Chapter 39Liem
39
Liem
Uncle Gil’s funeral was a quiet, reserved affair, like the man himself.
As he had been.
Had.
I stared out at the sanctuary, but I didn’t really see. I barely recalled the packed church or the people who’d been here just minutes ago.
“You ready?” Vinh asked quietly from beside me on the hard wooden pew.
“No,” I answered honestly, my voice hoarse.
I faintly registered his nod and the press of his leg against my own.
So faintly. Just as I’d moved through life since that sunrise.
The one Uncle Gil missed.
“Who’s with Aunt Ari?” I whispered.
“The wonder twins.”
Frowning, I glanced up at my brother.
The light smirk on his face warred with his red-rimmed eyes as he explained, “Bree and Cody. They’re with Ari.”
Oh. Good. That was good.
“You played well,” I said. “Beautifully.”
I did remember that part. Vinh playing the piano during the service. Looking down at my clenched fist, I recalled the feel of Cody’s warm hand in mine. Aunt Ari’s ice-cold one in the other.
And… Ireland.
Looking over my shoulder, I looked toward the doorway as if she’d still be there, hovering, her face void of emotion, not meeting my gaze.
It’d been so brief that I had to wonder if I’d imagined it.
Vinh rose from the pew and offered me his hand. “Come on. It’s time.”
I stared at his hand, at the faint burn scars above his wrist, and then took it.
“I thought it would be Dad,” I confessed with a whisper, and not for the first time.
Vinh pulled me to my feet and into a hug. “I know,” he whispered. “So did I.”
The fact that I didn’t have to finish that sentence out loud—that I didn’t have to say those horrid words for Vinh to understand my meaning—lifted a small weight from me.
Because what I’d intended to say was that I thought it would be Dad who had a medical emergency in the night. That it would be Dad who took an unexpected turn and shattered us.
He released me from the hug, and I met his gaze, my lip trembling as I spoke. “I don’t think I ever worried about Uncle Gil. That wasn’t on my radar. This wasn’t.”
A cardiac event in his sleep. So quick and, according to the paramedics, peaceful. Painless.
Devastating.
“I know,” he repeated, but not unkindly, and my trembling escalated so badly that I clamped my lips together to try to ward it off.
Vinh gripped my upper arm and instructed softly, “Tell me three things, little brother.”
I recognized his grounding technique, but my mind was a void. “Can you start?” The question was little more than a whisper.
He dipped his chin in agreement. “My ass is numb from the pew. It’s a terrible seat.”
I tried to laugh, I really did, but it was wobbly at best, so I abandoned the attempt. Blinking rapidly to ward off tears, I lifted my chin to the tall, steepled ceiling and grasped at my muted senses. “The air in here smells like dust,” I started, then traced the colors of the stained glass before adding, “though the windows are probably considered quite beautiful.”
Vinh nodded, eyeing the church’s stained-glass windows. Uncle Gil and Aunt Ari hadn’t been members here, but it was the largest one in the area, and with how long Gil had been part of the Bay Springs community before their retirement and how many people he’d known, it’d been necessary.
I drew in a deep breath and pulled out lip balm—one of Cody’s that he’d snuck into my pocket before leaving the pew—and found the third thing as I applied some, tasting cherries. “My boyfriend is nearby.”
Vinh’s smile was warm as he guided me through the chapel. “I’m happy for you, Liem. Despite everything, I really am.”
I swallowed thickly. The balm had done nothing for my terribly dry throat. “As I am for you,” I replied, a bit hoarsely. “And I’m looking forward to when we can both mean it and feel it again.” I glanced up at him as we walked to the church’s fellowship hall, where the reception was being held. “The joy, I mean.”
Despite everything, I remembered the edges of joy again just seventeen steps later.
It was in the way Cody’s eyes found mine the minute Vinh and I entered the hall.
The way he kissed Aunt Ari so sweetly on her temple and whispered something in her ear before walking straight to me, swiping a bottled water from a table on the way.
When he watched me drink it and then threw it away before grabbing me another.
Those edges were the keenest when I reached for the bottle, but he moved it out of my reach, planting a kiss to my lips instead.
“There,” he said, his gaze entirely focused on mine. “Do you think you could eat something?”
“Not right now.”
“Okay,” he responded, taking my hand. “Later, then.”
The movement, the water, the kiss…. They seemed to revive me enough to process some things.
“ Oh,” I said, tugging Cody’s hand. “Your meeting. You missed your meeting. And your notebook. We didn’t get it from the restaurant.”
Those things were days ago. I’d been living in one of my out-of-body-and-mind creations for days.
When Cody had come in here with Ari after the funeral service, it’d been the first time he’d left my side since the bungalow. I knew that much.
But any details of what we’d done were hazy at best.
