Prologue

 

 

 

Charlie looked up at the clear blue sky and scowled. It should be raining.

In the movies and on TV, it was always gloomy and raining at a funeral and the characters would cry. At the age of ten, when her parents had died, it had been raining and she had sobbed uncontrollably. Maybe that was why she couldn’t seem to shed a tear today—it wasn’t raining at Gram’s funeral.

Truth be told, she hadn’t cried since walking into Gram’s room two days ago and finding her in bed not breathing, having passed away in the night. Charlie had walked quietly out of the room into the kitchen and had called the number a hospice nurse had left to inform them that Gram had died. She’d then walked out onto the front porch, wrapped her arms around herself and sat to wait for the ambulance to arrive.

I’m a smart woman. I understand the ‘normal’ grieving process. First shock, then denial, followed by sadness and anger, before acceptance. Charlie had bypassed the first, had gone straight to downright pissed off, and screw acceptance.

Looking around at the phony sniffling faces of the few townsfolk who had come to pay their last respects to Ms. Eudora McCarty had Charlie desperate to scream in rage.

Where the hell had these people been when Gram had been alive? When Gram had first been diagnosed with metastatic cancer a little over a year prior, not one of them had ever offered a single hand of help to her or Gram.

Not that Charlie would ever regret having to care for Gram, it was the least she could do since Gram had taken her in when her parents had died. Still, she thought at least one of these people could have offered to sit with Gram while Charlie had gone to her senior prom, homecoming dance, or hell, just to hang out one night at the local malt shop and be a kid.

She had spent every day of her senior year with Gram and been homeschooled for the last semester of the year when Gram had gotten too weak to get out of bed. Gram had urged her to go out and have fun, to be a kid, but Charlie just hadn’t felt right about leaving her alone.

Over the year, Charlie had learned to control her emotions. She could hide her disappointment, fears and anger. She’d learned to put on an airy, confident attitude around people and had kept it in place right up until Gram died.

Today, however, she was just tired of staying in control. She wanted to scream, to hit something or someone. She refused to think about which someone she’d hit first.

Nope, not today. This is about Gram, not you!

Agony as well as longing bubbled at the surface, trying to take hold of her heart and shred it again. With a strength that only years of heartache had taught her, she forced it back down, deep into the dark recesses of her brain, so she could slam the door on it and lock it tightly. Only in weak moments like today did it try to sneak past her carefully laid defenses.

She’d celebrated her birthday nearly a year ago, and although she could hold on to hope for a few more months before her eighteenth year was behind her, it would be in vain. She knew. Knew it in her heart, in her soul, even in her bones, she was now completely and utterly alone. Charlie brought the tissue to her mouth and muffled the sob that worked its way up past her throat. He was to have come for her over two hundred and thirty-four days ago, but he hadn’t, and he never would.

Best not to think about all that right now, Charlie.

The pain of that hurt even worse than the pain of watching Gram being slowly lowered into the cold ground. Gram hadn’t wanted to leave her, to take away her hugs, smiles and warmth. She had fought so hard to stay with Charlie, tried to hide the pain in her eyes as the cancer had ravaged her body. She would wrap her arms around Charlie, rock her slowly and comfort her with kisses to her head as she shushed her with soothing words. All the while, she had fought for breath and against the pain. Gram had desperately battled to stay with her.

He had chosen to leave her, to walk away with a promise to come back for her. He’d sworn he would always be there for her no matter what and that she would never be alone. She didn’t need to sit and wait for the inevitable to prove that he had lied to her. He had taken her heart, then snuck away with it, never to return.

It was gone, just as cold and dead as Gram was now. Charlie laid her head back against the folding chair, the sound of the coffin lowering still audible over the preacher’s last prayer for the dead. She opened her mouth in a silent scream and felt the first drops of cool rain land on the bridge of her nose.

Tears finally escaped her eyes, ran down her face and mingled with the cold rain.

It always rained at funerals.