Chapter 93 Mo
Mo
The day of her mother’s funeral, Mo McDonnell woke up from a dream.
She was sitting cross-legged on a black-and-white linoleum floor when a clementine bounced out of a dark doorway and rolled right into her hands. She peeled back the skin to find each transparent crescent had a white bell shaped flower floating inside.
It was a cruel dream. Mo had searched for Beth for months when she returned.
It shouldn’t have surprised her that the woman she’d loved twenty years ago wasn’t in the same apartment, or that when she’d peered through the window, the kitchen floors had been done over with stone.
Beth was always private, so there was no trace of her on social media.
No one knew where she’d gone. It was a long shot from the beginning.
There had been a lot to coordinate for the funeral.
Rosemary had insisted in her will on the color “Heartbreaker Red” for her casket.
The light streaming in from the stained-glass windows caught the flecks of glitter in the paint and sent starbursts reflecting across the church.
Tumbling plumes of flowers erupted on either side, cascading to the floor in a waterfall of soft petals.
Mo only recognized a few of the many Deli had meticulously chosen—snapdragon, stock, peonies, zinnia, and of course, rosemary sprigs.
Paola and the girls at the flower shop had taken extra care.
The steps up to the casket were lined with tea candles and bud vases, each holding a single stem of lily of the valley.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” someone said, and Mo ceased her meditation on the casket equivalent of a Shelby Mustang.
“Thank you.” An older man she’d never seen before grasped her hand between his two. He had a mole right between his eyes that had sprouted a trio of white hairs.
“She was a force, that woman,” he said, chin quivering.
“She was,” Mo agreed. Laurie sniffled loudly beside her as the man shuffled toward the hot rod where her mother lay.
“Another ex-lover?” Mo asked out of the corner of her mouth.
“Oh god, probably,” Laurie said with a sigh. “I see why she never bragged about that one. How much longer do we have to stand here?”
In the week since their mother had passed, Mo hadn’t cried. She had been stoic and steady—standing firm amid the rushing flood of grief that had swept her sister away.
“You can go. I’ll greet the last few stragglers on my own.”
Laurie looked at her with doe eyes. “Are you sure?”
Mo put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’m good for a few more handshakes. Look”—she flattened her other hand in the air between the two of them—“steady as a rock.”
“But . . . what will people say if I’m not here? It’s not proper. Mom would—”
“Laurie,” Mo said, “Mom’s busy. She won’t notice.”
Laurie threw her hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh.
“Besides,” Mo said with a shrug, “if she’s haunting anyone, you know it’s me.”
Laurie took Mo’s steady hand in hers and squeezed. She looked at Mo the way she used to when they were children and they shared a secret. “She’s definitely haunting you.”
Mo smiled. “Go.”
Laurie slipped away toward the back of the church.
Deli was back there somewhere, putting the final touches on her eulogy.
When she’d first said she’d like to be the one to give the speech, she and Laurie were a bit taken aback.
But the more she thought about it, the more perfect it felt.
Deli was a woman coming into her own. One chapter began, and another ended. That was how it should be.
Mo could see a few late cars pulling into the parking lot through the open doorway. A few more minutes, she thought. She tugged on her top and smoothed down her hair. She stared at her shoes until the outline of a man’s broad shoulders fell across her simple, practical loafers.
“Lachlan?”
“Mo.” His voice was thick with emotion as she was crushed in his embrace.
“I thought Deli said she told you not to come on her account?”
“Aye,” her friend replied, still holding on to her. “But we’re not here on her account.” He looked toward the church’s entrance. Mo followed his gaze and nearly screamed.
Hannah stepped forward from the throng of tartan that had appeared in the doorway. Mo hadn’t heard Hannah speak in many years, but her voice was still warm and husky and comforting.
“We’re here for you.”
Mo was rushed then by the rest of the crew that often sat around the fire in The Wallflower’s Crown. She was bolstered. Her family had come, and that made all the difference.
Mo took a hard look at the man whom she had loved like a brother, like a son, like a nephew—and she thought what a shame it was that there weren’t words for a friendship like theirs. Love was so limiting. People were capable of so much more than that.
“I hope there’s food afterward,” Lachlan said as a tear escaped the corner of his eye. She reached up and wiped it with her thumb.
“You’re such a softy.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
He kissed the top of her head. His calves—strong and sure under the hem of his kilt—stood out against the sea of legs in black dress pants as he walked toward the front of the church.
Lachlan went straight to the open casket where her mother lay, leaned down, and whispered something to her before taking a seat.
Mo pictured her niece catching a glimpse of her love in full dreamboat attire in the second row and being forced to maintain her composure. She was looking forward to that part.
“Mo?”
Out of the blue, even though it had been over twenty years, Mo knew instantly that lightning could strike the same place twice. A white-hot chill ran from her toes up her spine as her hands started to shake. She smelled summer. Mo had looked everywhere for her. It couldn’t be . . .
Beth’s voice was the same, too—and to Mo, it was still a symphony.
“Mo . . . I wasn’t sure if I should come, I saw the obituary, and—I’m so sorry if I—should I go? I can g—”
Mo threw her arms around the woman she’d left behind with her heart and finally felt herself fall to pieces.
She’d made a wonderful life, but being back in Beth’s embrace, even for a second, reminded her of what it was to feel like she could trust someone else to hold things together.
Beth was brilliant and capable and kind.
Beth had loved her the way no one else ever had.
And Beth held her up while Mo could be a daughter in a world without her mom.
She felt like all the time between them was collapsing—like twenty years hadn’t gone by, and like Mo had never left, and like they were still twentysomethings holding hands in a bright orange slug bug under palm tree–lined streets.
Mo felt like maybe it was just a Saturday morning, and they were having breakfast in the sun—a silk scarf in Beth’s hair—and that afternoon Mo would get on one knee and ask Beth to marry her.
All this time later, she still had the ring.
“Oh, Mo, I’m so, so—” Beth cut herself short as she spotted the casket. She dropped her volume and said, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that thing should be buried.”
The sound of their laughter echoed through the vaulted stone walls. If people turned to tsk, Mo would never know. And she’d never care. She’d heard Beth’s laugh again.
Mo held on to the feeling with all her strength. If they could just stay there long enough, swaying gently in the cold doorway of a church the day she would bury her mother, Mo could rewrite the last two decades and will the next five together.
She could will the return of joy.
She knew it was impossible, and even so, Maureen McDonnell decided to believe she would never have to say goodbye to Beth O’Sullivan again.