Chapter 38 Solana
SOLANA
We bury Uncle Eddie on a gray Wednesday afternoon.
The sky is heavy with clouds, the air smelling of the rain that’s on the way. It feels fitting considering the occasion. Almost as if the weather itself is also mourning Uncle Eddie.
Silver stands beside me the entire service, his hand warm against the small of my back. The Steel Kings turn out in full force to pay their respects—Mason, Cash, Ozzie, Bush, Tito, and so many others. They line up in their cuts, somber expressions on their faces.
I’m struck by how much it would’ve meant to Uncle Eddie to be honored this way. Forever memorialized as one of them.
I manage to keep it together through most of it.
The grief has been coming in waves these past few days. One moment I’m fine, functioning and putting one foot in front of the other. The next, I’m drowning in tears that stream down my face, chest aching from the loss.
I miss him so, so much. His booming laugh and gruff voice. The way he’d bring me snacks when I was a kid.
He wasn’t perfect. He said some awful things to me before he died. But he was family. He was a father figure after mine passed, and now he’s gone.
At the funeral, Moses and I don’t exchange words. We stand on opposite sides of the grave, separated by more than just distance. I don’t give a speech. I can’t bring myself to.
Every time I try to think of what I’d say, my throat closes up and the tears threaten to spill over.
So I stay silent and grieve in my own way.
When it’s over, Silver walks me back to his truck, his arm draped protectively around my shoulders.
“Where do you want to go, baby?” he asks.
I stare out the windshield for a moment, watching the other mourners disperse. Then I take a breath, my shoulders slumping.
“My house,” I say. “Can you drop me off there?”
Silver’s brow furrows with concern. “You sure? I can come in with you.”
I shake my head, managing a small smile. “It’s okay. I can handle it.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t argue. He leans over and presses a kiss to my forehead, lingering for a moment as if he’s trying to transfer some of his strength to me.
“Text me when you want to be picked up,” he says.
“I will.”
When we get there, I kiss him on the cheek, then climb out of the truck and watch him drive away. He goes slowly, glancing at me in the rearview mirror ’til he rounds the corner and disappears.
Then I turn and face the house, mentally preparing myself before I start down the front path. It’s the first time I’ve been back since Unc passed.
I let myself in with my key. The house is eerily silent and empty.
I should be used to this. Coming home to dark rooms and quiet hallways, with Uncle Eddie and Moses off doing club business and me left to fend for myself.
But it’s different this time. This silence isn’t temporary. Uncle Eddie will never walk through that door again. Never call out my name from the kitchen or fall asleep in his recliner watching old-school mafia movies (his favorite).
He’s gone. Really gone.
I pad through the house slowly, almost as if I haven’t been here a thousand times before.
I pass the living room, where the furniture is still arranged the same way it’s been since I was a kid.
The kitchen, where Uncle Eddie used to burn pancakes sometimes on Sunday morning and blame it on the stove.
The hallway lined with family photos—me and Moses as kids, our parents on their wedding day, Unc in his younger years with a full head of hair and a cocky grin.
I can almost hear the laughter. Their voices that used to fill this home. Uncle Eddie’s booming baritone mixing with my father’s raspier chuckle. The house used to be so full of life.
Now it’s just... empty.
I’m passing by Uncle Eddie’s room—the second to last door in the hallway—when I stop at the open door.
Moses is inside.
He’s sitting on the edge of Uncle Eddie’s bed, shoulders hunched, a photo album open in his lap. He looks up when I appear in the doorway, and for a few seconds we simply stare at each other.
“Hey, Lana,” he says finally, his voice low. “What’s up?”
It takes me a couple seconds to respond.
Part of me is still angry with him. For siding with Tom and not being there when I needed him. For all the months, even years, where he’s been so absent, leaving me alone in this house to deal with everything by myself.
…but he’s my brother.
He’s the last main family member I have left. All we’ve got is each other now. It’s like losing our parents all over again... except worse this time. Because at least back then, we had Uncle Eddie to hold us together.
Now there’s no one but us.
I pad into the room and sit down on the bed beside him.
“Hey,” I say quietly. “Not much. You?”
Moses shrugs, his gaze dropping back to the photo album. “Was looking at Unc’s things. Trying to figure out how I’m gonna sort through it all. Then I found these.”
