Chapter 2 #2
"Don’t listen to it, love. People only mourn you when it’s too late. Or when they want something."
She had said those words to me once, when I was crying over an old ex—someone who had tried coming back when they realized what they had lost.
“As the ceremony booklets indicated, you are most welcome to return for the wake…”
Uncle Bill’s stiff voice carried over my shoulder, and my teeth clenched.
“Let’s go,” Mom murmured behind me. “I don’t want to fight for parking.”
I blinked and glanced behind me, looking for Ida.
She had already left.
A gilded cage in the middle of a quiet, lifeless street. It was the same thought I had every time I saw Uncle Bill’s house. It sat in the kind of fancy neighborhood where every home looked the same, where trees were evenly spaced, and sidewalks were far too clean.
Neighborhoods like this always appeared in the opening shots of horror movies, revealing that the idyllic homes and smiling occupants concealed darker, more sinister lives beneath their polished exteriors.
I tightened my coat around me and sniffed again, the afternoon chill creeping into my bones as I followed my mother up the driveway.
I watched her discreetly as she walked—the way she glided with purpose, sharp heels clicking against the pavement, hair barely moving.
Her entire life was in order. Each purposeful stride commanded attention.
I had tried to be like her once.
It had been right after high school, during a meltdown when she had gotten into my head. I had dressed like her, talked like her, even interned for a summer at her office, until I left the laminator on and set the print room on fire.
I winced at the memory and shook my head.
No, I would never be a corporate girly.
My boots clicked a little louder on the pavement than the sharp point of my mother’s heels. I wasn’t used to spending this much time with her. The car ride over had been stiff and silent, the only occasional sound a grunt of annoyance from her whenever another driver pissed her off.
I let out a tired sigh and let my mind wander.
If I had to pull a card to represent today, what would it be?
It was my favorite pastime, a trick Margaret had taught me when she first introduced me to the cards. Learning their meanings. Finding the ones that fit.
Today… maybe The Tower. Chaos. Destruction. Everything crumbling into ruins. It certainly fit. Reversed or upright? I found myself musing, the sole of my boots scuffing along the floor when I didn’t lift my foot high enough.
Mom shot me a glare.
I chewed the inside of my cheek. Maybe The Fool? A new start. A fresh but uncertain path. Stepping forward with nothing but reckless optimism?
My spirits didn’t lift. I certainly didn’t feel any optimism.
Because this wasn’t a fresh start.
It was the end of an era.
It was a funeral.
And now, I was attending a wake in a home that had barely once welcomed Margaret when she was alive.
I glanced down at my phone, noting that my TikTok notifications were pouring in, thanks to my latest card-pull video from this morning. People loved those, and they were fun to make. I only wished Margaret were around to see how successful we were becoming online.
"You don’t have to keep the shop, you know."
My mother’s voice cut through my thoughts, and my head snapped toward her.
"What?"
"You don’t have to bow to the pressure," Mom said with a shrug as we approached the front door. "I know what my mother was like. She was a stifling figure. Unfortunately, you spent too many of your more impressionable years under her care. My fault. I accept that. But she’s gone now. You don’t have to keep that place going. "
She didn’t even look at me as she spoke, just stepped over the threshold and into the foyer, leaving me to follow after her with a frown.
"It’s not as if it’s a burden," I said weakly. "I was always going to run the shop. We talked about it all the time."
"Come on, Dove." Mom scoffed, letting out an irritable sigh as she finally glanced at me while removing her coat. "You? Running a business? In this economy?"
"The shop isn’t struggling, if that’s what you’re implying," I snapped curtly. "In fact, business is up since we created the TikTok account. We get paid creator money now."
Mom rolled her eyes at me, condescending. "Dove, you can barely get through a day without causing some kind of malfunction in your life. You’re more indecisive than she ever was. Do you honestly think you can handle running her shop? Don’t ask me why it’s busy."
The last part was muttered under her breath, and frustration flared hot in my chest as I grit my teeth.
Sure, maybe I wasn’t some picture-perfect businesswoman. And yes, I found the admin work incredibly boring. I wasn’t the most organized person in the world or methodical or whatever the hell a person was supposed to be when running a shop.
But I wasn’t stupid.
I had spent countless hours watching Margaret work, learning from her, soaking in everything she had to offer.
This was my path and it was one I was happy with.
