“Is this the place?” Charlie wanted to know as he pulled up to St. Peter’s. I quickly informed him that it was, while stealing a glance at Rita. Her face should have held some emotion, since this was the location where she had taken her baby and abandoned her, but she remained completely stoic behind her sunglasses, the very picture of perfection. I longed to say something rude to her just out of spite, but Cole would have been disappointed in me had I done that. I might have been disappointed in myself as well, to be honest, but at that moment it was still very tempting.
Charlie parked the car and we walked toward the church, Cole’s hand firmly in mine. Charlie had his arm around Trina as well, and Rita hung behind the lot of us, as though she didn’t belong. Frankly, she didn’t. I wished she had rented her own car, or come on her own flight, and simply let us be.
The entryway of the church gave way to rich mahoganies and green plants, and as we stepped into a crowd of unfamiliar people, I held Cole’s arm a little tighter. I really wasn’t a fan of funerals. The first one I remembered was my father’s, and I didn’t honestly remember it as much as I recalled the way my life spun out of control in the aftermath. The only one I attended since that one was my grandmother’s, and those few days were some of the darkest of my life.
No, I definitely never liked funerals.
The first familiar face I saw was Maureen’s, as she leaned against a wall with her arms crossed, having what appeared to be a casual conversation with a young man. She saw me in nearly the same instant, and with an almost imperceptible roll of her eyes, she acknowledged my presence. Unfortunately, that turned the young man’s attention in our direction as well, and with a start I realized that her companion was none other than Adam Vanderhuff. As recognition passed over his features, he excused himself from Maureen and headed in our direction. With my hand firmly planted in Cole’s, I wondered if Mr. Vanderhuff had a death wish. Fending off his advances hadn’t exactly been the high point of my last trip to Philadelphia. Now that those same things I witnessed had been recorded and played for the masses on late night television, the sight of his face made me even more uncomfortable.
“Adam,” I acknowledged without emotion, feeling my face flush red when he took my free hand even though I hadn’t offered it. He held it between both of his, staring earnestly into my face.
“Camdyn, I just want to tell you how sorry I am about everything. I regret my actions, and I’ve suffered greatly for them. Please say you’ll forgive me.”
“Sure,” I muttered, attempting to pull my hand away.
“I had no idea who you were, honestly. Not until I saw you on television.”
Oh, so you’re only apologizing because you think I’m famous? Insufferable, pretentious…
“Please unhand my wife,” Cole said quietly beside me. The sound of his voice nearly made me jump, and Adam slowly drew his fingers away.
“I’m sorry,” Adam repeated, glancing up at Cole and then back at me.
“She heard you,” Cole assured him. “She accepted your apology. If you ever touch my wife again, I will break your arm off.”
Even my eyes bulged out a bit at that statement, and Adam mumbled something about understanding as he turned and hastily walked away. I hesitantly glanced up at Cole, and he gave me a faint hint of a smile.
“Sorry, I really wanted to punch that guy.”
“Trust me, I get it,” I stated with a grin. He pulled me against him and hugged me tightly, and I was distracted enough that I didn’t notice my aunt Meg until she touched my arm.
“Hi, Camdyn,” she said simply, leaning forward and gently squeezing my shoulders. I took a moment to introduce her to Trina and little Cooper, who she cooed over and quickly informed that he was adorable.
“Bill’s speaking with a couple gentlemen from his office, and Hannah’s probably somewhere by herself,” Meg stated quietly. “She’s taking it the hardest, but Dad was her whole life. Well, Dad and Mom, but…”
At that moment, I knew without a doubt that she saw the ghost from her past. Her gaze was directed entirely at Rita, and in response Rita simply demurely stood there, the picture of sincere grace under dire circumstances. Plastic and wooden and robotic wrapped up into one striking package.
“Darlene,” Meg added my mother’s given name, quite astonished. Instinctively I put my hand at Meg’s elbow, because I feared she might fall down. Rita took a couple steps toward us, never smiling or frowning, or showing any emotion whatsoever.
