CAELA
He would’ve been happy that she dug out his old Nirvana T-shirt and been glad his favorite leather jacket was getting some use, even after he was gone. He probably would’ve thought her combat boots were punk and the thick black eyeliner was a nice touch.
Her mother, however, didn’t share that opinion.
“Don’t you think you’re being awfully disrespectful?” she asked on the way to the funeral home.
“Michaela, I asked you a question.”
Caela wrapped her arms around herself, comforted by the feel of the soft, old leather beneath her palms. Leather her father had touched hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. “The jacket and shirt are Dad’s,” she murmured.
“That doesn’t make them appropriate for a funeral,” her mother said with a frustrated huff. “And it’s over eighty degrees out. You’ve got to be sweating under there.”
Caela was burning up, it was true, but she didn’t care.
She was willing to suffer the heat for the small comfort the jacket gave her.
She knew her mother could never understand that, though.
Once again, she was reminded of the thing she realized when she was a child: to her mother she was always going to be a burden.
Even now, her silence, her grief, was an inconvenience.
She’d disrupted her mother’s new, perfect life when she called three nights ago with the news of the accident.
“Whatever,” her mother said. “Do what you want.”
Tomorrow Caela would be packing up Jennette and driving down to Kentucky to live with her mother, to burden her even more.
She blinked back tears. She couldn’t think about that.
About tomorrow. Thinking of anything past the present meant acknowledging a future without her dad.
Because if there was a tomorrow, there was a day after.
And a day after that. And then weeks and months and years where Caela didn’t get to see him.
Didn’t get to hear his laugh or feel his hand ruffle her hair.
A tomorrow without him was a future without her best friend.
Caela knew a lot of her friends would’ve been embarrassed to call their dad their best friend. That was something little kids did. But anyone who met Jonah Conroy got it. He was just cool. Fun and kind and supportive.
Imagining life without him was like imagining a world without sunshine.
Her mother’s car pulled into the funeral home’s parking lot. There were already a few other vehicles outside. She’d been here the day before for the visitation, and the idea of going back inside, of being near the casket again, made Caela sick.
Her dad had never wanted a traditional funeral. He didn’t want his corpse to be all made up, dressed up, and stared at by people. He wanted to be cremated straightaway. Then if people really wanted a funeral, they could throw a party in his honor.
“With whiskey,” he’d joke. “Lots of whiskey. And maybe a paintball fight.”
“I don’t think whiskey and paintball guns are a good combo, Dad.”
“Or they’re a perfect combo. Come on, Caela. Think of the comedic potential!”
As for the ashes, he said he didn’t care where they were spread.
His only request was that she get a cool tattoo with some of the ashes in the ink, which was, apparently, a thing you could do.
Maybe she could get one of his paintings turned into a tattoo design.
Caela had always nodded along in agreement.
Back then it was just a bunch of hypotheticals.
She had no way of knowing he’d die before she was old enough for whiskey or tattoos.
But her grandparents had not followed his instructions about the funeral.
Maybe he’d never told them the things he’d told her.
Or maybe they just didn’t understand. She had tried to argue, tried to tell them he’d hate this, but her mother had told her to stay out of it, to not cause more conflict.
And in the end, it was their choice. So her dad would have an open-casket funeral before being buried in the cemetery a few blocks from their apartment.
That was the only concession her grandparents agreed on.
They’d wanted him buried in Indiana, where they lived, but his friends were here, in Ohio, and aside from his parents, he had no one in Indiana.
But even that victory hurt. Him being buried here meant Caela would have to leave him when she went to Kentucky with her mother. The thought of going anywhere without him—even like this—left her riddled with guilt.
“Come on, Michaela,” her mother said as she shut off the engine and climbed out of the car.
Caela got out of the passenger’s seat and met her on the sidewalk. “Caela,” she said.
“What?”
“I go by Caela.”
She was nine when her mother moved to Kentucky.
There was never a question of whether Caela would go with her or not.
There was an unspoken understanding that she would stay with her dad.
Her mother had tried to love her. Caela thought maybe she did love her.