And I wasn’t doing it alone. I still had Ida. We would do it together.
"It’s not too late," Mom murmured, looking at me with slightly wide eyes. "You can still go to college. You could get a degree. Find a stable job in a proper career field."
"Oh, Jesus," I groaned, rubbing my head. "Not this conversation again."
"Your future is important, Dove!" Mom hissed, exhaling sharply. "If I had realized you were this deep into Margaret’s Mystique, I would have cut you off from her a long time ago."
"Well, I’m sorry your free childcare—while you chased a career instead of being my mother—hasn’t worked out for you," I snapped, pettiness rising in me as my ears burned.
"Not all of us want to be strapped into uncomfortable shoes and tight pantsuits for the rest of our lives. I don’t want that. I never have."
The tip of her nose turned white, as it always did when she was pissed but keeping a lid on it, not wanting to make a scene. No, my mother never showed emotion, which was probably why she always had a constipated look on her face.
I shook my head and exhaled through my nose.
I hated the savagery that seemed to be running through me today. Regardless of how awful my mother could be—or even Uncle Bill—I hated carrying anger within me. The energy you put out is the energy you got back; I believed that fully. Carrying this negativity was going to come back and bite me.
"I’m not doing this today," I told her tiredly.
Without another word, I pulled away from her, weaving through the wandering caterers now emerging with trays of food.
More mourners were beginning to arrive, their hushed voices filling the house.
I moved toward the one room I knew would be empty—obscured, tucked away—one I remembered from awkward childhood visits.
Uncle Bill had a stuffy antiques room, filled with elegant furniture, expensive works of art, and bookshelves lined with unread titles. Clearly there for decoration.
I had never understood that.
A book was meant to be opened. To be lived in.
I ran my finger along the polished wood of the bookcase, not a speck of dust in sight, before tapping my bright red nails against the spines. My eyes skimmed the titles with vague interest as a yawn left me.
How long would I have to stay at this thing?
I took a deep breath and leaned back against a table, squeezing my eyes shut and rubbing my palms against them, grateful I had skipped mascara today.
I imagined Margaret beside me, her arm thrown over my shoulder in comfort.
It wasn’t as if her death had been sudden. Old age had taken her. We had fair warning.
And yet… it still felt sudden.
One minute she was here. The next, she was slipping away.
“Going home,” she had told me softly the night she passed.
We had done one final spread of cards together, not knowing it would be our last.
A shuddering breath left me.
Candles guttered and flickered about the room, breathing shadows up the walls as the scent of lavender and myrrh tickled my senses.
The smell now permeated every fiber of our home after years of incense burning.
It was safe and familiar, but that safety began to shatter at the sight of Margaret propped against her pillows, looking like a tired queen at the end of a long reign.
“What’s the hold-up, Dovey love?” she said, tapping the duvet twice.
The old deck felt soft in my hands. I took a breath and began to shuffle, avoiding her all-knowing gaze as I perched on the bed. My eyes caught a flash of brown in the cards before it disappeared into the fold I was shuffling.
“Scared?” Margaret teased, a gambit to get my eyes to meet hers.
It worked.
“Maybe,” I muttered, looking up as my hands continued to shuffle.
“Nothing to be scared of, really,” Margaret said, holding my gaze. “Death is never the end; it’s just the opening of the door to something new.”
“For you,” I said, my tone grim as I kept shuffling. “I’m still here, trying to work out who I am without you.”
Margaret clicked her tongue. “Don’t be so dramatic. You’re Dove Marley, with or without me. Death comes for us all. You know that. I’ve been lucky enough to have a long and fulfilled life. Be happy for me, Dove. Don’t sit in your grief for too long.”
My eyes burned, and my hands paused.
“I don’t know what’s worse,” I murmured. “Being prepared for it—watching you slowly die—or the suddenness of it, like when we lost Diana.”
Margaret smiled sadly and shrugged, her thin shoulders rising and falling. “Grief hurts regardless,” she said. “Whether the bandage is dragged off or ripped off quickly, it still stings.” Her lips pressed together for a moment; her eyes were a little watery. “You’ll look after Ida, won’t you?”
“Always,” I answered immediately, straining to hear her fumbling around in the kitchen.
Margaret visibly relaxed, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “Okay. Let’s do the cards. Past, present, and future.”