Full Share (Shore House Book 1) (26 page)

“How are you?” Mila asked and pulled Heather into a hug.

“I’m fine,” she said, and the words I’d utilized for years of camouflage seemed to fit as well on Heather as they had on me. There was nothing fine about her. I doubted there ever would be.

The line continued to move from the front door, through the foyer, and finally down the center aisle of the grand cathedral. The closed casket stole the thoughts I’d filled my head with to avoid thinking of Tank. He laid between a woman older than my mother who smiled and hugged each person who presented themselves in front of her and a man who looked like he wanted to die, too.

I needed drugs. I wished I’d brought something. I searched the crowd for Rob. Surely he wasn’t sober for this fiasco of an event.

Heather stopped and signed the guest book on the podium. She took the last prayer card lying next to it, and the sight of it in her hand paralyzed me.

“Are there any more prayer cards?” I asked the employee nearby.

“Sorry, that’s the last one.” He nodded toward the card in Heather’s hand, and she and I both looked at it. “The turnout has been incredible.”

I could have ripped it from her hand. I’d cherish it forever, and she’d drop it in the seat crack of her car while she lit a cigarette on her way home. She didn’t deserve to have the last piece of paper with his name on it. She didn’t deserve the prayer.

Jack was hugging Tank’s mom. He leaned way down, and she rubbed the back of his head. She’d known him his whole life. I cowered at their loss and pushed the prayer card from my mind. It wasn’t what mattered today, but even high-minded, I knew I’d hold it against Heather for all of eternity.

Tank’s mother said something to Jack, and he said, “Of course. I’ll be right here.” He moved to stand behind her as the rest of the line continued its death march. I paid my respects with a useless sentiment of sorrow. It was so beneath Tank that I almost choked on it, but I couldn’t speak. I’d written the only words I could find in a card I’d leave for Tank’s mother, but nothing was going to be enough. Not a card. Not a sound.

I sat next to Mila in a pew toward the back. I searched the cathedral for Stone. He’d be here soon, right next to Mila. Rob was nowhere to be found. My sight fixed on Tank’s casket. He was in there. He was no longer a part of this world. He belonged to another. One that was better suited for the kind of extravagance that was simple to him.

And then there were six.

I lowered my head. I couldn’t see the casket. I couldn’t watch his mom, and I couldn’t face Jack or his heartbreak.

“
Psst
.” Rob was leaning into the sanctuary. He pointed to me and waved me out to him.

What?
I mouthed to him. The service would start any minute. Most people had already taken their seats. The last of the line were paying their respects to Tank’s family, and Rob—of course—needed something.

“Come here,” he demanded barely above a whisper. He wasn’t going to stop.

I turned to see Jack staring at me. His sadness had been replaced with annoyance as he watched me stand up and walk away from my pew.

Rob grabbed my hand and pulled me outside as soon as I was close enough for him to reach me.

“Rob,” I said. He yanked me down the block and behind the cars parked at the edge of the lot. “What are you doing?”

He lit a cigarette, aggressively inhaled, and blew the smoke out above my head. “I’m freaking out, Nora.”

I exhaled and let my shoulders fall. I shook my head. “Rob, we need to get back in there. You’re a pallbearer.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t do anything. What the fuck!” he screamed up to the sky. “How can he be dead?”

Rob’s reaction was delayed. “Here’s how everyone works through grief. They freak out like this when they first hear of the death, and then they move into the numb stage, which carries them through the funeral.” Having to explain this to him annoyed me. “Note Tank’s comatose mother if you’re still confused.”

“Nora.” He ignored me and pulled me into his arms. I think he was crying. He was making me soft. I was barely hanging on myself, and I was surely not solid enough to pull him through this.

The smell of something burning was followed by me screaming at Rob and pushing him away. “You’re burning my fucking hair.” I pulled it around to my face and sure enough, several strands were singed and kinky from where he’d rested his cigarette. I huffed and walked away.

“Nora. I’m sorry. Don’t walk away.”

I turned on him, ready to kill him, but the sight of him was too sad to hate. He was lost in a world without Tank. He was lost in a world he wasn’t the center of. I pitied him. I let him catch up to me. I placed my hand gently on the side of his face and willed him to hear me the first time I spoke, because there wouldn’t be a second. “I know you’re hurting, but this isn’t about you. It’s Tank’s day.” I could have pierced him with my glare. “You can have tomorrow. He can’t. You’ve got to get back in there.”

I fought the urge to punch him in the face. Rob let his head hang low.

“What’s going on?”

I rolled my eyes at the sound of Blaire behind us. “Nothing.” I exaggerated as I spoke the word to her. “Nothing is ever going on. Nothing has ever gone on. We’ve never kissed. We’ve never done a thing.”

Rob was grinning when I looked back at him. He was back at the center.

“Take care of your
fucking
girlfriend and get back inside.” I’d had enough of both of them. They deserved each other, and Tank deserved better.

MY GOD, I WAS FULL OF HATE

I
absolutely hated every single second I spent at my desk. It was a torture beyond my understanding. When I stopped talking into my headset and typing on my keyboard, I sat and wondered how I ever could have stood the prison in the first place.

Ricky hated being near me. He preferred me without any reaction. My utter despair was apparently a deterrent. He actually went to lunch with the new guy whose hair stuck up in the back, uncovering a premature bald spot. I couldn’t even act like I cared. I couldn’t care. I was dead inside because Tank was dead on the outside. I was a walking, oozing infection of hatred, and I couldn’t stop feeling any of it.