But by the time Caela was in fourth grade, her mother had finally come to accept what Caela had suspected for over four years: that she just wasn’t enough.
The weekly video calls lasted maybe two months before they started to drop off.
A “bad signal” here or a work dinner there.
Sometimes her mother would just forget. At first she’d apologize, promise she’d have a doubly long chat next week.
But six months in, the apologies had stopped, too.
Weekly calls had turned monthly. And by the time Caela started middle school, not even two years later, she was more surprised when her mother did call than when she didn’t.
Caela never went down to visit her in Kentucky, even though it was only six hours away.
She was meant to; they’d discussed plans a few times.
Once, she’d even gotten as far as checking bus ticket prices with her dad.
But even that fell through. Her dad always seemed so disappointed.
That was the worst part. Caela understood early on what her relationship with her mother was—or, rather, what it wasn’t—but it had taken him longer to accept.
Once Caela reached high school, the calls had completely stopped, and the birthday cards came late, if they came at all.
When she was fourteen and came out to her mother in a text message—Hey, Mom.
Just wanted to let you know I’m gay—she responded by sending a card the following June for Pride month.
The prewritten message said something about being proud to be an ally and love is love, etc.
Her mother hadn’t even written anything in her own words, just signed from Mom inside.
When Caela called her the night of the accident, it was the first time she’d heard her mother’s voice in nearly two years.
So Caela had never bothered to correct her on what she preferred to be called before. It had never been necessary. But now, with her impending move, it felt like something that needed to be said.
Her mother stared at her for a moment and then shook her head with a heavy exhale. Like Caela was asking her to do something so tedious or annoying she could hardly believe it. “Fine. Caela.” She opened the door of the funeral home and gestured inside. “Let’s go in now, please.”
“Caela!”
Two sets of footsteps came hurrying across the parking lot, and within seconds Caela found herself swept into a tight hug. She didn’t have to look up to know who was embracing her. She knew that perfume—clean, fresh citrus—as well as she knew the face of the girl who wore it.
“Eliza.” She sighed, closing her eyes, relieved to have a moment of warmth after days of her mother’s frost.
Another, more tentative hand came to rest on her shoulder. Grady, of course. The gentleness of his touch threatened to bring fresh tears to her eyes.
Eliza and Grady had come to Caela’s apartment the night of the accident. She’d called them both, crying and barely coherent, and they’d been at her door within half an hour. She hadn’t wanted to be alone.
Normally, they’d never be allowed to have a sleepover with a boy present—a premise Caela found amusing—but both Eliza’s and Grady’s parents had made an exception for this particular situation.
So Grady had slept on the sofa while Eliza slept in a sleeping bag next to Caela’s bed, checking on her throughout the night.
They’d stayed until her mother had arrived the next afternoon.
But this was the first time she’d seen them since then.
She looked up from Eliza’s shoulder to see that her best friend was wearing a black dress, while Grady was in a suit, though he still had his backward hat on.
She was glad for that. Her dad wouldn’t have wanted Grady to give up his iconic hat for the funeral.
Her mother, however, seemed less than impressed. She was looking at Grady with a tight smile that did nothing to mask her mild disgust at his attire.
“Michaela,” she said, “I’ll see you inside. Don’t take too long.”
“Okay.”
As soon as she was gone, Eliza let out a noise that sounded not unlike a growl in the direction of the door. Then she looked at Caela, cupping her face. “How are you holding up?” she asked. “Are things going okay with her? I can’t believe you’re going to have to leave.”
“I can’t believe it, either,” Caela said, opting not to answer the questions she’d been asked.
“I tried to get my parents to let you come live with us,” Grady said, scuffing his foot on the sidewalk. “But they said we don’t have the space or money right now. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” Caela assured him. “Thank you. For asking.”
“Show her what you did, Grady.”
Caela watched while he fished his phone out of his suit pocket, then the three of them huddled close to see the screen as he flipped through his photo reel, stopping on a recent shot of a wall with fresh graffiti on it.
Caela gasped. Bold black and silver paint formed the image of her dad’s motorcycle while huge royal-blue letters spelled out JONAH above it.
“Grady …”