Chapter 25

Brayden

Valdez Cemetery was a lovely place, and on the day I buried my mother, the snow had melted away almost entirely and the sun shone high in the sky. Everyone in attendance was still bundled up against the chill, but the sunshine on our faces as the casket was lowered into the ground was almost a reminder that things would be all right; that they would get better.

At least, that was what I tried to convince myself.

Some of the guests told me that it was my mother looking down on me and Bella. They said she was watching us, and she was with us, and she was shining her love down on us.

I wanted to believe them, but try as I might, I only heard them as hollow words that meant nothing. It was just the weather. There was no divine intervention involved, just luck, and that was exactly what my mother would have said if she had been able to attend her own service.

Well, what do you know? The sun is shining. That was probably what she would have said.

Getting through the eulogy I wrote was difficult, but I needed to say the words I had written on the page the night before. I needed to share my memories of my mother with her friends who were listening. Friends who hadn’t seen her when she was at her sickest; friends who had been spared that memory.

Bella sat with Rein in the front pew, and I knew I wouldn’t have been able to get through the eulogy without the two of them there. Rein held herself together like a champion and offered me a reassuring smile every time I looked her way. Bella did the same. I suppose a four-year-old can only grasp so much, and a funeral service and the act of burying someone seemed to be lost on her.

I was thankful for that.

After the casket was lowered, people started heading back to their cars at the gate to the cemetery. I lingered, with Bella and Rein at my side, as people stopped to offer me their condolences. Some of the last to leave were Emmett and Gracie, who drew up in front of me with sad smiles.

“It was a lovely service,” Gracie said. It was the sort of thing someone said when they couldn’t think of anything else. When they felt bad and wanted to make you feel better but didn’t want to make you think of how shitty things were.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Arlene would have given you shit for it. She would have thought it was too much.” Emmett chuckled and slid his hands into his pockets.

This made me smile. “You’re right. She would’ve had my head.”

Emmett glanced over at the grave that would soon be filled in. It was surrounded by white roses, my mother’s favorite. “Secretly, she would have loved it. Would have told her friends how wonderful you were while telling you how unnecessary it all was.”

“Sounds about right,” I said.

“You’ll let us know if you need anything?” Gracie asked.

I nodded. I wouldn’t need anything, but these were the things you said and the offers you made when you went to a funeral. “Yes, thank you.”

Gracie smiled and hugged Rein. “I have to head out. I’m sorry again for your loss, Brayden. I’ll see you around.”

After Gracie left, Emmett hung back, leaving just me, Rein, and Bella at the grave. Rein laced her fingers in mine and rested her head on my shoulder as Bella held my other hand. I wondered how long they would be willing to wait for me.

Until I was done, I supposed.

After fifteen minutes of complete silence, Rein looked up at me. “Can I cook you and Bella dinner tonight? You could both do with a warm meal.”

I looked down at Bella. “Can you go say goodbye to Emmett, kiddo?”

Bella nodded and left me with Rein. I turned to the raven-haired girl who had yet again captured my heart. “Thanks for the offer, but we’re going back to Florida.”

Rein blinked, and her eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “Sorry?”

“The plane is already here waiting for us. We’re heading straight there from here.”

“What?” Rein’s calm expression faltered. “You’re going to hightail it out of here just like that? Again?”

I couldn’t look her in the eye, so I looked at my feet. “I can’t stay here.”

“I didn’t expect you to stay forever. I just…” She trailed off and pressed her hand to her forehead as she looked away from me. A cool breeze whispered over the gravestones and blew her hair off her shoulders. She turned back to face me and looked me in the eye. “You’re really going to do this to me again?”

Guilt tickled my stomach. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I guess you’ve already said it.”

I ran my fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry, Rein. I really am. But my life isn’t here. It’s in Florida. And now, everywhere I look in this town just reminds me of my mother.”

“And why are you making that a bad thing? Are you trying to forget her?”

“No, of course not. I’m trying to move on. I just want to get home. I have to take my daughter home. She needs to go back to school, and I need to go back to work. This was… I don’t know what this was.”

