Chapter 24
The overwhelming floral scent seeped into her nose, causing the unending pounding behind her eyes to continue. Magnolia pressed her hand to her forehead, rubbing at the spot of tension. Her body ached from her shoulders down to her toes. After days of crying, the skin around her eyes felt stiff, and utter exhaustion nearly drove her to her breaking point. But now here she stood, in her black pencil skirt, black sweater and heels. The people around her spoke in hushed tones, whispering to each other, but to her they might as well have been yelling.
“They call it a widow maker…”
“Massive heart attack…”
“So unexpected…”
“He was a hell of a man…”
On and on it went, so many whispers it was beginning to drive her to madness. Her father would’ve hated this—the whole town turning out, a line out the door of the funeral home. He would’ve said, “Magnolia, put me in a pine box and bury me out in the field somewhere. Never mind all this hub-bub.”
A new round of tears stained her eyes, and she dabbed at the them with the tissue she’d been given by the funeral director. At the front of the room lay her father in a beautiful ornate coffin she’d taken hours to pick. This was her father, and she felt the need to make sure he would be as comfortable as possible in his final resting place. It was silly though, really. The man lying in the front of the room looked so fragile, not the powerful guy who’d raised her. Even so, she bought the cushiest one, with beautiful satin, then spent hours in his closet picking his favorite outfit, an outfit only Thomas Reed, her wonderful father, would wear. A red plaid button down and his favorite pair of worn jeans.
But no matter how much preparing she’d done, nothing would ever make her ready to see him lying in that damn box at the front of a beige room covered in flowers. Thinking about it now, heaving breaths left her body, and she shook from head to toe. She’d been standing next to him for hours, yet the aching in her chest hadn’t subsided for a single second. Folding chairs were lined up in front of it, like his death was a spectacle.
The walls began to close in on her. People surrounded her, hugging her, every two seconds, giving them her condolences. Even the plush carpet felt like it was rising up under her. This wasn’t real; this wasn’t happening. Any moment she’d wake up, and he’d be here to guide her and comfort her through the roughest part of her life. A ball rose in her throat, she couldn’t breathe, the air was stuck in her chest.
“Magnolia, drink this.” Dax shoved a plastic cup into her shaking hands. Water sloshed over the sides, coating her fingers. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes darted around the room. Wordlessly, she shook her head, never meeting his direct gaze. Over the past few days, she’d grown so used to saying she was okay she didn’t even know what the meant anymore. Dax took the cup from her, threaded his fingers between hers and began to pull her from the room, leaving a line of people waiting to pay their respects to her father.
Magnolia dug in her heels. “I have to stay.”
“You need to breathe for a minute,” he whispered over his shoulder, giving her hand a small tug.
She had no fight left in her. As she walked through the room, people tried to stop her, tried to talk to her, tried to hug her, all to no avail. Dax kept them moving at a clip. When they hit the hallway outside the room, the sickly floral scent eased a fraction. Determined to keep going, he looked to his left then his right and pulled her right out the back door of the funeral home. The moment those glass doors flung open, a cool fall mist hit her face. The gray sky seemed to be mourning the loss of her father as much as she was.
As she sucked in a tight breath, a sob broke past her lips. “Oh, God, I can’t breathe, Dax. I can’t go back in there.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach and began to pace back and forth. Her heels clicked over the pavement with each step she took. “I’m suffocating in there.”
He came up beside her and rubbed his hand up and down her back, stopping her wild pacing. She leaned into his side. So tired of holding in her tears for everyone else, she let them fall. Gasping sobs wracked her body, but she didn’t try to fight them this time. “I didn’t have enough time with him. I wasted years away. Oh, God, Dax—years!”
He wrapped his other arm around her so they faced each other. She pressed her forehead into his chest and wrapped her arms around his torso. Hot streams of tears dripped off her eyelashes, falling onto his shirt. He didn’t back away, didn’t shy away from the ugly cry she was allowing herself to have. Instead, he squeezed her tighter. “Magnolia, look at me.”
He tucked his finger under her chin and raised her face to meet his eyes. Magnolia pried her gaze from the buttons on his shirt to meet his maple eyes. Within them, she saw a mirror of how she felt—unending sadness, a hurt so deep he might never come out of it. But most of all she saw him fighting the tears he wanted to shed. He was being the strength she needed in a moment when she had none. He placed his hands on her cheeks, cupping her face ever so gently. “He knew you loved him, and he loved you. That is all that matters in this world, Maggie. You mattered to him and he forgave you before you even needed him to. Don’t you ever forget the way that man felt about you.”
The intensity in his eyes made her take a small step back. Regret like she’d never known wrapped around her stomach. Squeezing it, she shook her head. “I will never forgive myself for being away from him for so long.”
“But you came back, and you got to spend the last days of his life with him. I know Thomas, and darlin’, he was happy you were here with Hayden.” He ran his thumb over her cheeks, brushing away her tears. He leaned in, about to press his lips to hers, then he tilted his head and kissed her cheek.
“What do we have here?”
Magnolia turned her head just enough to see Eric walking through the back door. He was all put together with his black suit, crisp white shirt and shining shoes. He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at the two of them.
She took a step back from Dax—this was all too much. She held out her hand while shaking her head. “Not today, Eric. Just not today.” Pieces of her hair fell from the bun she’d carefully constructed before the service. She blew one strand out of her eye but didn’t try to fix it.
