrificed to raise him. He talks about her daycare-owning days and the Alzheimer’s.
Then, after a thick sniffle, he says, “What I want to leave you all with is—is the image of Lolly being just like a star.” He holds up the wrist I know boasts the little black star tattoo. “She was like a star fixed brightly in the sky of my life, guiding me constantly when I was a ch—a child who was unsure of what paths to take when, watching patiently when I was older and wanted to gaze out at the rest of the world, shining a steady and beautiful reminder of what I could accomplish and who I could be if I lived with love and optimism. And….”
He covers his mouth with his hand as tears well out of his eyes, takes many moments to find his voice again.
“And now that she has…has gone from this world, sheisa star in the sky, fixed there for—for me and all the rest of us to look up at and v-value from a new pers-spective. Just like all the other stars, she’s far away, but she won’t burn out any—anytime soon, won’t be lost and forgotten to the darkness until we’re all gone, too.”
He inhales jaggedly, wipes at his eyes, and finishes weakly.
“Nadine ‘L-Lolly’ Wintermute, I hope you’ll find peace up there in—in the heavens with Pop, where your only responsibility is to glow and where your mind—” his voice cracks before he puffs out a short, determined breath, “—where your mind is as clear and strong as the light you give off.”
He leaves the cheap podium and hurries back to his seat next to me. As the pastor goes up to say a few things, we hug hard, and he weeps quietly into my neck while I breathe out tearful words of comfort and of how beautiful that was.
Fresh tears come when it’s time to lower Lolly’s casket into the ground next to Landon’s grandpa.
More yet when people start gathering around Landon to share their last condolences.
I stand next to him while he speaks briefly with some of Lolly’s old church friends and neighbors, a couple of coworkers from the daycare, and a few more of his own friends.
Everything goes relatively smoothly until his dad walks up.
By now, Mason and the woman who was with him at Quiet Springs are the last of the attendees, not counting Bill, Shannon, and Landon’s friends, who are all standing with us.
Landon has been holding my hand since his speech, and now he grips it tightly. The others have been chatting amongst themselves, but now they fall quiet.
I don’t know if they know for sure who’s standing in front of Landon, but I do know they’re at least guessing.
We all wait to see what the bastard says.
It ends up being a very bastard-toned, “Such nice things you said about my mother. It’s my opinion that you went too heavy on the saint angle, but to each his own.”
I take in his sharp attire, his dry eyes, and the incline of his head, which says he thinks Landon is weak.
There are so many things I want to say.
So many punches I want to throw at his stupid, not-as-wonderful-as-his-son’s face.
That son of his speaks more evenly than he’s spoken in days: “Well, I wouldn’t have abandoned my child,but to each his own.Thank you, actually, because I probably would’ve turned out like you if you’d stuck around, and you’re a…” his tired, swollen eyes find me and then look down at Rae, “…what’d you girls say last time? A prick?”
Rae squeaks out, “Yes,” and I know that, despite the circumstances, she’s trying hard not to giggle.
With the hand that isn’t in mine, Landon holds his middle finger up at his dad. “You’re a prick and I don’t care what you think about meorwhat you thought about Lolly. In fact, I pity you for clearly not realizing what you’ve lost. And now I’m leaving because you’ve wasted quite enough of my time. I’ll have the lawyer contact you when it’s time to talk about her will.”
NowI’mthe one holding in a laugh, because I happen to know there’s very little for Mason in Lolly’s will. He probably won’t like that at all.