Page 23 of Someone Like You
“But navy for a summer wedding might not work if it’s in the daytime and …” Maddie took a quick breath. “Or maybe pale blue for summer because …”
Brooke took in every word. What had she been thinking earlier? Maddie was in the middle of the happiest time of her life. Of course she couldn’t ruin a day like this one with that sort of news.
Before she finished her salad, Brooke made a plan. She and Peter could tell Maddie the truth after the holidays. Plenty of time before the wedding. Yes, that’s what they would do. Brooke felt good about the new plan, and Peter would definitely be on board. What she refused to think about now or later when they looked at wedding dresses was how easy it had been to put off the truth.
One more time.
When Maddie absolutely deserved to know.
8
The sun had become Dawson’s enemy, waking him every morning and reminding him all over again. She would never call, never spend a day with him out on the river. He would never hear her laugh.
His London was gone.
This Sunday was no different. Dawson blinked a few times and looked out the window at the gray sky.The rain is back,he thought. After church he needed to go through his planner and organize the week. A big deal was closing Monday and they had a remodel meeting for an aging building in their portfolio. They needed to rework their plan to find a high-end tenant for a space with pricey square footage on the waterfront.
And then it hit him.
None of that was going to happen—not this week. Because London had stepped out of her car without looking and now … this morning … they would attend her memorial service. After that they would drive to the cemetery to bury her.
Forever.
Dawson had no idea how he got ready and climbed in his truck and made it to London’s funeral. Everything about the service was a blur. The dark suits and sunglasses, the flowers at the church she never attended, the hearse parked outside.
The pews were filled with her high school and college friends, along with family from Portland, Los Angeles and Ohio. Also a few girls she had danced with, and dozens of London Coffee regulars.
A pastor said a few words about life and the certainty of death. The fragility of time, and how the days were like sand. At least that’s what Dawson heard. He wasn’t really paying attention. Through it all, he kept his focus on a giant framed photo of London, eyes brimming with joy, smile brighter than the sun. She was holding her dog, Bingo. The golden retriever she had loved for the last eight years.
The perfect final picture of London Quinn.
Larry and Louise spoke next. They talked about how badly they had wanted a child and how London was the one they had believed for. They shared stories about London planting her baby doll in the backyard so it would grow into a baby doll plant, and how she had thought the Mojave desert was the Mo-Jave. With thejsound instead of theh. And how she videotaped herself singing Taylor Swift’s “The Best Day” for Louise one Christmas. How she had rescued a litter of bunnies one spring and how she dreamed of feeding a giraffe someday.
People laughed and cried as they listened.
All Dawson could think was that ten minutes of stories weren’t enough to tell them who London was, and why she was special. Or how desperately she would be missed.
Her parents would need a lifetime for that.
They moved from the church to the cemetery and a light rain began to fall. As if God, Himself, were weeping over the brokenness of the world and the way London’s young life had been cut short.
With everything in him, Dawson tried not to think about the fact that God could’ve prevented the accident. That was true, but it wasn’t at the same time. Earth was fallen. Broken. When his cousin in Maine lost her best friend to a drunk driver, Dawson was the first on the phone, first to help her through the loss.
“Life is like that here on earth. God isn’t the reason things go wrong,” Dawson had told her. “He’s the rescue. The only way home.”
They were words Dawson had told himself a hundred times since Wednesday.
London’s parents had asked him if he wanted to say a few words at the service. Dawson passed. How could he sum up what he felt for London in a paragraph at church or a few lines at a graveside service? He didn’t want to try.
The rain grew harder and the handful of people who had come for this part of the memorial moved their chairs under a tent near London’s plot. Dawson stayed in the rain. The same pastor was talking about man being dust to dust.
Dawson tuned him out. How could they be here, burying London? Maybe it really was a nightmare and all Dawson needed was a way to wake up. A few tears mixed with the rain on his face and he lifted his eyes to the towering evergreens in the distance, the same kind that had lined the mountainside on his hike with London just a week ago.
One week.
That was the craziest thing. That morning her whole life had stretched out in front of her. A life with him, something that looked more likely than ever that day. Her breakup with the other guy. Her questions about faith.Dawson wiped the water from his face. They were just on the brink.
He avoided looking at the hole in the earth. The pastor asked those in attendance to put a rose on the coffin before it was lowered into the ground. One last chance to give London a flower.
