J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [115]
“So I sat in my chair and couldn’t stop looking at the empty seat across the table. Bowl of oatmeal comes in for a landing. Marie, our maid, laid her hand on my shoulder as she put it in front of me, and for a moment I almost broke down. But then my father snapped that paper of his like I was a puppy who’d shit on the rug, and I picked up my spoon and started eating. I forced that oatmeal down until I gagged from it. And then we went to the funeral.”
V wanted to touch her, and he nearly reached out for her hand. Instead he asked, “How old were you?”
“Thirteen. Anyway, we get to the church and it’s packed, because everyone in Greenwich knew my parents. My mother was being desperately gracious, and my father was all frozen stoic, so that was pretty much business as usual. I remember…yeah, I was thinking the two of them were just as they always were except for my mother’s piss-poor makeup job and the fact that my father kept playing with the change in his pocket. Which was so out of character. He hated ambient noise of any kind, and I was surprised that the restless chiming of coins didn’t bother him. I guess it was okay because he was in control of the sound. I mean, he could stop at any time if he wanted to.”
As she paused and stared across the room, V wanted to try and get into her mind and see exactly what she was reliving. He didn’t—and not because he wasn’t sure it would work. The revelations she chose to share with him freely were more precious than anything he could take from her.
“Front row,” she murmured. “At the church, we were seated in the front row, right in front of the altar. Closed casket, thank God, though I imagine Hannah was perfectly beautiful. She had strawberry-blond hair, my sister did. The luxurious, wavy kind that came on Barbies. Mine was stick-straight. Anyway…”
V had a passing thought that she used the word anyway like an eraser on a crowded chalkboard. She said it whenever she needed to clear off the things she’d just shared to make room for more.
“Yeah, front row. Service started. Lots of organ music…and the thing was, those pipes vibrated up through the floor. Have you ever been in a church? Probably not…Anyway, you can feel the bass of the music when it really gets rolling. Naturally, the service was in a big formal place with an organ that had more pipes than Caldwell’s city sewer system. God, when that thing played, it was like you were on an airplane that was taking off.”
As she stopped and took a deep breath, V knew the story was wearing her down, taking her to a place she didn’t go willingly or often.
Her voice was husky as she continued. “So…we’re halfway through the service and my dress is too tight and my stomach is killing me and that fucking oatmeal of my father’s has sprouted vile roots and is grafting itself to the inside of my gut. And the priest comes up to the lectern to do the eulogy. He was straight out of central casting, white haired, deep voiced, dressed in ivory-and-gold robes. He was the Episcopal bishop for all of Connecticut, I think. Anyway…he gets to talking about the state of grace that awaits in heaven, and all this horseshit about God and Jesus and the Church. It seemed more like an ad for Christianity than anything to do with Hannah.
“I’m sitting there, not really tracking, when I look over and see my mother’s hands. They were clasped together in her lap, totally white-knuckled…like she was on a roller-coaster ride, even though she wasn’t moving. I turned to my left and looked at my father’s. His palms were on his knees and all of his fingers were digging in except for the pinkie on the right, which was out for a jog. The thing was tapping against the fine wool of his slacks with a Parkinsonian tremble.”
V knew where this was going. “And yours,” he said softly. “What about yours?”
Jane exhaled on a little sob. “Mine…mine were utterly still, utterly relaxed. I felt nothing but that oatmeal in