Adam and Amanda buried their mother a few days later. Maddie came with me to the funeral home, the church, the cemetery and finally, Amanda’s house for the buffet, which was good since Ashley and Belinda were there. I didn’t have the patience to deal with them today.
Maddie dragged me into Amanda’s kitchen where we helped reheat casseroles, serve drinks, wash dishes and bundle up the trash. I never understood people’s almost visceral need to cook and serve food when someone dies. Eating after a funeral seemed wrong somehow. Like an insult to the person who died. But people always twist it around with biological imperatives coated with the dead person’s wishes. ‘You have to eat something. Grandma wouldn’t want you to make yourself sick.’
Amanda sat on the huge sofa in the family room, Zach wrapped around her. I brought her a plate of ziti. Taylor had Cassie on her lap, quietly reading her a story. I brought them juice boxes and chicken strips. Taylor's mother moved around, greeting guests, thanking them for their various expressions of sympathy.
The only thing missing from the scene was Adam.
I slipped from family room to dining room to kitchen but saw no sign of him until I spotted a cloud of smoke billowed past the kitchen window. I grabbed a bottle of beer, slid open the patio doors in the family room and stepped out on to the deck where Adam sat on the steps, staring at a cigarette burning in his hand.
Wordlessly, I handed him the beer. He twisted off the top, took a swig, all without looking at me. I wished he’d let me in, talk to me, tell me what he was thinking, but that wasn’t Adam’s style. I squeezed his shoulder and turned to go. A hand clutched mine and I froze. He didn’t want me to go? But why won’t he talk to me?
Adam blew out a long sigh. With my heart aching, I sat beside him, my hand still caught in his. I stole a look at him from under my lashes. His eyes were wet. Oh, my poor Adam. He finished the cigarette, snubbed it out in whatever drink had filled the red disposable cup beside him. He tipped the beer again and then offered me the bottle. I took a sip, coughed, and handed it back to him, delighted to see a curl to his lip.
“Light weight.” His voice was a harsh rasp. “You look nice.” When my eyebrows shot up, he managed half a laugh. “Yeah. A compliment. I’m losing my edge.” Another swig from the bottle. His eyes slid shut. “God, Eden, I’m sorry. About what I said the other night. I’m so sorry.”
Tears burned my throat and I pressed my face into his shoulder. “No. No, Adam. It’s my fault. All of this is my fault.”
He wrapped an arm around me, pressed his lips to my head. We stayed like that for a long moment. “It was her, Eden.” He whispered against my hair. “She took that money.”
Oh, no. I lifted my head.
“She admitted it. She’d taken the money to buy me a birthday present.”
A dozen questions circled my mind. His mother spoke to him? But that had to be -- oh. “Why? Why would she let you take the blame?”
“He…he beat her, Eden.” His face turned thunderous. “I never knew. He was careful not to leave visible marks. He threatened us – me, Amanda.”
And then he laughed.
“You know, she put the money back, figuring that would be the end of all the drama. But it only made it worse. She slipped the twenty-dollar bills into the wrong sock. In his eyes, that confirmed my guilt. In the end, she thought it was safer for me to be out of that house.”
Oh, God. She’d protected him. All this time, she’d been protecting him while he thought she’d abandoned him. My poor Adam.
I took his hand and squeezed. “She did love you. Always.”
