“Yes, I want the cold, hard number. What’s the payoff?”
He lowered his voice. “When all assets are totaled—liquid and otherwise—the amount is in the vicinity of $750 million.”
A huge number. It would take half a lifetime to count that high, and yet I’d have traded every penny to have my parents be parents instead.
“It’s a little on the low side, but I suppose I can work with it.”
“Mr. Parish, I recommend we meet in my Paris office as soon as is convenient to go over the details and walk you through the—”
“I’m on my way.”
I hung up and watched the last of the sun sink beneath the ocean, spraying gold and amber over the water. Up the coast, the rocks slid into the sea, and then their grays and browns gave way to the green of the forest.
“A guy could get used to a view like that,” I said, the wind whipping away my words.
But it was time to go.
I hauled my ass off the chair and stepped into the Shack one last time. It was dark, the small space full of shadows. And memories. The best memories. I set my flask on the long wooden fisherman’s table and left, shutting the thin door behind me.
I was almost to the parking lot when my phone chimed a text from River.
She’s gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mom had spiked a fever and went into the hospital at four in the morning. She slipped into a coma a few hours later, rapid organ failure followed, and by four p.m. she was gone.
The staff in the oncology department recognized us; we’d been frequent visitors for a year, and they did the math. Four of us went to the hospital that morning. Three came out. The front desk staff didn’t ask questions. They smiled gently as we filed by, silent and stupefied by shock and grief.
“I thought I was ready,” Amelia said dully from the backseat of the car. “She’s been sick forever. I…I thought I was ready.”
From the passenger seat, I craned my head around to look at her. She stared out the window, passing streetlights reflected in the glass. She wasn’t crying. Neither was I. Or Dad. He drove like a robot, eyes on the road, saying nothing.
Shock isn’t always a sudden impact, knocking the sense out of you like a blow to the head. This shock felt like I’d been stuffed full of cotton, my skin dry and tight. No blood moving through my veins, my eyes staring at everything and seeing nothing. On the radio, the DJ was hawking concert tickets. It sounded like a transmission from an alien planet; something that had no bearing on my life.
I moved through the days after Mom passed in that same stuffed-cotton shock. Plans were made, phone calls were placed. More of our small family trickled in, familiar faces belonging to strangers. They talked to me, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I just nodded, knowing this step outside of reality wouldn’t last. The shock would wear off and I’d have to handle it. Take care of my dad and sister.
I kept turning corners in the house, expecting to see Mom, but she was never there.
The funeral happened under a gray sky. Mourners in black gathered around a casket bearing a huge spray of daisies and sunflowers; Mom loved white and yellow. Except for Violet McNamara, none of my friends had shown up.
Holden hadn’t shown up.
While the priest droned about life eternal, my gaze aimlessly wandered among the headstones, expecting to see Holden lurking. The vampire. I’d given him my heart and he’d sucked it dry and left the husk.
Violet gave my hand a squeeze, bringing me back to the present. The service was over. Everyone rose, and Dad, Amelia, and I tossed flowers into the hole in the ground. Dad sobbed behind his hand while one of his brothers, Uncle Greg wrapped an arm around him. Amelia stared vacantly—still cocooned in shock. Good. Maybe it would stick around, and she’d get through these first days without feeling the enormity of it.
At the reception at our house, Uncle Tony handed me a beer and I drank it. Then another. Figures in black drifted from room to room, talking in low voices and eating the food Dazia had arranged to have brought in. I think the earth would have stopped rotating if she hadn’t been there to keep it spinning.
Hours oozed past and finally, the guests started to depart. Family headed back to their hotels. Violet sat beside me in a corner of the living room.
“I want more than anything to stay with you as long as you need me, but I have a plane to catch.”
“I know you do.” I smiled weakly. “You’ve postponed your trip long enough.”
Violet was heading to Baylor, Texas to begin her med school career. She was supposed to have left days ago but stayed for Mom. And for me.
Unlike some fuckers I could name…
I wasn’t drunk but getting there. I took another pull from my beer.
“You look like you could use some sleep. Your dad’s fine,” she said when I started to protest. “He’s with your uncles and Dazia took Amelia to bed a long time ago.”
The house was nearly empty. When everyone left for good, that emptiness was going to swallow us whole.
I got to my feet a little unsteadily and walked Violet to the front door.
“Thank you for being here. Through all of it. You took…” My throat tried to close. I swallowed the tears down. “You took really good care of her. She loved you.”
“I loved her too,” Violet said, tears shining in her deep blue eyes. “I think everyone who knew her did. She was extremely loveable. And so are
