Chapter 33 #2
“I really don’t mind.” Darren casually shrugged. “But thanks for having my back.” He laughed before rolling away.
“Do we have many more people to wait on?” Jace asked as Pops and Megan made their way over to us.
“Not much. Just a few stragglers.” Pops informed us.
Terrance came out next with Marcel, Race, Rachel, and Mr. Moore.
Terrance worried me the most, honestly, he wasn’t himself.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand everyone grieved differently and he needed to process things the way he needed to.
It just worried me that he still seemed disconnected.
Even Marcel and Rachel’s attempts at getting him to play video games with them had failed.
When he was working no one noticed he was there and once the day was over with, he went straight back to his rooms. We were all hoping and praying he could find some peace eventually.
“We’ll see you soon.” Troy smirked before we headed toward our vehicle.
Rachel, Race, Marcel, and Terrance slid into our vehicle after Jaxson, Noah, and Drake.
Troy insisted that I climb in before him, Jace, Remy, and Lincoln.
I saw that Noah and Drake had already secured the babies in their car seats and now they were already peacefully sleeping.
Terrance paused looking at their outfits.
He was with her when Dawn made a lot of purchases.
Pain flashed across his features before Rachel and Marcel started talking about the new level on the video game that had kept them up for most of the night.
Race joined in their conversation a little.
I knew he was still hurting too but he was attempting to “act” normal.
He had loved Dawn. They had tried to make their relationship work, but Dawn hadn’t wanted to be tied down in any way.
It wasn’t until after her death I discovered why she wasn’t close to her family.
Her father had walked out on her and her mother when she was young, but old enough to remember.
He didn’t want Dawn or her mother any longer and started a new family less than a year after his divorce from her mother.
Her mother had resented her blaming her for her loss of looks.
Believing her issues with losing the weight had caused her husband to leave her.
For years she had a string of men in and out of her life.
Dawn was fifteen when her mom’s boyfriend tried to seduce her.
Dawn immediately told her mother. Her mom’s boyfriend had claimed Dawn lied about the incident and her mom kicked her out of the house.
She had lived on the streets until Pops had discovered her.
We turned on another road, and I looked at the long row of vehicles in the cavalcade.
This was only a portion of attendees that would be sending her off.
The Knights and a few other communities had already let us know that they would be attending her funeral.
Dawn would have loved to see how many lives she had touched.
In fact, she probably would have gloated. I grinned at the thought.
“What has you smiling, beautiful?” Lincoln asked weaving his finger through mine, then lifted it so he could kiss the back of it.
“Dawn would be gloating if she saw how many people were showing up for her.” I stated.
“Last count was over two hundred people.” Drake informed us.
Drake, Megan, Beth, and Remy were the ones to organize her funeral.
Including the repasts afterwards. They wanted to ensure that they had enough food and the right venue to fit us all.
While they had done that, I had helped Rachel, Jemmy, Anna, and Sierra with the slideshow of her pictures and favorite songs.
We could have gone with the normal photo boards, but we knew some people would like copies of the pictures she and many closest to her had accumulated.
We were lucky that so many people loved her because our inboxes had been flooded with the photos going back to her early days in Knightstown.
One of her exes had even contacted a distant aunt--that Dawn’s mom had told her died—and she was able to supply us with baby pictures and pictures of her early childhood.
So all in all the slide show was going to be amazing.
“At least fifty of them have to be her exes.” Marcel quipped before he looked over at Race apologetically. “Sorry man.”
Race grinned sadly shaking his head. “It wasn’t any big secret. When we were together a lot of her past hook ups reached out to her. Her phone was rarely silent, but at least she respected me and informed most of them to stop contacting her.”
“She loved you.” Rachel quietly affirmed. “She was just struggling with coming to terms with that. Most of the people that claimed to love her always turned their backs on her.”
Race softly chuckled. “I knew she was a wild one when we first got together. I wouldn’t have kept on fighting for us if I didn’t believe that she would come to the realization that we were end goals.