“A mistake, apparently.” Rein looked away and pulled the collar of her jacket up as the wind picked up again. “Goodbye, Brayden.”

Then she turned and walked away from me without looking back. She stopped when she reached Emmett and Bella and dropped down to one knee. She hugged my daughter, and the two of them talked for a moment. Then she stood, and she and Emmett walked down the winding path to the cars at the gate.

Bella came back to me while I watched Rein’s little red coupe disappear down the road.

“Where’s Rein going?” Bella asked.

I took her hand, and we started heading back to the rental truck. “She’s going home.”

“Are we going back to see her again?”

“Maybe another time. But right now, we’re actually going to head home. There’s a plane waiting for us.”

Bella stopped walking and tugged on my hand. “I don’t want to go home.”

“I know, kiddo,” I said as I turned back to her and dropped into a crouch so that we were face to face. “But we have to. Our life is there. Don’t you miss school? And all your friends?”

“Yes, but…” Bella’s mouth moved silently as she sorted through her thoughts. “But Rein isn’t there.”

“I’m going to miss her, too.”

“Then why can’t we stay?”

I didn’t have a good enough answer for her that wasn’t simply, “Because we have to,” which I knew wouldn’t convince her. So I took her hands in mine and ran my thumbs over her tiny knuckles. “We have commitments back home. There are people there who miss us and need us to come back. Maybe we can come back and visit Rein again.”

Bella still looked unsure.

“I’m sorry, Bella, but it’s time to go home.”

She didn’t fight me when I stood and started walking back to the truck. She trailed behind, deep in her own thoughts, and was quiet in the back seat of the truck for most of the drive to the airport.

I had packed all our bags the night before and put them in the bed of my truck before strapping everything down. I had made sure to pack the painting Rein gave Bella and the one she painted herself. Those, of course, went in the cab as per Bella’s demands. As soon as we got back to the house, I would hang them in her room for her. They would bring her comfort. So would the picture of my mother I had taken from the mantle on the fireplace. A child needed visual memories. At least, I wanted my daughter to have them.

I pulled the truck up close to the plane, and Bella climbed up the stairs into the private jet. She was upset with me but unwilling to say so, so I let her sit on her own while I helped one of the flight attendants load the luggage into the plane. He told me he could handle it on his own, but I wanted the distraction. Keeping busy and finding something to do was how I managed grief.

When it was all loaded up, I joined Bella in the plane. She pressed her face to the window when we took off, and she stayed there watching Valdez disappear beneath us as we reached altitude.

I hoped she wouldn’t stay mad at me for the whole flight. I needed someone to talk to in order to keep my mind off of my mother’s death. I distracted myself by retreating into the vortex of emails on my phone, and I began responding. It was something to do, and something was better than anything.

After we were in the air for forty-five minutes or so, Bella was bored enough to start talking to me again. She took the seat beside me, a plush leather chair that was much too big for her, and asked if we could play games.

I indulged her, and we played a variety of things, starting with Go Fish and ending with I Spy. It was a short-lived game. There wasn’t much to spy on the plane.

Bella fell asleep shortly after, and I was left again with my own thoughts.

My mother consumed most of them until the image of her was chased out of my mind and replaced with that of Rein’s face when I told her I was leaving.

If she didn’t hate me before, she most definitely hated me now.

I was putting her through the same bullshit I had ten years ago. She didn’t deserve it. She deserved a man who would stand by her and commit to her and never make her question if he would leave her behind. I wasn’t capable of offering her that.

I was a runner. I knew it, and she knew it.

When shit got tough, I did what I always did: I escaped. Going back to Florida was just that. Sure, I did need to get back to my job. My employees were relying on me and so were my clients. But I was lying to myself in thinking that I could only do my work well from Florida. I was the owner. I could work from anywhere.

But Florida was safe. Florida was a refuge from all the hardships that Valdez ever threw at me. One of those hardships was Rein herself. I never thought I deserved a girl like her. She was too good, too pure, too kind for me. She had proven that when she forgave me and gave me a second chance with her.

Now, I was spitting in her face and leaving again.

“You’re such a piece of shit,” I muttered to myself as I gazed out the window at the fluffy white clouds floating by.