Page 44 of Beside the Rolling Waves
As he closed the door and glanced over at Becky, he almost thought she wanted to roll her eyes. She just had a look on her face that said that they weren’t friends.
He looked away. He wanted them to be. He wanted them to be more. But even if they were more, underneath that more needed to be a solid foundation of friendship, which meant trust, which meant that when something terrible happened to him, he should trust her and be able to tell her. It also meant that he wouldn’t go and sleep with some woman he didn’t even like, and barely knew, when he was supposed to be waiting for the only woman who had ever caught his eye and his interest.
Yeah. He hadn’t been a very good friend.
“Hello, Mr. Carson. Is it okay if I don’t get up?” Becky said as she sat, looking decidedly uncomfortable, on the couch.
“Certainly. I understand.”
“You can sit in the chair or here on the couch if you’d like,” she said.
“I’ll go ahead and sit on the couch,” Mr. Carson said, arranging himself and his papers as he sat.
Rodney wondered if he should offer him some refreshments. He decided not to but took his place on the recliner, sitting on the edge, because he didn’t feel completely comfortable sitting back. He felt like he needed to protect Becky. But there really wasn’t anything for him to do. There was no way to protect her from this. She just had to face it. He wished that Mr. Carson had taken the recliner so he could at least be beside Becky, close enough to touch her if he needed to.
Maybe he should have stood behind her with a hand on her shoulder.
Something told him she wouldn’t have appreciated that right now with their relationship the way it was.
He sat and listened while Mr. Carson talked and then showed Becky the various choices she had.
Becky didn’t want to have a huge funeral, and she’d already talked to Rodney about that. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her sister, it was just there wasn’t much extended family, and neither Rita nor Becky wanted to make a big show. She didn’t know where to have it or how.
She didn’t know what to do, and he could see she was struggling. There were the babies to consider, and it was cold.
“I understand you don’t want cremation, but you do know that it’s cheaper.”
Becky nodded, and she worried her bottom lip.
Rodney thought it might be time for him to step in. “I’m taking care of the expenses for everything, and it doesn’t matter what the cost is. Whatever Becky decides, I will be paying for it. In full, and today, if possible.”
Mr. Carson raised his brows, and from that point on, he didn’t ignore Rodney the way he had when he first came in.
Rodney didn’t necessarily need the extra attention, and he hadn’t spoken up because of that. He’d spoken up because of the worry in Becky’s brows. She sold her horses, and he knew that she might have done it just for the time factor. But she also said about needing to buy a reliable car. He and Rita had talked about that, and Rita hadn’t been too concerned about Becky’s financial situation, but then Becky had said something about living in an unfinished apartment above the horse stable, and he wondered… How exactly was she making money? It didn’t sound like she had any bookings at all, and… Maybe she was worse off than what he thought.
He wondered if he could dig into it without asking her. But he didn’t know who he could ask. He had already checked in with Davis and Matt, and they said they hadn’t been in touch with her much.
Who else could he check with who wouldn’t go straight to Becky and ask?
He always thought that if he wanted to know something, especially about someone he liked and cared about, he should ask them directly. So rather than trying to figure out how he could go behind her back, he decided he would ask her as soon as the funeral director left.
It took an hour to go through all the things, and by then, the babies were done being fed, they had been burped, and Kevin had gone back to sleep. Marley was fussing, and Becky had stood up and was swaying gently back and forth.
“I can take her,” he offered as he put Kevin down in the car seat. Kevin stirred a bit but then curled himself back up and settled right back down.
“Thank you,” she said. The funeral director had her fill out a couple of forms, and then he said, “I can give you the total now, and if your friend would like to write out a check, that’s perfectly fine. Or we can bill you later.”
How awkward it must be to have to talk about death and payment all in the same business transaction.
Rodney was glad he had never gone into the funeral business. Although, he had heard that it was quite lucrative.
Becky held her arms out for Marley, and they switched her back. He was close enough to Becky to smell her scent and feel her warmth.
That was how close he wanted to be all the time. He wanted to have the right to stand there.
But he slid the baby back into her arms and prevented himself from lingering. Going to his briefcase, he got his checkbook out and wrote out a check. He hadn’t even thought to ask if the man took electronic payments. He almost bet he did. Everybody did nowadays.
Still, it was taken care of now. The mechanics of it anyway. The emotions would linger for a while. He read somewhere that someone who was successful gave himself a limited amount of time to feel bad, and then they forced themselves to look on the positive side and see whatever opportunities had been exposed by the bad thing that happened. It was a ridiculously short amount of time, like thirty minutes or something.
