I stood at the same window where my father had stood, staring down at the same street he’d been staring at. It was dark and there wasn’t much traffic now, but the occasional car drove by reminding me of the change in this neighborhood since I was a small child. I could only imagine how much of a shock it was to a man who’d lost upwards of thirty years of his life to that awful, horrible disease.

I used to think that it would be a good thing if I could forget those few minutes that had turned my life upside down, those moments of watching Gentry stand on his front steps talking to Madeline. I thought, if that wasn’t such a vivid memory in my mind I could move on with my life. And then, when I realized it wasn’t so much the break up, but the years and years we’d spent together, the intertwined life we’d lived that had become the true roadblock in my ability to move on with my life, I thought it would be great if I could go through my life with a soft eraser and forget those moments that stood out the most. But then I came home and began to grasp the true depth of my dad’s disease.

Memory loss was not a blessing. Even if we could pick and choose what to remember and what to forget, I wouldn’t want it. Our memories were what made us who we were. And Gentry, no matter how much I wanted to deny it then, made me the person I was. For better or for worse, I wouldn’t trade any of my memories for anything.

I’m glad my dad got a few of his back in the final moments of his life.

“You okay, babe?”

I turned to find Gentry standing in the doorway of my bedroom, watching me as he held a light blanket over his shoulders.

I nodded even as a tear slowly rolled down my cheek. He came to me and wrapped us both in the blanket as he held me against his chest.

“I hate that he never got to know Noah.”

“Me, too.’

“He would have loved him if he hadn’t been so damn stubborn!”

“Like his daughter?”

I smiled softly through my tears. “Do you think we’re alike?”

“That’s why he never got to know his grandson. Because the two of you were far too much alike. You were always butting heads because of it.”

“I suppose.”

“There’s no supposing about it. I think that’s why Jack and Brent had such a hard time seeing eye-to-eye with our dad. They were just too much alike.”

“And you?”

“I was more like Mom. That’s why Dad and I were friends.”

“By that theory, my mom and I should have been super close. We weren’t.”

“Your mom checked out a long time before she left. You know that.”

It was true. My mom was never the “perfect housewife” kind of person. She didn’t appreciate the role my father tried to place her in, didn’t like the responsibility my existence created for her. Much to her credit, she stuck it out until I was fifteen, but she couldn’t take it after that. And when that guy came along…she took off at the first opportunity. It killed my dad. I don’t think he saw it coming the same way the rest of us did, but I guess love blinded him to her imperfections.

I wondered what she would think if I knew where she was, if I was able to call her and let her know he’d passed. Would she care? I liked to think she would, but I honestly wasn’t sure.

“I want to take you and Noah out of town after the funeral.”

I leaned back and looked up at him. “Really?”

“We could go anywhere you want. My family still has that property in Florida, or there’s this nice resort up in Colorado we could probably get into easily this time of the year. Or we could do the touristy thing in Los Angeles.”

“A little time on the beach might be nice.”

“Yeah,” he said, drawing the syllable out like it was a musical note. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in a bikini.”

I snorted. “I haven’t worn a bikini since Noah was born.”

“I think you have the perfect body for it.”

“You’re the only one, then.”

He laughed even as he tugged me closer against him. But then he grew serious as he became aware of the tension strumming through my body. My father’s funeral was in less than six hours and we were joking about bikinis. It didn’t seem right.

“I’m sorry, babe.” He seemed to read my mind. “But I do think we all need a break, especially you.”

“You might be right.”

He kissed my neck, his lips moving up over my jaw. I closed my eyes, melting back into him. Was it wrong to want to be close to him right now? Was it wrong to think about his touch when we were just hours from putting my father in the ground?

I felt like I should avoid all pleasure, that it wasn’t fair that I could still feel pleasure; that I could be happy when my dad couldn’t. But then his hand slid under the thin shirt I’d worn as pajamas and all I could think about was the future we’d promised each other. That future had never seemed as important as it did in this moment.

I reached back and ran my hands over those massive dimples in the sides of his ass, tugging him closer to me, all too aware of the heat from his erection as it pressed against my ass. I moved my hips and he groaned, that blanket falling from his shoulders as he tugged at my boxers, tugging them down my hips as his fingers sought the button that never failed to push me over the edge.

My body ached for him, that place deep inside begging for the pleasure only he could offer it. It was insane to do this, insane to be standing in front of this window my dad loved so much and do something so basic, so animalistic. But, in a strange way, it seemed incredibly appropriate, too.