I was wretched.

Rufus was the only one who could stand me. He was impossible to resist as he wagged his tail when I arrived. I didn’t even have to read to him anymore. He was happy just with the sound of my voice, even if I was telling him about a horrific loss the world would now have to endure. Rufus loved me in spite of me.

“SafeOne Auto, this is Nora.” God, I needed this shift to be over.

“This is Elizabeth Gorman.”

I paused, preparing myself for whatever nonsense this call contained.

“I have a car insured with you that’s being repaired.” Elizabeth sounded about a hundred and six years old.

“Do you have a claim number, Mrs. Gorman?”

She did. She read it to me. Twice. I pulled up her claim after the first read-through and used the extra time to review the facts of the loss and the latest log entries. Her car was at the body shop, and the estimator had just approved a supplement for damage found after teardown.

“I just wanted to make sure everything’s going to be paid for. The body shop said they found another eight hundred dollars in repairs.”

I pulled up the estimate. “Yes, Mrs. Gorman. There’s been a supplement approved for eight hundred and ninety-one dollars. We’re going to send that amount directly to the shop unless you’d like us to mail it to you.”

“No. That’s fine. What a relief.”

I couldn’t believe she wasn’t going to start complaining about a bumper or her rental car. It was completely improbable that she was actually satisfied with her policy benefits. I tilted my head to the screen. My eyes slit as I listened to Mrs. Gorman tell me about her accident.

“We were just sitting at the red light when the other car lost control and slid right into us.”

“I see that,” I said, hoping to move the conversation along.

“We were on our way home from the doctor’s. My husband, he’s also insured on the policy, had a heart attack in the spring, and now we go to the doctor’s a lot.”

I had no idea what to say. “I’m sure,” was what came out.

“Then at the beginning of the summer, our car was totaled when a couch fell off the truck in front of the car next to us. That car swerved into our lane and trapped us against the guard rail.” I scanned up the insured’s information. Mrs. Gorman was eighty-nine. “Our car was totaled in that accident. So this is a new car.”

“Oh my. You’ve had quite a year.” I was astounded she was still alive and a little concerned she was still driving. Although neither of these losses appeared to be her fault.

“We’ve been very lucky.”

I was speechless. Every other person who’d ever dialed this number should be forced to listen to this woman. “Yes. I guess that’s the best way to look at it.”

“There’s really only one way to look at things. If you look at them the other way, you’ll make yourself miserable.”

In one sentence, she’d described the last five years of my life. “I know what you mean, Mrs. Gorman.”

“Well, I guess that’s all I need today. Thank you so much for all your help. You’ve been a lifesaver. I don’t know what we’d do without all of you. Really, I’d be lost. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” I logged out and dropped my head to my arms on my desk. I rested there with my eyes shut. I missed Tank. He would have loved Mrs. Gorman, and she would have loved him. I thought maybe I just needed some time off. Maybe I could ask Sharon for some unpaid leave.

“Head up,” she said and tapped her knuckles on my desktop.

Maybe not.

The only thing I was sure of was the fact that I didn’t want to be at the beach house. The anger dulled to a comfortable numbness by the time I left work on Saturday afternoon. My bag was in the back of my car. I was supposed to hop on 95 South and exit the city before dinner, but I was just moving through the motions of traveling somewhere I wasn’t even sure if I was wanted. Stone seemed to think Tank hated me enough to die. I’d pretty much made it clear to Rob and Blaire what I thought of them, and, in doing so, I had annoyed Jack. He’d been distant and quiet and absent throughout the luncheon in Tank’s honor.

The beach house was fractured. It would never heal. Tank was gone forever. Never coming back. Blaire wasn’t even there, according to Rob’s endless texts. I hadn’t heard from Jack. Mila could barely hold the rest of them up. She couldn’t take me on, too. It wasn’t fair to her. It wasn’t fair to me.

I was less than ten miles from Dewey, and the tears welled up in my throat. I was in no condition to see anyone. I could have picked up Jack and taken him home with me. I texted him. I had no idea what to say, but if he’d just text back, I’d know it was going to be okay. I wrote,
How are you?

The traffic lights on Route 1 were only slightly less brutal on Saturday night than on Saturday morning. The restaurants’ and stores’ parking lots were packed. All of Delaware and half of Maryland was spending the weekend at the beach.

I’m fine,
was what Jack responded. It was worse than him not responding at all.

The sign for the Cape-May Lewis Ferry hung over the lane I was driving in, and I didn’t move. I followed the road to the port terminal and parked in the lot. I didn’t know why, but I needed to see my mother before there was nothing left of me.

The ferry was sold out for vehicles. I parked and locked my car. I walked through the parking lot like I’d taken the ferry a hundred times before, but this was a first. Onboard, I bought a soft pretzel and a bottle of water. I shouldn’t see my mother on an empty stomach. I might disintegrate.

There were tables and chairs throughout the inside cabin of the ferry, but I wanted to feel the bay as we crossed it. I found an end of a bench on the upper deck as we disembarked from Delaware, headed straight for Cape May, New Jersey and my mother.

A couple sitting next to me debated the safety and comfort of their dog in their car below deck. The woman droned on and on until the man finally left us and went to sit in his car with the animal. I bet he preferred the dark silence to the bright sun and complaints of his significant other. Maybe the dog was his significant other, and the woman left next to me was just along for the ride.