“Magnolia, I’m here for you. I know you have no place to go.” He held out his hand to her. “You can come home now.”
“Are you serious? This is my father’s funeral, do you realize that?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
Just as she was about to head back inside, Lulu Griffin stepped out the door. She looked Eric up and down. “I’ve been livin’ in this town all my life. Ain’t never seen you ’round. Who the hell are you?”
Eric hiked a thumb at Magnolia. “I’m her husband. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m his wife.” She pointed at Dax.
“Oh, for the love of fuck, what the hell are you two doing here? This is my father’s funeral. You think I need this right now? You think I need to deal with estranged husbands and wives? Have you no respect?”
Dax stepped up beside her and wound his fingers through her hand. “Let’s go back inside. You’ll need to speak soon.”
Slowly, she pulled her fingers free from his hand and glared at all of them. “My father is in there.” Her breath hitched in her throat as she pointed toward the doors. “Y’all might think this is about you, but it’s not. I am here to pay respect to the one man who never let me down. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
She stomped past the three of them, yanked open the glass door and sucked in a breath of the awful floral scent. The pounding in her head returned ten-fold as she pushed past the line of people and into the main room. All eyes swung toward her. At the front of the room stood their pastor, black robes covering him from neck to knee and the white collar around his throat looking as though it was choking him. Though the blasting air conditioning made goosebumps break out over her skin, sweat beaded the pastor’s bright red face. “Here with us now is his most beloved daughter, Magnolia.” He motioned to the podium. “Would you like to say a few words?”
Swallowing back the ball in her throat, Magnolia nodded and walked up to the podium. Every eye was on her, and she felt the weight of their gazes on her. In the front row sat Calla, Zinnia, and her mother who’d flown from New York. The three women were a comfort to her. Even though she’d tried to think of what to say at this moment, she’d only drawn a blank. When she locked eyes with Calla, her friend brushed away a tear from her cheek and gave her a nod of encouragement. Magnolia cleared her throat and smoothed back the hair from her face.
“Hi. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Magnolia Reed. Thomas is my dad. Or was… or is. I’m not sure.” She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about what to say about my father over the past few days. In times of silence and reflection, no words came to me, only thoughts and memories. So here are the top things I will always remember about my father. I hope that by telling you these things, you will always remember him the way I do and not like this.” She motioned to his coffin and let the tears run down her cheeks. There was nothing more she could do. She was tired of fighting, tired of being stronger than she was. With each word she spoke, she let the emotions flow.
“My earliest memories are of my dad. What little girl doesn’t admire her father? For me, I think I couldn’t admire any man more than I did him. When I was small, he was the one to pick me up and dust me off whenever I got hurt. It’s something that holds true up until now.”
She remembered falling into his strong arms the day she came home only weeks ago. She’d cried, and he’d held on and told her everything was going to be okay. “There are times in life when you get kicked, you get hurt, you get put down. Every time this happened to me, he was there.” Her breath hitched. “Who’s going to be there for me now?” A sob escaped her lips.
Calla rose to her feet and stepped forward, but Magnolia waved her off and brushed at her face. “I’m sorry.” She sniffled, and in the room she heard others joining her. When she looked up, each of their faces was streaked with tears. She sucked in a breath. “I can do this. He’d want me to.”
At the front of the room her mother ducked her head, swiping at her face while her shoulders shook. Calla wrapped an arm around her, and though Magnolia wanted to comfort her, there was still so much more she wanted people to know about her father. “Dad was the kind of man who pushed his daughter to see the world but was content to be here with y’all and Triple R Ranch—the place he called home. The place we all do. There was always a seat available at the dinner table on Sundays for whoever wanted it. So long as you were willing to work, Dad was always willing to teach. He didn’t believe in complicating life. A few lessons he taught me along the way—One: if you’re gonna get in a fight, fight to win. Two: curfews are meant to be kept, unless you want to be at the wrong end of his shotgun.” She glanced up at Dax who stood in the doorway with a sad, wistful smile.
“And when your kid is acting a mess, no matter what age they are, dunking them in a trough or turning the hose on them will teach them a lesson—the lesson of getting a grip, picking yourself up and continuing on.” She looked up to the sky, picturing her father throwing back his head, laughing. At the same time, the stable hands chuckled lightly as though they too were in on an inside joke. “You taught me that, Dad, and I won’t forget it.” She cracked a small smile. “Poor Hayden.”
Through the tears, others joined her, letting out light chuckles. “Family was the most important to him.” To herself, she whispered, “I was most important to him.”
She swiped at her face. “When I was younger, my father and I would lie on a blanket behind the house at night and look up at the stars. I remember thinking how big he was—larger than life. And my finger only fit around his thumb.” She held up her hand, staring at her finger for a moment.
“Even though I was so small, he used to point at the stars and tell me to never stop reaching for them. ‘Go anywhere; do anything you want, Maggie’ he’d say, always encouraging me to be my best and keep reaching for those stars.
“Tonight, when I lay that blanket out behind the house and sit there with my son, with his fingers wrapped around my fingers, I will tell him the same things you taught me, Dad. And when I look up at the stars and reach toward them, I’ll be reaching for you, knowing you are reaching for me, too.”