Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
Olivia
The funeral director has kind eyes and a soft voice, with a clipboard in his hands and I’ve been staring at a point somewhere past his left shoulder for the last ten minutes. I can’t focus on anything.
He's talking. I know he's talking because his mouth is moving, and sound is coming out. Hayden's mom is beside me on the sofa, filling in the gaps I keep leaving. I should be grateful. I am grateful. I just feel lost at the moment.
Flowers.
He asked about flowers.
My mother's funeral flowers. There’s a correct answer to this question and it’s somewhere inside me; I can’t find it.
"Olivia." Hayden's mom, gentle. "Did you have any thoughts on the flowers, sweetheart?"
The word sweetheart goes in like a key turning.
Something behind my sternum gives way.
"I don't know," I snap and yell. "I don't…
I don't know what flowers. I don't know what outfit to put her in, I don't know what she'd want, I don't— My voice breaks clean across the middle of the sentence.
"I don't know." It comes out as almost a shout, cracked and raw and completely beyond my control.
"I don't know, I don't know any of it, I can't—”
And then I'm crying again.
My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking.
Hayden’s next to me. I don't know where he came from, whether he was already in the room or heard it from somewhere else, but he's there, both arms coming around me from behind, pulling me back against him.
"I've got you," he says quietly. Right now, this is all I need. Him.
I press my hands over my face, and I fall apart in his arms in front of the funeral director. The grief comes out of me in waves, each one worse than the one before, my mother's face behind my eyes, the warmth of her hand. I miss her.
Hayden doesn't move through any of it. His arms don't loosen. His chest is steady against my back, and I focus on that, on something solid in the middle of all this water I’m draining in.
Slowly, gradually, I come back to the room. I take in a deep breath, trying hard to settle myself again.
The funeral director is in the hallway with Hayden's mom.
Hayden moves around to face me. He crouches down to my level, his hands on my arms, and waits until my eyes find him.
"Breathe," he says.
I breathe.
"Again."
I breathe again.
"Good." He holds my gaze. "Do you have faith in me?"
"Yes," I say.
"Then hear me." He keeps his hands on my arms. "Whatever you want for her, the flowers, the outfit, all of it, you choose it. Whatever feels right. That's the only job you have."
"Hayden." My voice fractures on his name.
"The bills. The funeral costs alone, I looked it up and it's…” I stop because with everything happening, the bills are the one thing which is weighing heavy on me.
“And mom's medical bills are still coming in, and Dad's on top of that, and I don't have—" My throat closes. "I don't have any of it."
"Shh." He says it quietly, he looks at me. "You're one of us now. You're not alone in this."
"But—"
"The medical bills, when they come, we’ll fix it. The funeral..." A pause. "That's already paid for."
I stare at him.
"Hayden, you can't—"
"It's done."
"No, that's too much, you can't just—"
"Olivia." His voice is gentle and completely immovable. I’ve never once successfully argued my way through anything, not when it comes to Hayden.
"The family is here. That means for everything.
Not the parts that are easy, not just the showing up, everything.
" He holds my gaze. "Autumn is doing the flowers.
She's already got ideas, she'll talk you through them, all you have to do is say yes or no.
Cain has taken care of a lot of the arrangements.
You just need to answer two questions, flowers and the outfit.
That's it. That's all you have to carry today. "
I open my mouth to argue with him, but Hayden speaks first. "I've got you," he says.
He leans in and kisses me. Soft and slow, I feel my shoulders drop an inch. My hands stop shaking.
When he pulls back I look at him and say, "I can't let Cain do all of that. He's already—"
"If you want to fight him about it," Hayden says, something shifting at the corner of his mouth. "Be my guest. But you're alone on that one."
Even through everything that’s happening, that comment makes me smile.
I nod once. "Okay," I say quietly.
He stands, and he goes to bring the funeral director back in, and I sit up straight and I breathe, and when the man asks me about flowers, I tell him I'll have an answer by tomorrow.
It's the most I can do now, I need to think about this. I need this to be perfect for her.
Once the funeral director leaves I end up on the stool at the kitchen island.
Hayden's mom is at the counter, moving between the hob and the chopping board. She hasn't asked me anything since the funeral director left.