He angles the album so I can see the page he’s on.
An automatic smile tugs at the corners of my mouth, nostalgia fluttering through me.
It’s a photo from a summer I’d almost forgotten.
I’m maybe seven or eight, perched on a shimmery pink bike with ribbons streaming from the handlebars, grinning at the camera with my two front teeth missing.
Moses is off to the side, drowning in an oversized basketball jersey, a ball tucked under his arm.
Our Dad and Uncle Eddie hover in the background, both of them laughing at something just out of frame.
“You remember that afternoon?” Moses asks.
The smile finishes spreading on my face. “That was right before the ice cream truck came through. I raced you on my bike and beat you to it.”
Moses chuckles slightly. “Lana, I let you win.”
I glance at him, softening at the confession. “I know… but I always appreciated that you did.”
We fall silent again, both of us staring at the photo and thinking about how bittersweet it is to remember times like the one pictured.
Moses sighs, heavy and tired, still looking down at the photos. “I’m sorry, Lana. I know I haven’t been around. I’ve missed a lot. I’ve been... avoiding being home. Maybe ’cuz it was easier being gone.”
The smile fades from my face, dipping into a frown. “But why?”
“Ever since Pop died, things’ve been different. I come home and I just... remember. All the good times. All the shit we used to do together. But I didn’t think about how being gone so much affected you. Never thought about how you felt, being left alone all the time.”
My throat tightens as I can’t even refute what he’s said—it was extremely rough being left alone to grieve. It made me sad and lonely, desperate to be accepted and seen by someone.
Anyone.
“I should’ve noticed you were with Silver before what happened at the barbecue,” Moses says. He finally looks at me, pain etched in his eyes. “How did it even start? You and him?”
I hesitate, debating how much to tell him. How much he can even handle and that I’m ready to share.
“Um… Silver was there for me,” I say slowly, “when no one else was. I was in a situation where… um, somebody hurt me. Really badly. And Silver was the only one who noticed. He helped me through it.”
Moses goes still, his expression clenching into anger. “Who? Hurt you how? Lana, what happened?”
I release a quivery breath and shake my head. “I’d rather not go into details. But Silver was there for me, and he helped me through it all. We handled it. I’m slowly trying to heal.”
“Fuck, Lana...” Moses groans, dragging a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been there. I should’ve noticed.”
“There’s no changing the past. It is what it is, Moses.”
“I wanna fix this,” he says after a few seconds. “Fix our relationship. If you’ll let me.”
I study my big brother who used to let me win races and steal his Halloween candy and check under my bed for me when I was convinced there was a monster hiding under it. We’ve been strangers for so many years since.
But maybe we don’t have to stay that way.
“We can,” I say. “I want to… for Unc and Mom and Pop. But it’s going to take time.”
He gives a slow nod. “I can do that.”
We return our attention to the photo album, flipping to another page and admiring more photos of an old family barbecue we’d had in the backyard. Then Moses speaks again.
“I can’t live in this house anymore,” he admits. “There’s too much... shit that’s gone down here. Too many memories. Maybe it’s time to sell it. Split the profit. Get an apartment somewhere.”
My mind immediately goes to my bedroom down the hall, thoughts about what happened the night Kel attacked me a second time coming back.
I couldn’t agree more.
“Maybe it is time to let go,” I agree softly. “Too many memories, like you said.”
Moses puts his arm around me, pulling me into a hug. It’s awkward and a little stiff—we haven’t really hugged in years—but it’s genuine and real.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says.
I lean into him, closing my eyes and whispering, “Unc would want us to.”
The dining room is bursting with laughter as we sit around Cash and Kori’s massive table.
I’m between Silver and Zoe, surrounded by the people who’ve become my family over these past few months.
Cash and Korine are at the head of the table, glowing with engagement bliss.
Mason and Sydney are across from us, his arm draped over the back of her chair.
Logan and Teysha sit beside them, looking tired but happy with a fussy baby Chloe in a highchair.
There’s Ozzie and Zoe to my left, constantly trading quips and playful jabs. Tito and his wife Juanita, both seated near the other end of the table. They’re next to Mick and Korine’s mom, Sunny, the two senior citizens having struck up a recent romance of their own.
Right now, Logan’s in the middle of a story that has the entire table in stitches.