I was fine. The heart is more resilient than anyone ever gave it credit for, and I liked to think mine was a bad bish.
I rushed through pouring way too much milk into my cup, mixing in the coffee, giving it all a stir, and then hauled my ass downstairs so I could get to work.
I was fine. I was loved. I had everything I really needed. And my sister had made cherry pie, and I was pretty sure she’d put some into my lunch bag. That was definitely something great about today.
I’d been at Cooper’s for so long I could have gotten around with a blindfold, luckily. Down the stairs and straight forward was the main floor where the repairs and remodels happened. Down the stairs and to the left, then straight, I could take the hall that would lead to the part of the building where I worked. It wasn’t anything fancy, but there were two big bay doors. One that led into the hallway connected to the main floor and another that opened to the parking lot surrounding the building. The rest of the room was pretty sparse, containing a desk with a computer and printer on it, three different machines used to agitate the paint, a big industrial sink with soaps and products beside it, and a couple of chairs. The big, white booth set up against a corner took up a third of the room.
I’d already dropped off my things when I’d first showed up. I set my tumbler on the desk and went to unlock the drawer to get the folders for the projects I’d be working on. I opened the first one and had just started reading through what needed to be done, when my ringtone went off.
With my eyes still on the folder, I opened the drawer my purse was in and pulled my phone out.
I only hesitated for a second. It was the same number that had called and texted me last week. The one I had ignored.
Screw it.
I answered it. “Hello?”
There was a sound on the other end of the line before a voice I didn’t recognize answered, “Hello, can I please speak with Miss Luna Allen?”
Miss Luna Allen? That was formal. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had used the m-word on me. “Hi, this is me.”
“Oh,” the unfamiliar male voice answered. “Hello, Miss Allen. How are you today?”
“I’m doing great,” I lied a little. “How are you?”
“I’m well. Thank you for asking,” the man replied. “My name is Julius Randall, and I’m calling on behalf of Miss Eugenia Miller.”
At the mention of my grandmother’s name, my chest went tight. I hadn’t heard her name in… years. Not since I had gone to pick up Thea, Kyra, and Lily from her house.
Don’t come back here, Luna, she had told me the last time I’d seen her. Take them and none of y’all come back.
And I hadn’t. None of us had.
“Is everything… okay?” I asked, ignoring how quiet my voice had gotten.
“Unfortunately, Miss Miller passed away Saturday evening.”
I swallowed and blinked at the timeframe.
“I attempted to contact you when she first went into the hospice…” He trailed off before clearing his throat. “She specifically requested that I reach out to you.”
She had wanted me to know that she was sick?
I hadn’t….
Something heavy—guilt, it was freaking guilt—settled right onto my chest. Had he called me before because she’d been asking for… maybe not me specifically, but my sisters? To see them one last time? To make sure we got to say goodbye, even if she wasn’t aware of it?
“I’m so sorry,” I muttered, trying to process his words. “I haven’t spoken to my grandmother in years.”
There was a pause on the other end. “I apologize for being the bearer of bad news, Miss Allen, but she made it very clear that when the time came, that she wanted you to be informed.”
It seemed like the words got sucked straight out of my mouth. I didn’t wonder why she wanted that. I knew she had cared for my sisters. She had taken them in for three years before she had decided they would be better off far, far away from the rest of the family. She had told us not to come back.
We had never been that close in the first place, and… because life had gotten so crazy after that, I hadn’t kept in touch. I hadn’t realized that my siblings wouldn’t have either. We rarely ever talked about life before they had come to Houston.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked, heaviness still weighing down on my chest.
“She suffered complications from pneumonia,” the man on the line explained in a gentle but professional voice. “She had been diagnosed with dementia a few years ago. The funeral arrangements have been settled. There was an announcement in the paper. The funeral will be this upcoming Thursday.”
“This Thursday?”
“I apologize if this seems last minute,” the man apologized, too polite to say that he’d tried to warn me she wasn’t doing well. “I can provide you with the service information if you’re interested in attending.”
Interested in attending her funeral?
The reality of what that meant suddenly clicked but…
My grandmother had wanted me to go. Or at least one of my sisters. Otherwise she wouldn’t have asked her lawyer to contact me. She had wanted us to know.
I didn’t want to go.
I felt terrible for thinking that but…
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want Kyra or Thea or Lily to go either. No. Way.
She had known there was a reason why we hadn’t physically seen each other since I was twenty. Yet she had still asked at some point when she had been well enough to make that kind of request. After everything Grandma Genie had done… taking in three kids while I’d been off in Houston, hundreds of miles away, working and trying to piece my life together, I could do it. For her.
Oh, God, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t freaking want to. I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t.
The idea of my little sisters going was even more unbearable.
Memories of my life before I’d been seventeen, before I’d gotten the hell out of that house, ripped right through me and one of my knees instantly went numb.
I didn’t want to go.
“Miss Allen?” the man spoke up.
I swallowed and clenched the muscles in my quads to wake my leg back up. I remembered everything good in my life.
And I still didn’t want to fucking go.
I didn’t want to see anyone, not in this lifetime or the next, if I was going to be totally honest.
“Miss Allen, are you there?”
I didn’t want to see any of them. I had told myself that when I left, I never would ever again. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t.
But Grandma Genie asked. Grandma Genie who had taken care of the girls when you couldn’t. Who had called you to come for them.
I fisted my free hand and felt this horrible sense of anxiety wrap around my heart, stealing the breath right out of me.
She had asked for me specifically.
It was the least I could do.
I don’t want to go.
I didn’t want to see the biggest assholes on the planet.
But Grandma Genie….
“I’m here,” I muttered, flexing my quad muscles again. I couldn’t even stand the sound of my own voice as I replied, and I sure didn’t like the sound of it as I said, “Can you give me a second to get a piece of paper so I can write down the information?”
“Of course, Miss Allen. While you do that, I would like to inform you about a matter of an inheritance that Miss Miller endowed on you in her will. There are some forms you’ll need to fill out and return to me—”
I hated how much my hand shook as I wrote down the name and the address of the funeral home, memorizing the time for it. I let the information about inheritance go in one ear and out the other. None of that mattered to me even a little bit, especially not when I was too focused on all the rest of the news that came with Grandma Genie passing away in the first place. On what going to her funeral might mean.
I thought I was better than this. I thought I had gotten over it. I had grown up. Gotten stronger.
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to fucking go. Not to San Antonio. Not to anywhere near San Antonio.