He tilted his head at me, his eyes narrowing. “There’s nowhere more important than being here with you, LL. That’s a forever truth.” His hazel eyes kept mine as he spoke, and I noticed the faint purple smudges underneath them that probably matched my own. I let myself get lost in them, in the sincerity in them. The love.
Whatever I’d gone through, he’d been there with me.
“Boys,” Mom said, and I had to blink to bring her into focus. She stood with perfect posture in front of us, sophisticated and lovely in her modest dark-blue dress. “We can handle things from here. You’ve both gone above and beyond. Please go get some rest.”
I glanced over at Ari and frowned, but before I could voice my concerns, Mom waved her hand between us.
“I mean it, son. We’ve got her. I promise.”
I saw the truth there in her eyes, and she smiled at me before giving me a brief, tight hug. Then she turned to Cody and grasped his free hand, sandwiching it between hers. “I am glad you are here,” she said simply, and then she was off, overseeing the potluck and keeping things in order.
Cody watched her go with a contemplative look on his face before he pulled me toward the crowd, easily cutting a line through them. The softness he had for my family, for me, hardened into the prickly edge he presented to the world as we weaved through more people.
My stomach tightened as we reached the rest of my family to say our goodbyes. Even in her grief, Ari was loving and gentle as she embraced me.
“My Liem. Thank you,” she said so quietly that I almost didn’t hear her. “I’ll see you later. My brother has promised me a board game tonight.”
I raised my eyebrows at Dad, who had finally relented in using his wheelchair after the service.
“Don’t ask me, son,” he griped. “This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
Cody’s hand was a welcome weight against my lower back as I found my first real breath in days.
Mom and Dad would take care of Ari.
I caught Bree’s eye from across the way where she was tucked under Vinh’s arm. She smiled softly at me. Standing beside them were Jeanne and Cody’s dad —with baby Maggie strapped to his chest. Bree and Mr. Desmond resumed their conversation as Jeanne turned and began one with Mom.
The more my lungs filled and released, the clearer the world became, for better and for worse.
I saw everyone now, those I held closest to my heart rendered with the most detail, and the ones I did not were abstract and purely background.
But the man beside me, the one who’d been matching me breath for breath for longer than I could remember…
He was the clearest of all.
There was only one bar of soap in the small stall this time, alongside a miniature shampoo and conditioner bottle with the Fortuna logo on them, and I used them both as I washed away the funeral at the houseboat. Showering here was a much different experience from the last time I’d done so, months back when I spent a few days hanging out with Bree when Vinh was out of town.
After I’d scoured and scrubbed every inch of my body, I secured a towel around my waist. I felt more human than I had in days. When I opened the door, Cody’s head popped up from where he’d been lounging on his bed, typing away on his laptop.
“Better?” he asked as he shut it, giving me his full attention.
I held up the bottles and raised a brow at him.
He flattened his lips as he stared at them. “I have issues, okay?”
“Do I need to get you shampoo for Easter?”
He pushed his laptop under his pillow, another one of his quirks, and came to stand in front of me, taking the bottles from my hand and reaching past me to set them on the bathroom counter. His scent wafted over me—erasing all my judgments of that single bar of soap—and I sighed as I automatically pressed my body into his.
He held me for a long time, his touch soothing as he stroked the tense muscles of my back and neck. His hands were wandering, but never demanding, as he worked me over, turning my body liquid.
“Would you like to wander with me, LL?”
“Yes,” I answered against his chest. “Anywhere.”
Cody leaned over to his small chest of drawers and pulled out a well-worn T-shirt. He considered it for a moment before shocking me by gripping the neck hole with both hands and pulling it apart. I gasped as the seams popped as the opening expanded.
Then he slid the stretched-out shirt over my head, and by reflex, I threaded my arms through the holes. Cody fussed with it, adjusting and pulling it to the side so it slipped off my shoulder, and then kissed the newly revealed skin.
“There,” he said, satisfaction in his tone and his gaze as he pulled back. “Just like that.”
He’d done that so smoothly that it gave me enough pause for memories to surface.
Cody had dressed me each day leading up to the funeral, including my clothes for it today.
I’d missed every sunrise since the night Uncle Gil left us, and the time after them too. But right now, in this moment, as warmth mingled with sorrow in my soul and this strong, loyal man stood in front of me, it felt like the sun had finally risen again.
“I love you, Cody.”
His eyes shot to mine, glistening as he studied my face for a moment and then said, “I love you, Liem. Every part of you.”
He took my face in his hands and pressed kisses to my lips with aching slowness, then branched them out to my cheeks, my jaw, and back up to my lips once more. He rested his forehead against mine and brushed his thumb across my cheekbone. “That’s another forever truth.”
With one more kiss to my cheek, he took my hand and stepped back. “Will you come with me somewhere? I have some things to show you. And an idea.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Always.”