Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE BEATLES, “LET IT BE”
We returned to the church just as Matt and the other pallbearers carried Heather’s casket to the hearse. Isaac and I let go of each other at the same time. And I loved him even more for knowing it wasn’t the right moment to take something suspicious (like carrying me out of the church) and turn it into an unquestionable declaration.
After all, Isaac spent six years serving and protecting. Was it a stretch to believe that he was the only one in the church who wasn’t so lost in their own emotions to see me bleeding out?
My mom and sisters hurried toward us.
“Sarah,” Mom hugged me. “I’m so sorry. I thought you’d be okay. I’m so sorry. No one should have asked you to speak.”
I pulled away from her, peering at the casket as they loaded it into the back of the hearse. It wasn’t real. Her body wasn’t in that shiny box. The cruelty and unfairness were too much, even if Isaac believed it was part of the deal.
I wanted to negotiate a new deal.
“I needed to speak,” I murmured before forcing my gaze back to my mom.
Her expression bled with sympathy and remorse, and then she shifted her attention to Isaac. “Thank you for helping Sarah.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “You’ve turned into a good man, Isaac.”
He didn’t help me; he saved me. But I was glad she thought he was a good man, even if I knew it would only be a matter of time before she changed her mind.
“Of course.” Isaac shrugged it off.
However, Eve’s gaze flitted between us. She was only two years younger than me. Eve dreamed of knights in shining armor, turning eighteen and feeling a new sense of freedom, and losing her virginity. Even if there had been nothing going on between Isaac and me, Eve’s mind would have concocted something. So I played it safe and didn’t make eye contact with her.
Isaac wasn’t as astute. When my mom and Gabby turned to watch the hearse pull away, Isaac headed toward his family’s car, but not before resting his hand on my lower back, then taking a half step and letting his fingers graze the palm of my hand.
Eve’s gaze lifted from my hand to my face. But this time, I didn’t look away. And I didn’t say a word. She knew that was the secret I was asking her to keep. And she couldn’t have looked more shocked.
We drove to the cemetery just outside of Devil’s Head. It seemed impossible that my body could leak any more tears, but there was something about that last goodbye.
That hole in the ground.
The short prayer and scripture.
“For everything there is a season … a time to be born, and a time to die … a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
I was so tired of crying, but the tears just kept coming, and my mom continued to hand me tissues that quickly disintegrated. Someone touched my shoulder, and I turned.
Wesley Cory handed me a crisp white, neatly folded hanky. It was the first time I’d made eye contact with him that day. A deep sadness lived in his eyes. That day, I hadn’t once thought about his affair until he couldn’t look at me. Surely, he had to know my mind wasn’t on his indiscretions.
Matt leaned closer to his dad and started to whisper, “She doesn’t want a hank?—”
“Thank you,” I said softly, accepting the hanky and pressing it to my eyes as I turned back toward Heather.
The rest of the day passed in a slow blur. I felt like my brain was shutting down from overload. People talked to me at the luncheon, and I think I smiled and nodded, offered and accepted condolences. Basically, I did everything on autopilot, so there was little certainty.
No one questioned Isaac carrying me out of the church, not even Matt or my dad. I was the only one (except Eve) who thought of it as an intimate gesture only someone who loved me would do.
After we returned home, my family headed into the house to change their clothes while I sat on the tree swing behind our house. I used to love swinging on it when we moved there five years earlier after living in a three-bedroom house in town.
“You were with Isaac,” Eve said behind me.
I kept swinging.
“Sarah, he’s your boyfriend’s brother. ”
Still, I kept swinging, staring at the puffy white clouds.
“ Everyone thinks you and Matt are getting married.”
I couldn’t remember who was the first person to jump to that conclusion; I just remember it wasn’t actually Matt or me, but everyone accepted it as the truth. Eventually, we talked about life after high school, like marriage was a forgone conclusion. Maybe we should have said something earlier, like, “We’re young. Who knows what the future holds.”
I stopped pumping my legs, and as my swing came to a slow sway, Eve stepped in front of me, plucking my shoes from the ground. “Vi said that Isaac left town over the Fourth, and that’s why he couldn't help look for you—because everyone was looking for you. But nobody considered that you might be with him. And why would they? He’s your boyfriend’s brother.”
I stared at my feet and the tiny run in my pantyhose.
“If I’m wrong about Isaac,” she continued, “then we know, at the very least, he’s an admirable guy. If I’m right, then what he did today was the most romantic thing I have ever seen. You stood in front of everyone and told them about Heather offering to carry you and how you will carry her. Then Isaac literally stood up, ignoring what anyone thought, and he did that.”
