Page 4 of Honeyed
Even before we stopped talking, I’d been distancing myself. After so many of Arthur’s talks with me over long lunches, I’d drive home thinking about how I was wasting my life. How I was waiting for this epic something that I was not doing anything to try to achieve. So I turned inward, becoming very reflective and weighing my options and moves going forward.
Most of the time, I can be happy. My nature is pretty laid-back, and I often wonder what or who I’d be if my life hadn’t had so many fucked-up things wound into it at a young age. At one time, I thought the pros and fame had been my life’s work. Turns out, I’d been blessed with the arm to throw a football like a heat-seeking missile. But it wasn’t meant to be. Compared to my mother’s death, losing my football career due to a broken hand that never healed properly was a blip on the radar.
Sure, it took some dark days to get through both of those things, but I landed on my feet. Now though? I’m not sure my feet are planted where they’re supposed to be.
“Yes.” My hand links with hers as she stops scratching my arm. It’s been months since we held hands, and damn if it doesn’t feel like exactly what I need at this moment. “His memory was going; he’d fall or forget or wind up miles down the lane from their house. Refused to go to a home, the stubborn old man, but he had full-time care.
“Weird they both went the same way,” she notes, and I know she’s thinking of Clara.
The Waybornes, much like the Ashtons, are local royalty. Everyone knows how she died.
I nod, gulping. “Dementia, though he was trying to keep it from everyone. I hope they’re up there now, though, holding hands.”
The two of them saved my life in a way. I wasn’t necessarily loved and shown affection every second, but I might have been too fucked up for that in the first place when they brought me to live with them. They did, however, give me a safe home. Paid for my football prospects, and when those dried up, college. The Waybornes always made sure I was okay, and my life could have turned out much differently if they hadn’t decided to adopt me.
“Me too.” Alana gives my hand a squeeze, and I go back to the multiple times that Arthur told me love was the one thing he’d done right in his life.
Clara had been his best friend. And here was mine, except she’s been off-limits since the moment I laid eyes on her.
The rest of the Ashton clan filter in to pay their respects, mingling with other Hope Crest residents and some of Arthur’s employees from surrounding locales. It’s a small area; we all know each other even if we aren’t all residents of the same town.
Thomas, Alana’s father, makes his way over to shake my hand and deliver grievances, and Leona, his wife and the woman who is the closest thing to a mother I’ve ever had, comes over to give me a big hug.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” She rubs my back.
Apologies about Arthur’s death from her lips seem strange since she’s the one who raised me when they couldn’t. But I let it go, not wanting to rehash the past or point out how much Alana’s parents mean to me when she’s still pissed about the whole thing.
“Sorry to hear it. He was a kind man.” Patrick, Alana’s brother, shakes my hand.
That’s followed by her other two brothers, Liam and Evan, her sister-in-law, Cassandra, and then finally, August.
August Percy has been a waitress at Hope Pizza since she was a sophomore in high school. Over the last two and a half years, we’ve bonded over our shit biological families, love of old Motown music, and being some of the only outsiders when it came to this adopted, or second adopted in my case, family who took us under their wing.
I don’t have any real siblings, but I consider August to be my little sister. The expressions I caught, the look in her eyes when she had to head home at the end of the night … they were the same feelings I had while living with my biological mother and father. Try as I might, I can’t fully protect someone who won’t report her mother’s horrible behavior and emotional abuse.
So I make sure August knows I’m here and hope that when she graduates come June, she moves far, far away from Hope Crest and never looks back.
“You all right?” she asks, her voice always raspy as if she doesn’t use it enough.
“I will be.” I link my pinky with hers, then slide it until we do a series of short claps and shakes against each other’s hands.
We’ve had a handshake since I found her in the alleyway by the restaurant, nursing a bloody nose. It came from one of her mom’s slaps, if I had to guess, and I was ready to head over and pummel a woman for the first time in my life. But she’d made me promise not to, then did this handshake that has now become our secret language.
“We’re going to start.” The director of the funeral home walks up, signaling to me.
I take my seat in the front row, Alana at my side. I don’t miss the way she pushes her thigh into mine, how that pressure makes me feel a little less lonely today. We’ll have to talk after this, break the detente, and I have no idea what will end up popping out of my mouth. It feels like a turning point in my life; accepting a person I admired and cared about so much is gone from the world.
When it comes to Alana and what we mean to each other, it’s about time I step up or move on.
The next hour is filled with people coming to the small podium to tell stories about Arthur, from the funny to the downright absurd. He didn’t want anything too formal, nothing religious, and this feels lighter than other funerals I’ve attended. It’s truly a celebration of his life rather than a day filled with sorrow. I rise to say a few words and recount the first time he tried to help me with homework but instead taught me about high-yield savings accounts. Arthur always was an intellectual mind, so curious about learning.
It’s not until the end of his funeral that I’m approached by his lawyer.
“Mr. Teal, yes?” The man with a full gray mustache and black pinstripe suit addresses me.
I recognized Jacob Wasser from seeing him at Arthur’s home from time to time, but he probably no longer recognizes me. I think the last time I saw him, I was about twenty, and he still looked exactly like he does right now.
“That’s me. Wish I was seeing you under different circumstances, Mr. Wasser.” I walk so that we’re out of earshot of the rest of the funeral parlor, which is now emptying.