“Hello, Meg,” she said easily. “It’s been a long time.”
I wasn’t an expert on Meg by any stretch of the imagination, but I remembered the day we met well enough to know that this was monumental to her. She had feared that Darlene was dead, and simply knowing that she was alive had excited her. To see her long lost “best friend” from her youth had to be something she had dreamed of, and now that it was happening, I had my suspicions of how she wanted to react. Most of me believed she wanted to throw her arms around her sister’s neck and tell her that she missed her terribly, and she was so happy she was alive. The other little part of me thought she might want to scream at her for not showing up when her father was alive, instead of waiting until this inopportune moment. However, Meg’s inaction surprised me in that circumstance.
“It certainly has,” Meg simply replied. “It’s been a long time. Camdyn, will you excuse me a minute? I need to find my sons because the mass is about to start.”
“Of course,” I stated, watching her back as she walked away. The temptation grew inside me to say something to Rita that might convince her to stay outside, but I couldn’t say the words. Instead, I let them boil inside me while I pasted a pleasant look on my face so no one could read my thoughts.
The usher desired to seat us behind Meg and her family, who had Hannah with them at the end of the row. She wasn’t making eye contact with anyone, and I knew how hard she was taking Grandpa’s death. My grandmother had meant everything to me when I lived with her, too, and losing her had sent me into a tailspin. Hannah was alone in that house now, with Grandpa’s presence ever lingering just behind her, causing her to wonder if his spirit had stayed behind. I’d been there – I’d felt that uncomfortable stillness. In that moment, watching her sit on that pew, my heart ached for my half-sister.
My abdomen also ached as I attempted to slide in next to Cole, but found it impossible to stretch the fabric of that black sheath dress enough to sit in an upright position. I bent my knee and partly leaned back as I made my first try at lowering myself, but I got about three-quarters of the way there and had to straighten up again. On my second try, I began by placing one hand against the back of the pew and one against the cushion, and then I pushed myself to just plow through the pain. It was impossible, though, because the fabric constricted just above my belly button and refused to give. Straightening back up to my full height, I stood there next to the wooden armrest and stared solemnly ahead.
“Sit down,” Cole whispered, pleading with his eyes.
“I can’t,” I mouthed silently, glancing around nervously. He raised himself up so he was next to me, and gently pushed me out of the row and towards the back of the church. People were looking at us, and I avoided eye contact by staring at the wall as I walked. When we were safely out in the foyer, Cole grabbed me by the arm.
“What are you doing?” he asked, those dark eyes trained on mine.
“I can’t sit down,” I whispered, glancing around to make sure no one could hear. “I tried, I really did, but I can’t. Not like a normal person, anyway. It’s okay, though. There’s always a lot of standing, and sitting, and standing, and sitting, so I’ll just keep upright and maybe no one will notice.”
“People will notice,” he said, shaking his head at me.
Okay, this is why I am pretty sure you think I’m insane. Shaking your head, giving me that look that says you can’t believe I’m being so ridiculous.
“Then I’ll just stay out here,” I added, looking down at my dress
that was already wrinkled from my mangled attempts at sitting erect.
“Come on.” He grabbed my wrist and began pulling me towards the restroom, but when I saw the image of a little man on the sign, I stopped abruptly and jerked against him. “I’ll check it first, okay? Don’t move.” He poked his head inside and gave it the once-over, and when he found it empty, he pulled me into that little space.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Trying to help you,” he insisted. “Just hold still, will you?” I felt him tugging at the zipper, and I knew no good could come of his misguided attempt at assisting in this matter.
“Stop, please! Cole, once the dress is off, it’s off.” I grabbed the side of the stall dejectedly and let out a sigh.
“Just trust me, will you? As soon as I get you out of that dress, we’ll be in business.”