Had I not known better, I would have thought Heather was whispering to Eve. Everything she said sounded just like Heather.
“Say something.”
I lifted my gaze to hers and smiled. “It was the most romantic thing you've ever seen.”
“Oh my god, Sarah!” She gasped. Eve wasn’t as much of a pleaser. She used the Lord’s name in vain without feeling guilty. “Where were you? You were with him. Where? You have to tell me. If you don’t tell me, I’m telling Mom and Dad.”
I frowned.
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I won’t tell them, but just tell me.”
I pressed my lips together.
“Tell me!” She tossed my shoes aside and twisted my swing so when she let go I spun in fast circles.
“Stop.” I tried to laugh, but my heart wasn’t in it. I loved my sister, but I didn’t want to have that conversation with her. I wanted to tell Heather.
But I couldn’t.
I would never tell Heather anything ever again.
Eve’s excitement faded when I failed to engage with her playfulness. “I’m sorry about Heather and Joanna, but I’m glad you were with Isaac. Otherwise, you’d be …”
I nodded slowly.
As Eve gave up and took a few steps past me toward the house, I mumbled, “We went to Nashville.”
“Are you serious? Did you?—”
“That’s it, Eve. That’s all I have in me to give today. I need to be alone now. Okay?”
For the next two days, my parents continued to give me a reprieve from accountability, but I knew after Joanna’s funeral that I wouldn’t be able to keep my whereabouts a secret any longer. Matt called the house, but I didn’t take his calls.
“Three funerals in one week is too much,” Dad said during breakfast the morning of Joanna’s funeral.
“It is,” Mom murmured, giving him a sad smile while setting the pitcher of orange juice on the table.
“Are we going to Brenda’s funeral too?” Eve asked.
My gaze shot up from my plate. “Brenda?”
Dad wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. “Brenda Swensen. She graduated three or four years before?—”
“I know who she is. She died?”
Everyone else at the table stared at me.
“Yes, honey. Didn’t you know she was the one who hit Heather and Joanna? They think she was intoxicated.”
“What? No.” I shook my head a half dozen times. “Nobody told me.”
That was it. That was the look in Wesley Cory’s eyes at Heather’s funeral. He wasn’t mourning her; he was mourning his mistress.
I thought I hated Brenda before the accident. After all, she was screwing a married man who was old enough to be her father— in his wife’s bed. But I knew I hated her when I found out she killed my friends. And it also made me despise Wesley Cory.
“I hate her,” I mumbled, dropping my chin and stabbing my fork into the pile of pancakes.
“Sarah Elaine Jacobson, we don’t hate anyone because God doesn’t hate people,” Dad said.
“Am I God?” I shot him a scowl .
He drew in a controlled breath.
“That’s what I thought. I’m not God. I’m human, and that means I’m capable of hating her even if God doesn’t want me to hate her. I guess if He really didn’t want me to hate her, He would have kept my friends safe. But He didn’t.” I shoved a huge bite of pancake into my mouth, even though I was no longer hungry. “That means I can hate her, and you don't get to tell me how I’m supposed to feel. I’m going to hate her.” I rammed my fork into the plate like I was stabbing Brenda in the heart.
The plate cracked, startling my mom and sisters.
“Sarah!” Dad warned.
It was a rare moment because I was a people pleaser. But I was coming apart inside, and I no longer had it in me to please anyone.
“And while I’m at it,” I stood, knocking my chair over, “I’m not overjoyed with God at the moment either.”
I hate Him.
“Go to your room until I’m done with breakfast, then we’re going to have a long talk, young lady,” Dad said while setting his fork down with shaky hands like I’d trampled his last bit of control.
He was human, too, no matter how many times a day he talked to God.
I ran up the stairs and grabbed my wrinkled black dress, shoes, and car keys. Then I jogged down the stairs.
“Sarah!” Dad called.
I whipped around when I reached the front door. “I’m an adult now. You don’t get to tell me what to do. I’ll go where I want when I want. I’ll say what I want. I’ll think whatever I want. I’ll have sex with whomever I want. And it will be between me and God. You’re not the father who gets to judge me. Why don’t you practice what you preach?” I flung open the door and stomped to my car.
When I started it and glanced at the house, everyone had gathered on the front porch.
I wasn’t impervious to the guilt, but I was in a predicament with the Cory men because I caved to the fear of rocking the boat. The idea of living my life for anyone but myself no longer felt sustainable.