Katie
We arrive at the funeral home a few minutes early.
Luca drove. The partition was up, but the silence had nothing to do with privacy.
I sat on one side, Michael on the other, staring out the window and trying not to think about any of it—my mom, planning her funeral, or the future he’d just placed in front of me.
“You ready?” he asks, reaching for my hand.
“No,” I say, and he squeezes it.
“I’ll be right next to you,” he says. “I can talk if you need me to, or I can sit quietly. Whatever you need.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“Come on, Doll.”
He opens his door, and I slide across the seat. He helps me out, not letting go of my hand. When I look up at the entrance, Sarah’s standing there.
I glance at him.
“I thought you’d want her here.”
My throat tightens. “Thank you.”
I let go and walk toward her. Guilt hits hard. I was awful to her yesterday. I didn’t think she’d even want to see me, but she runs and pulls me into her arms.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, the words breaking apart as I start to cry.
“No,” she says. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted like that.”
She pulls back, brushing her hand over my cheek. We’re both crying. I turn and Michael is waiting a few steps away.
“He called me this morning,” she says.
I don’t even know when he would have done that.
“Hey, Sarah.”
“Hey,” she says to him.
I hold out my hand to him, and he steps up taking it.
“Should we go in?” Sarah asks.
I look at her and then at Michael. I’ve got the only two people I love left in the world next to me.
“Yeah,” I say.
We’re met at the doors by an older man in a suit and tie. He offers his hand.
“You must be Katie Miller,” he says, shaking my hand. “I’m Gerald Hodge, the funeral director. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I manage.
“Right this way.” He gestures down the hall. “We can talk in my office.”
Michael and Sarah follow behind me. I’ve only been here once before. A classmate died in a car accident in high school. It’s the only funeral I’ve ever been to.
My mom was an only child. Her parents were gone before I was even born. It’s always been just us, and now it’s just me.
There are two chairs in front of his desk and one by the door. Sarah takes that one. She gives me a small smile, and I squeeze her hand before letting go. Michael sits beside me and takes my hand, his thumb moving over mine.
“This is Michael,” I say as Gerald settles behind his desk. “And Sarah.”
“Very nice to meet you both,” he says with a nod.
Michael’s thumb keeps moving.
“Now, I understand your mother didn’t have a will. Have you given any thought to what you’d like for her service?”
Oh, God. I can’t do this.
“Katie.”
I look at Michael.
“You okay?”
I shake my head.
Gerald’s expression softens. “I know this is difficult. Is there any music she loved?”
I don’t answer. I don’t know how to do this.
“The Beatles,” Sarah says quietly from behind me. “She loved ‘Blackbird.’ It was her favorite.”
I nod, and Gerald writes it down. By the time we finish, the entire service has been planned. I don’t remember agreeing to any of it. I just nodded while Sarah and Michael spoke, and Gerald filled line after line in his notebook.
“And how will you be paying?”
My breath catches. Michael’s fingers tighten around mine.
“That’s something you and I can discuss,” he says, his tone even.
Gerald nods.
Michael turns to me, his hand lifting to my face and his thumb brushing just beneath my eye. “Why don’t you and Sarah wait outside?”
“Okay.”
I stand, a little unsteady, and turn. Sarah already has the door open, waiting for me. I take a step, stop, and turn back. I lean over the arm of the chair and wrap my arms around him.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I sit on a bench in the foyer. There’s a showing in one of the rooms, people drifting in and out through the front doors. A few little kids follow behind their parents, laughing, not understanding what this place means.
Sarah sits beside me and pulls me in.
“You’ve got a good guy in there,” she says.
“You didn’t think that yesterday.” I don’t plan to say it, but it slips out anyway.
She sighs. “It’s been fast. I didn’t want you getting caught up with someone who might try to control you.”
I let out a breath that almost turns into a laugh. “Then you really don’t want to hear what he asked me before we left his house.”
Her attention sharpens.
“He asked me to move in with him.”
“Are you serious—“
“I’m not finished.”
She stops.
“He told me I could quit my job. Be an artist. That he’d take care of me.”
She leans back against the wall.
“What are you going to do?”
I watch a family pass through the doors.
“I don’t know.”
He comes out of the office with Gerald, finishing something. They shake hands, and Michael turns and starts toward us.
I look at him. His dress shirt is crisp, tucked clean into his slacks.
His shoes catch the light when he moves.
The Rolex sits heavy on his wrist. His beard is trimmed along his jaw, his mustache shaped with the same care.
There’s nothing careless about him. Not in the way he looks.
Not in the way he carries himself. Not in the way he just handled everything I couldn’t.
He paid for my mom’s funeral. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t ask for permission or make it a conversation. He saw what needed to be done, and he did it.
He kept his hand on mine while I couldn’t speak. He let Sarah answer when I couldn’t find words, and he stayed beside me without asking anything from me.
He steps closer, and I know what happens next.
He’ll take my hand. He’ll walk me out of here.
He’ll make sure I have something to wear, something I don’t have to think about.
He’ll stand next to me through the service.
He won’t leave when it’s over. He’ll take me back with him, and when everything I’ve been holding in breaks, he’ll be there for that too.
“You two hungry?” he asks when he stops in front of us.
“Starving,” Sarah says.
“I’m a little hungry,” I say.
“Let’s go get something then.” He holds his hand out to me.
I take it, and he pulls me to my feet.
“Sarah, ride with us. You can sit up front with Luca,” he says.
She smiles and nods.
We go to lunch. Sarah talks enough for all of us. Luca adds to it. Michael doesn’t ask anything from me. He doesn’t try to pull me into the conversation. He just stays there, his hand on my knee, his thumb moving every so often.
I watch him when he’s not looking at me. I pay attention to the way he listens, to the way he decides things, and to the way it seems like the entire world shifts around him.
He meant what he said. He wants me to move in with him. I can quit my job. He wants to take care of me. It should feel like too much, but it doesn’t. By the time the check comes, I already know. Outside, Sarah and Luca walk ahead toward the SUV, but I reach for Michael’s arm before he can follow.
He stops and looks down at me. “Everything okay?”
“My answer is yes,” I say.
There’s a second where he doesn’t follow, and then it clicks.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”