She was the sigh as she kissed me goodnight when I was little. The brush of hair against my cheek when she forced a hug from my teenage loner self. The scent of expensive perfume as she walked through the room on her way to a black tie fundraising dinner with Dad. The gleeful eyes as I brought my first girlfriend home to meet her.
The only person in the world who told me that being Declan was my job. That finding out who I am was more important than being who everyone else wanted me to be.
Mom would have really, really loved Shannon. I came here a few weeks after I met Shannon and told the story of how we met. If she were alive, Mom would have been horrified, then laughed so hard she’d have waved her hands in front of her eyes, begging for mercy because her mascara was running.
She’d have insisted I bring Shannon home to meet her, and the two would have hit it off. Mom may have been Boston blue blood, but she was authentic, too. Polished and refined, but genuine.
Shannon is anything but polished and refined. In fact, she’s the very definition of rough around the edges. But she’s real and authentic, raw and mine—and I am so fucking angry that Mom never got the chance to see how happy we are.
Life really, really isn’t fair.
The only thing I can think to do right now is punch the tree. Eleven years ago, after all the cars were gone, the last red taillights rounding the corner to exit the cemetery, that’s exactly what I did.
Punched the tree until my knuckles bled so much they dyed the tree bark. Grace had stopped me, hugged me, and just held me, sobbing.
My hand must have been in better shape when I was eighteen, because one sickening thud and I’m all punched out, with bones that are screaming at me in glorious pain.
“Declan?” says a woman’s voice, older and smoother than Shannon’s. A light breeze tickles the leaves on the trees and I choke up, spooked.
“Mom?” I say, jumping like a ghost just appeared, my voice cracking like I’m going through puberty.
Her gravestone remains in place and I think I’m losing it. Hearing voices in a cemetery must be a form of mental illness, even if grief can make you want to believe they’re not really gone.
I’ve had eleven years, though. I know damn well she’s gone. All too well. Is this what unraveling feels like? Maybe I need to bag the whole proposal, because I don’t want to saddle Shannon with a husband who’s losing it.
Husband. I’m going to be her husband. The word hits me like a stone between the eyes and I look at Mom’s grave. Dad was her husband. Mom was the love of his life.
And she died.
All because of me.
“No, honey. It’s Marie.” I whip around and there she is, standing back, hands clasped in front of her and tentative. She reminds me of how Grace looked after everyone left the burial, just waiting in the wings until I was ready to leave, holding my bloody knuckles, arms around me as I stumbled to her car.
“Marie?” There are a wide variety of people I would expect to run into at my mother’s gravestone, but Marie doesn’t make the shortlist.
“I saw you in town and texted to see if you wanted to have coffee. Then I followed you.”
I clear my throat. She throws her hands up, palms facing me.
“I know! I know! Boundaries,” she says with a sad smile, looking at Mom’s gravestone. “I was just worried that someone had died.”
I raise one eyebrow. “We are in a cemetery.”
“I meant someone new had died. That something had gone wrong.” Her eyebrows meet in that pitying, older way that Grace has perfected. Marie has been taking lessons from someone, or else it’s a look that comes with menopause.
“No. No one new has died. Just my mom.” I look sadly at the gravestone.
Things fall apart.
So do people.
“Oh, Declan. It’s never ‘just’ when it comes to losing your mother. And you were so young when it happened.”
My mouth tightens in what is supposed to be a bitter smile but just feels like anger. “It’s been eleven years. I’m over it.”
“You never get over losing a parent.”
My eyes fill up with what I assume is an allergic reaction to something in this damn memorial park, because I don’t cry. Men don’t cry. That’s a McCormick family rule, too. We drink, we fuck, we excel, we dominate, but we don’t cry.
Marie moves her neck, looking up at me to catch my eye. Would my mom have those crow’s feet, too? She didn’t eleven years ago, but Marie has the advantage of living these eleven years. Of aging. Of mothering her children and being alive. The years wear a person down and leave an imprint on their face, their skin, their body, their heart.
But the alternative is so much worse.
“Declan? Why are you here?”
“Can’t a—” My throat is clogged and I try again. Damn allergies. Apparently, I’m developing them suddenly here. “Can’t a guy visit his dead mom once in a while without needing a reason?”
She nods. “Fair enough.” We stand in quiet, a lawn mower starting in the distance. The buzzing sounds just enough like a wasp that I flinch.
Marie’s eyes are alert and clever, watching me. But she doesn’t say a word.
“You look like James, but there’s something about you that must come from your mother,” she finally says. “Andrew is the spitting image of your father. I’ve never met your oldest brother. But you...” She smiles kindly and reaches up to brush a piece of hair out of my eyes. The gesture is unnerving. Motherly.
“It’s the hair, ironically,” I explain, pulling back a few inches so she can’t touch me.