I spent almost every day trying to prove to her that I wouldn’t leave no matter how hard she tried to push me away. ”
Jaxson got a mischievous glint in his eyes, and I knew he was going to attempt to lighten the mood, but in a way, I wouldn’t appreciate it.
“Jaxson.” I said in a warning tone.
“What?” He tried to look innocent as he asked.
“I know that look.” I narrowed my gaze at him.
“I was just thinking about the numbers. Fifty of the two hundred people sounds like a correct estimation of the broken hearts Dawn left behind. That’s about a quarter of the guest. In this vehicle alone—”
Remy seemed to understand the line of thinking Jaxson was going down so he cut him off. “Jaxson James you shouldn’t go there unless you are ready for the consequences.”
Jaxson was obviously confident that the distance between him and Remy was enough because he cockily chuckled. “I just love math. Take for instance the math problem in this car. If Dawn—”
It was my turn to intervene, after all he was intentionally bringing attention to everyone to the fact that in that vehicle alone Dawn had hooked up with three of them. I didn’t think Race would appreciate the reminder and I definitely didn’t.
This time when I turned him into a donkey, it was only his head. I didn’t care if Jaxson pouted later because Terrance’s chuckle warmed my heart. It was well worth it.
η
“She would have loved this.” I stated with a sigh as I leaned back in the patio couch, cradling my son as he ate.
“Most of it.” Sierra agreed, helping her daughter latch on.
She sat down in one of the two-seater rockers.
She looked so beautiful and serene. Motherhood looked good on her.
She had been a mother for a little over a week but unlike pregnancy the post-partum journey for her seemed to be a breeze.
Then again, I think that it helped that she had a great support system in Gavin, Mercedes, and Jemmy—yes, she had been tentatively accepted back into the fold.
They made stipulations that they all go to counseling together along with her continuing individual therapy.
“She would have hated all the flowers.” Terrance sat down at one of the chairs on the back patio.
I didn’t realize when we left base that we were boarding a plane or where Dawn’s final resting place was.
Her final resting place was on a hill within viewing distance of our homes.
Pops and Terrance decided together that she wouldn’t have wanted to be buried so far from “home.” They realized that with our plans to leave the bunker well under way it made no sense to have her too far away from us visiting her when we so desired.
I also hadn’t known our home was complete—like move in ready complete.
The builder had just completed it yesterday and the guys decided to surprise me with the news as we drove up the long winding driveway to the back portion of our property.
Remy, Pops, Drake, and Megan had hired a company to set up tents for Dawn’s wake where We 7 had catered more than enough for the crowd that showed up today.
They had rented restroom trailers that were nicer than most public restrooms and many other conveniences to make sure the day celebrated Dawn in the best possible ways.
Rachel laughed before tucking her knees beneath her and cradling her cup of coffee like it was a lifeline. “She would have griped that people gave her one of things she was allergic to.”
The “party” was still going on up on the hill but a few of us decided to escape and decompress from the harrowing day.
We sat on the back patio of our new home.
Gavin, Sierra, Mercedes, Terrance, Rachel, Marcel, Jemmy, and my guys had arranged ourselves in a semi-circle as the kids decided which rooms would be there’s from our basement level.
Honestly, I had only done a quick walk through as we waited for the service to start.
It was beyond anything I could ever dream of.
The sprawling rancher with walk-out basement had more room then I could have ever imagined or believed we needed with room to grow if needed.
It was just another reminder that we could look forward to our future without forgetting our past.
“I never understood the concept of flowers at a funeral.” Troy sipped on the whiskey he had poured himself. “I mean think about it. What are we supposed to do with all the dead flowers in a few days’ time.”
“Should we just give away some of those flowers. What do we do?” Marcel asked, taking a drag from his beer bottle.
Honestly, I was soaking all this in. It had been some time since I felt we could all just relax and hang out. It almost felt odd to not have anything hanging over our heads. For so long we were in “flight” mode. Now that we could just—be—it was almost disconcerting.
“We can take the potted flowers and plant them around the property.” Drake suggested handing me a hot cup of coffee.