“I’ll just come back later,” I heard an unfamiliar voice say. My hands flew to my face, and I was glad I hadn’t seen that poor man. Had I seen him, I would have made a quick beeline to the car, unable to show myself in that place again.
“Okay, wait,” Cole ordered when he had the dress unzipped. “Show me where you need to bend.” I knelt a little and pointed to the precise point where the dress wouldn’t give before, and he made note of it before he instructed me to step out of the dress.
Never in my life would I have imagined that I would go to a funeral and find myself in the men’s room wearing only my underwear. Yet, there I was, feeling very self-conscious in my heels and not much else. In fact, I felt absolutely stupid.
Cole grabbed the dress off the floor and located the area I had indicated a moment before, and in one swift instant, he had the dress in his fist and I heard a ripping sound. My heart sunk to my knees as he held it out for me to inspect his handiwork. He had popped open a seam on the side, just a couple of inches, and the dress was now sporting a pretty sizable hole.
“Cole,” I complained, lifting my hand to my neck. His smile started at the edge of his mouth, but then spread into one of those grins that could melt ice. I felt the heat of his fingers against my hand as he placed the dress in my grip.
“You know, had you told me I would one day rip your clothes in a men’s room, I would have imagined something very different in my head.” He added a wink for good measure, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Bending down, he helped me step back into the dress, and then I turned as he zipped it up carefully. Already I was breathing a little easier, so I sighed with relief as I twisted toward him and glanced down at my side. The hole was much bigger than I originally noticed, and the swollen girth of my abdomen was causing it to gape open to a circumference about as large as a tennis ball.
“Oh my word, look what you’ve done! I can’t go back in that church! I feel like a street walker. I look like a street walker!”
“Come on, babe! Nobody’s going to think you’re a streetwalker!”
“I think I’ll just hold it,” I heard that unfamiliar male voice again.
“Cole!”
“It’s fine,” he assured me, taking me by the arm. “If you cover it up with your hand, you won’t even be able to see it. Plus, you’ll be able to sit like a normal person, and people won’t be staring at you.”
Oh, I’m pretty sure you just made it impossible to sit like a normal person, mister!
There was no point in protesting, though, because he was dragging me back out of that bathroom, and all I could manage to do was clamp my hand over that gaping hole at my side about halfway between my hip and my belly button. If I had doubts before about whether people wanted to see me encased in my dress like a sausage in a liner, I was fairly certain they would be less inclined to wish to see my mostly insignificant baby bump protruding through the fabric. This was a church, after all – not a pop music video.
As soon as we hit the door to the sanctuary, Cole released my arm and I straightened as quickly as I could, quick to keep my right hand protectively pasted to that rip. About halfway to our seats, I realized with a smidge of humiliation that I looked like I was trying to be a fashion model on a runway, my hand all seductively on my hip as I sashayed to my pew. My cheeks burned with the thought, and I tried to walk a little faster.
The second I reached the correct seats, I practically threw myself against Charlie, and unwittingly elbowed him in the ribs as I refused to release the rip from my grasp. He gave me quite a glare, and as Cole pushed in beside me, I was forced even closer to my brother.
“Knock it off,” he gave me the hushed command, grabbing my elbow and shoving it down. The force of the pressure moved my fingers, and instantly Charlie looked practically incensed as he noticed that rip in my dress. “You two disgust me. Honestly, Camdyn. Where’s your sense of propriety?”
I really, really wanted to tell him that I left it in the men’s room, but I feared that would only lessen his opinion at the moment.
The congregation was asked to stand and sing a song, and I reached across my abdomen to hold the rip with my left hand while I pulled Charlie down to my level with the right. “I couldn’t breathe, Charlie,” I whispered in his ear. He rolled his eyes as he glared at me.
“Oh, I know,” he hissed. “I’ve been through this before with you two. You can’t function unless you’re pawing each other. Like I said, you disgust me.” I glanced at Cole for some assistance, but all he did was give me a flirty little wink. Had I not been using my left hand to protect my dignity at that moment, I would have pinched him.
