Page 79 of Steel & Jenna
Jack squeezed her hand reassuringly. A weight lifted off of his chest as he looked again at Mr. Zarin. “Are you sure? I won’t stay today for you to kick us out later.”
Mr. Zarin’s grip changed from Jack’s shoulders to cup his face. “Never going to happen, son. I swear it. I know where the blame lies for what happened here today, and it’s not with you. I willneverblame you for what happened to my Daphne.”
A tear ran down Jack’s cheek. “I blame me.”
Mr. Zarin nodded. “I know. We’re going to work on that.” He dropped one hand from Jack to pull Lilly against his side. “Together. Okay?”
Jack’s nod was stiff. He felt like his head weighed too much for his neck. He fell forward against Mr. Zarin’s chest, wrapping his arm around Lilly’s back too. The three of them clung to each other, sharing in their grief and the harsh knowledge that their little family got a little bit smaller that day.
Tonight, he’d grieve.
Tomorrow, he’d fix what his grief had broken. He had to track down his woman and grovel for her forgiveness.
1 year,1 month, 28 days
Things moved very quickly the next few days. Lilly started to sleep in Jack’s room again and Jack kept finding Mr. Zarin sleeping on thecouch in the mornings. Not that he could blame the man, but he also wasn’t sure Mr. Zarin had entered his bedroom since. Neither Jack nor Mr. Zarin went to work and neither Jack nor Lilly went to school. Other than going to the funeral home to pick out Mrs. Zarin’s casket, the three of them hadn’t left the house.
A blanket had been nailed to the kitchen wall to cover the window so none of them had to look out into the backyard.
Neighbors brought over food. Teachers from the elementary school and parents of students Mrs. Zarin had taught stopped by with words of condolences, pies, and casseroles. The ironic part was that none of them were all that hungry in the days leading up to the funeral.
Chief Cunningham stopped by a few times. He brought with him a lady from social services, which had scared the shit out of Jack and Lilly at first. As of the present, no one had been able to track down Fiona Duncan, Jack and Lilly’s mother. Social services agreed to leave Jack and Lilly under the guardianship of Mr. Zarin but advised that Jack get emancipated to take custody of Lilly. Since their mom had not been a part of their lives for nearly three years, her parental rights were considered terminated by abandonment.
It was still better if Jack got custody legally. Mr. Zarin and Chief Cunningham were going to look into finding Jack a family lawyer who specialized in child custody and emancipation cases. If Jack got custody of Lilly, then he could issue guardianship to Mr. Zarin.
Neither Jack nor Lilly wanted anything to do with the burial or service of John Duncan. It seemed no one in town did. The trailer would be cleaned out by someone else and his car could be taken to a junkyard and scrapped for all Jack cared. Chief Cunningham said the town was paying for a grave for him. Jack told the Chief that he didn’t want to know where and just asked that it wasn’t in the same cemetery as Mrs. Zarin.
As the days went by, Jack tried to call Jenna. He wasn’t sure if she had returned to Seattle or had stayed in Port Townsend, but she was answering neither of her phone lines. He’d left over two dozen messages apologizing and begging for her to call him back.
He had plans to drive down to Seattle after the funeral to find her.
None of them slept Friday night. Mrs. Zarin’s service was at ten the next morning, followed by the graveside burial, and then the reception. Despite that none of them had left it, the house had an emptiness to it, a staleness. At times it felt like there was a sound missing and the house was rebelling against the absence.
Jack knew what was missing. It was the clatter of her in the kitchen, of her laughter and her off-key singing, of her heels on the linoleum, and the soprano of her voice.
If this was how the main rooms in the house felt without her, Jack couldn’t imagine the absence Mr. Zarin felt in their bedroom. No wonder the man had been sleeping on the couch.
Jack helped Lilly with her hair the morning of the service. He was a poor substitute for Mrs. Zarin and Lilly had cried her way through him trying to put her hair up into pigtails with black ribbon.
Mrs. Cunningham had brought a black dress for Lilly and a suit for Jack. It hadn’t even crossed Jack’s mind that they would need those things until the day before, so he was grateful for her foresight. The Chief’s wife had also gone into Mr. and Mrs. Zarin’s bedroom to pick out a dress for Mrs. Zarin to be buried in, along with some jewelry for the viewing.
The church sanctuary was packed. Jack and Lilly sat in the front pew next to Mr. Zarin, who looked like he was a breath away from passing out. Chief Cunningham was staying close to him, as if he sensed the same thing.
Sniffles and sobs filled the high ceiling of the church. The long aisle leading up to the podium and altar was packed with people waiting patiently to pay their respects. An organist was playing softly in the background.
Mrs. Zarin was laying in her casket at the top of the predella, surrounded by hundreds of flowers. A casket spray was resting on a table beside her for when they closed the lid at the start of the service.
She could have been sleeping, she looked so peaceful. Her hair was down, flowing beautifully over her shoulders. The gold earrings and necklace matched her wedding band. The dress Mrs.Cunningham had helped pick out was a lovely lavender with a white shawl.
In her hand was a quarter, though no one but a fair few knew why.
Just before ten, the pastor came up to inform the family they were about to close the casket and now was the time to say their final goodbye.
Jack helped Lilly to her feet while Chief Cunningham aided Mr. Zarin. The man swayed slightly before getting his feet under him. He was in his military full dress uniform, complete with a chest full of medals. Jack knew he would have given up every single one of them for just one more day with the woman he loved.
Lilly looked over the edge of the casket. She leaned over but wasn’t tall enough to reach Mrs. Zarin. Jack picked her up so she could place a kiss on her cheek. Carefully, he lowered her back down to the maroon carpeted floor. She walked down the narrow stairs to where Mrs. Cunningham was waiting to bring her back to the pew.
Jack stood a step back, allowing Mr. Zarin to come forward. Whatever color had been on the man’s face drained as his eyes fell on his wife’s ashen features. He bowed his head over the casket, gripping the edge with white-knuckled fingers.