He hadn’t left me when I needed him most. He’d been right there at my side the entire time I argued with the funeral director of the song selections my father had insisted on, the coffin I wanted. He even offered a place in his family’s plot in the Germantown cemetery, offering to allow my father to be put to rest beside his own parents. What could lock our destinies together more than that? His family was here at the house every moment since the news made the rounds, offering to help in any way they could, including Jack. And he was here now, filled with concern for me in this, the darkest moment of my life.

Why wouldn’t this be appropriate?

I tugged at his boxer briefs as he pulled my head back, stole a kiss at an odd angle, his tongue still managing to do incredible things to my equilibrium. I moaned, moving my hips again as his fingers played a sweet melody between my legs. My hands slammed against the window when his erection came free, when he pulled my hips back hard, his cock finding its way home without much instruction. I cried out, forgetting for a moment that there were other people in the house, people who shouldn’t, who couldn’t, find us in such a compromising position.

He barely moved as he stood behind me, buried deep inside of me, yet he managed to create a heavenly friction that darkened the periphery of my vision. I couldn’t stand still, couldn’t keep my hips from doing some sort of funky twerking move. I was more talented at that dance than I ever imagined, drawing a few screams from his lips that he tried to muffle against the back of my neck.

This was my future, this man, his touch, and the child we’d created together. And maybe there would be more children. Maybe we were making one now, one we could honor my father by naming after him. There was possibility in this moment, possibility in the sheer act of living. And what was more about new life than this act, this intimacy?

What was more about hope than the possibility of new life?

I reached for his hip, tugged him closer against me as new screams built in my chest. He lost it as I touched him, biting down on my shoulder as he rode that wave of ecstasy. I followed, holding on tightly, my knees growing too weak to hold me. We fell against the window, clinging as much to each other as the cold glass. When he began to recover, he swung me up into his arms as he’d done so often that night the firebomb flew through my office windows. I was happy for his assistance this time, grateful for the support.

“Don’t leave me,” I whispered when he lay me in the center of my bed.

“Never,” he answered back.

He crawled in beside me, tugging the blankets up over our shoulders. I curled up against him, my exhausted mind whispering a little prayer before I fell asleep.

Watch over us, please, Daddy.

*

The limos pulled to the curb at the cemetery a few feet from the open grave that waited for the second part of the day’s ceremonies. The church service had been beautiful, people I never knew my dad called friends piling through the doors into the standing room only sacristy. His accountant, his favorite golf partner, his best friend from college—all said beautiful things about him, never once touching on the memory loss that had precipitated his death. I was grateful that they allowed us to remember my dad the way he had been and not the nightmare his life had become. And the music…it might be odd to play Neil Diamond and Frank Sinatra at a funeral, but it was what Daddy had wanted.

This part, though, was just for family.

Gentry stepped out and reached back for my hand. We stood on the soft soil and waited as his brothers and sister disembarked from their cars. Carson came to me the moment she was on her feet, linking her arm through mine as we walked slowly toward the grave. A part of me had not allowed myself to believe this was real until I was standing beside that grave, looking down into the earth that my father would soon be laid to rest within.

They all gathered around me, the Stone family, even my normally rambunctious child. Everyone was suitably subdued, Noah clinging to his father’s hand as we watched the funeral director’s assistants carry the coffin to the gravesite. My heart hurt as I watched, tears dripping steadily from my chin to the top of my black dress.

Carson lost her mother from cancer when she was twenty. Raelyn’s mother died when she was sixteen. Brent buried both his wife and his daughter here in this very cemetery just over a year ago. And, of course, the entire Stone family had suffered the loss of both parents within six months of each other two years ago.

Loss was nothing new to this group. But that didn’t take the edge off the pain or ease the grief that was always there, always a knife’s edge that refused any relief.

  The priest said a few kind words over the coffin before stepping out of the way so that we could lay carnations on top as our final farewell. I watched as each of these people I’d always counted as friends and now called family dropped their flowers, a few pausing to say a brief word or a small prayer. When it was Noah’s turn Gentry accompanied him, kneeling behind him as he guided him through the process. I was so proud of my son as I watched him quietly lay his flower on top of the others and say, “Goodbye, grandpa.”

When it was my turn, Carson squeezed my arm. I walked slowly to the coffin, tears still falling steadily down my cheeks. I almost didn’t feel them, was only partially aware of their existence. My mind was so full of memories that very little else was making it through.

“I miss you, Daddy. I’ve missed you for so long. I wish I hadn’t allowed us to remain estranged for so long.” I lay my flower down. “I hope you realize, though, that I always knew. I knew you loved me. That was something I never doubted.”

I kissed my fingers and pressed them to the top of the coffin. And then the ground shook.