Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Then he was asleep.
I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, I’d fallen asleep, too.
When I woke up, it was to find my phone ringing.
I shifted, feeling my son’s limp body shift with me, and only then realized that he was no longer the little ball of heat he’d been when he fell asleep. Now he was like a ball of ice.
My eyes startled open, and I felt panic hit my chest.
I looked over to find Izzy sleeping next to me, her head laying on my thigh.
My son’s foot was pressed against her forehead…and it was blue.
My phone rang again, and Izzy opened her eyes.
When she saw Ty-Ty’s blue foot, she gasped and got up onto the couch on her knees, a stricken look taking over her face in a matter of moments.
Our eyes met, and that was when I knew that my baby didn’t need palliative care at all.
Because he’d passed in my arms while I was asleep, and I didn’t even know it.
Still, she scooted forward until she could press two fingers to his throat, her eyes staying locked with mine.
And I knew then that she didn’t feel a pulse.
I felt my heart drop somewhere between my knees.
“You’re…you’re sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure.”
That was when Romero Pierce, father of Matias Pierce, ceased to exist, too.
In his place was a shell of a man that would never be the same.
Chapter 7
I don’t care what your religion is. Just use your goddamn turn signal.
-Izzy’s secret thoughts
Izzy
Planning a funeral was hard.
Planning a child’s funeral was even harder.
I wasn’t sure how I ended up being the liaison between the funeral home and Rome, but the man was in no shape to plan something like this.
At first, he’d said he didn’t want one at all.
After convincing him that he did, indeed, want one, he was just too devastated to plan it, so I’d taken over.
“What color casket do you want?” the funeral home director asked.
The funeral home director, a beautiful blonde with long, curly hair that hung down to nearly her waist even when it was bound in a ponytail. She was not at all what I’d expected in a funeral director, but she sure knew her stuff.
I looked at all the options.
“If money is an issue.” I held up my hand before she could finish.
“It’s not an issue,” I shook my head. “I’m just trying to remember what his favorite color is…was.” I paused. “Can we have a custom casket made?”
She nodded. “With children, that happens a lot more than you’d think. They’re decorated with their favorite animals…movie characters. That sort of thing.”
I looked at my phone, and then called Tyler, Rome’s best friend who’d been staying with him since last night.
“Hello?” Tyler answered quickly.
“Uh, hey,” I said softly. “The director just asked me what color casket I wanted. I know from looking at him that his favorite color was red, but could you do me a favor and put me on with the big guy? I think that his name was…Ezekiel?”
Moments later, a rumbly voice came on the line.
Last night, I’d watched as Ezekiel had drawn Matias a picture of Toothless and Hiccup, and I saw the huge smile on Ty-Ty’s face as he’d accepted it. Then asked if he could hang it up on the living room wall.
Rome hadn’t missed a beat and had gone and dismantled an old photo of what looked like an older couple, and immediately replaced it with the drawing.
It’d been on lined notebook paper, but neither Rome or Matias cared.
“Hello?”
I startled. “Oh, sorry. Umm, I was wondering…those bikes that you were talking about painting last night…do you think you could do it to a coffin, too?”
There was zero hesitation in Ezekiel’s voice when he answered. “Absolutely. If they have the coffin, I can start it tonight.”
I looked over at Jubilee, the funeral director, and asked her, “Do you have one available right now?”
She nodded. “Yes. He can pick it up any time.”
“Yes,” I said. “You can come pick it up any time.”
“I’m on my way,” he said.
Then the line was dead.
“What’s the next item on the list?”
And on it went. Detail after detail was hammered out until nothing remained but one thing—payment.
I handed her Rome’s credit card that he’d thrust at me as I’d walked out the door and said, “I don’t know what kind of limit this thing has…but let’s try it.”
Seventeen thousand two hundred dollars and three cents later, I realized that there was probably no limit at all.
***
My next stop was my Abuela’s.
“I need food enough to feed like two hundred people,” I told her. “It needs to be comfort food. There needs to be all different kinds, too. Do you think you can handle that in four days?”
My grandmother gave me a look that clearly said she wanted to laugh in my face.