Much as I predicted, there were plenty of chances to sit down, stand up, and sit back down again. I performed them all with my arm wrapped protectively around myself, either looking like I had a massive stomach ache or I possessed a sassy attitude. If they thought I was related to Maureen, though, they might have easily believed the second option was correct.
Rita sat a couple rows behind me. Meg hadn’t spoken to her after the initial meeting in the foyer, and since we didn’t ask her to sit with us, I suppose she assumed she hadn’t been wanted. She was such a mystery to me. If she didn’t intend to connect with her family, then why did she want to come to the service in the first place? Nobody was interested in her robot act – least of all me. I had witnessed those precious few instances of honest emotion, and now that she was keeping everything buried deep inside, thinking about her made me want to scream.
Standing up in the middle of mass and screaming with a giant hole in my dress probably would have made me look insane, though, so I deftly bottled it up, just like Rita. And then I thought about her wearing the same dress as me, and me tamping down my emotions exactly like she was, and I almost felt the need to throw up.
Almost – because the idea of parading back down my sanctuary catwalk with my hand on my hip was not appealing in the least.
Father Anthony took his place in front of the gathering, and he proceeded to talk about Charlie Camden in a way that made him sound like one of the greatest men who ever walked the earth. He spoke with affection about Grandpa’s love for his wife, and the lengths he had covered to stand by her side in sickness and in health. He spoke of his faith in God and his belief in miracles, and the unwavering hope he held in the face of adverse circumstances. (It took every ounce of strength I had not to turn and glance at Rita, just to see how she took that bit of information.)
Then, Father Anthony stated that he had never seen my grandfather happier than he had been the last couple of months, being faced with the knowledge that God had answered his prayers in ways that had been abundantly more than he could have hoped or imagined.
“I had the pleasure of having a very long, heart-to-heart conversation with Charlie only two weeks ago,” Father Anthony stated. “He told me that, when he looked into the eyes of his grandchildren, he was filled with a new hope for the future. He was so proud of all of you. Hannah, Charlie, Camdyn, Maureen, Jasper, and Tucker, he thought so highly of you. You were the bright light in a dark time, and he was convinced that each of you would change the world around you for the bette
r. My prayer for each of you is that you would live your lives in such a way that you could imagine Charlie gazing upon you and smiling at your accomplishments.”
I attempted to sniff quietly, and Cole’s arm slid around my shoulders. By my side, Charlie placed his hand on my knee, apparently having forgiven me for being so repulsive only a short time before.
“And to his daughters, I believe Charlie would have said that two more beautiful ladies never before graced this world. (Other than his lovely Isabel, of course.) Meg, Charlie’s hope for you was that you would always remember to take time to follow your heart. Life’s too short to spend your life planning and arranging every detail – he longed for you to follow Isabel’s lead in her life, and to stop to take in the roses.
“And Darlene, who always wanted to live life wide open and free as a bird,” Father Anthony continued, “Charlie expressed his desire to see you settled into the life you were meant to live. He wanted you to find your roots, wherever they were, and grow into them as you learn to forgive yourself.”
The fact that my grandfather’s wishes for Rita were nearly identical to the ones my grandmother gave me years before did not miss me, and once again the idea that Rita and I weren’t really so different began to rattle around deep inside. As usual, it infuriated me, and I nearly felt myself shaking in that pew. Cole believed I was becoming emotional, and he simply pulled me closer in an attempt to comfort.
In the midst of my mental turmoil, Father Anthony elegantly closed his remarks. There were a couple of scriptures recited, and another song. Then, the casket was carried down the central aisle, while we stood there patiently waiting. People began calmly filing away, but I couldn’t make myself join them. Instead, I began pawing at Trina’s diaper bag.
For No Reason (The Camdyn Series Book 4) Page 18