From somewhere in the house, I can hear Hayden's voice, and then Mason's, and then Miles saying something that gets a short response from Hayden. They’re back to it, whatever it is. Family work, I don't ask about it.
He's been doing that all week. Going back to it during the day, the thing with Leo's father that I know is close now, and then coming back to me in the evening like there are two different versions of him running parallel, and neither one ever short changes the other.
He holds me when I need it without me having to ask.
He checks on me in the night without waking me.
And then there’s the family.
Lileah appears with tea every morning, placed on the bedside table without a word.
Mason, who I know doesn't do quiet, sits beside me on the sofa for an entire evening just so I’m not alone.
Miles, drove me to the hospital both days this week without being asked and waited in the car park for two hours each time and didn't mention it.
Cain, paid for my mother's funeral, and I still have to thank him for it, but now the only places I go to is, the hospital to see my father, and back here. I don’t have the energy to go anywhere else.
Hayden's mom looks up from the cooker and catches me watching her, she gives me a smile, and I return one, a real smile, but I’m so thankful for them all.
Hayden's mom has made enough food for twice the number of people sitting at the table, which I've come to understand is just how she is, and Mason is on his second plate already. These boys can eat.
I'm eating. That's something. Last week I wasn't. Hayden’s noticed without saying anything about it, though I catch him looking over at me, and he smiles. I'm picking up a piece of bread when his phone goes.
He glances at the screen, then pushes back from the table. "Give me a second."
He appears in the doorway, and he looks straight at me, and walks over to me, with a smile. "Your dad's awake," he says. "They say he's good." The chair scrapes back before I've decided to move. “I told them we’re on the way.”
When we get to the hospital, I walk as quickly as I can to the waiting room, and the doctor is already there.
Before I can ask him anything, he gives me a small smile, because he was also my mom’s doctor, so he knows what my life has become in the last few days.
"He's fully conscious, responding well, good cognitive function." He looks at me with something careful behind the professionalism. "The physical recovery will take time, but the prognosis is genuinely positive. He's out of the woods."
I press my hand over my mouth and breathe through my nose.
"We haven't told him about his wife," the doctor continues, gentling his voice. "We felt that news should come from family. He's been asking about her."
I don't say anything.
Hayden speaks beside me. "We'll tell him."
The doctor nods, and walks away, and leaves us standing in the corridor.
I turn to Hayden. "How do I tell him?" The words come out barely above a whisper. "How do I… Hayden, how do I walk in there and—"
"I'm there." He looks at me directly. "Every second and if you can't find the words, I'll tell him. You don't have to do it alone."
I look at him for a long moment, then nod.
We walk down the corridor, and I stop for a second outside his room, take in a deep breath then walk in.
Dad is propped up slightly against the pillows. He looks smaller, the way mom looked smaller, and the bruising on his face has turned that deep yellow green that means it's healing. The tubes are still there.
His eyes are open, and they find me the moment I come through the door.
"Livvy."
"Hey, Dad." I stand by his bed, placing my hand on his.
"Hey, sweetheart." His fingers curl around mine.
We stay like that for a moment, then he looks past me.
"Hayden Crawford." Something moves across his face. Surprise, warmth, something that almost gets to a smile.
Hayden comes to stand at the other side of the bed. "Mr. B."
"You're here."
"Yeah."
Dad looks between us, the same way mom did. That same knowing look, that parental ability to take the whole story from two people standing in the same room.
"Together?" he asks, just like mom did.
I smile, because I don’t want to say anything else. This feels like déjà vu. Mom asked the same thing, the same way and then the machines started, but I do everything I can to push the thought to the back of my head.
"Good," he says. Just that, like it's the most natural conclusion to the longest equation.
"Livvy." Quietly. "Where's your mom?"
My throat closes entirely.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
Hayden's hand finds the small of my back.
"Dad." My voice is someone else's voice. "I need to tell you something."
He goes still.
Not a flinch, not a sound. Just… still. The way a person goes when their body understands something their mind isn't ready for yet, when everything just stops and waits. I was there only a few days ago.
"She woke up," I say. "She was awake, and she… she knew me. She was herself. She made Hayden promise to look after me, and she was so happy, Dad, she was really happy—"
My voice breaks.