No.
Genny had picked a picture of when Marilyn was young and beautiful. Smiling candidly, sitting outside in the sun at a table with a coupe glass filled with pink liquid held in her hand. Her lips were her signature perfect red, her lush, seductive eyes that came from her Italian heritage slightly narrowed with laughter. A devil-may-care aura around her that was so strong, it was captured on film.
That was the Marilyn he remembered.
That was the Marilyn who would idle in her car at the curb an hour to midnight on his birthdays while Genny and Duncan would creep up his lawn and free him of the hell that was his home. That was the Marilyn who had a birthday cake waiting for him at her house. Where they sang the song to him and he blew out the candles. And even when the years had passed and it was Duncan who was driving, because he’d gotten old enough to do it, Gen as always at his side, they’d come get him, but it was Marilyn who made sure there was cake.
Candles.
Ice cream.
And presents.
That was just one of the many things she did in the decades Corey had known her that made Marilyn more precious to him than his own mother.
Because his own mother had done none of that.
Not on his birthdays.
Not ever.
Indeed, he had an enormous cache of memories of the woman in that picture. A woman who got more out of life in a small town in Illinois than practically anyone he’d met in all his dealings and travels, outside her daughter, her son-in-law and her grandchildren.
Because she’d taught Imogen right.
Life was meant to be lived.
And along the way, you took care of the people that mattered.
Imogen, like her mother, was a master at both.
He stared at that portrait and then he looked left.
Tom was in the end seat of their row, by the aisle, but Genny had leaned forward to dab her eye with a handkerchief.
Tom didn’t miss it and he turned to his wife, his broad back blocking Corey’s view of Gen but exposing Matt and Sasha on Genny’s other side.
The rest of that row was empty.
A familiar feeling rushed up his throat, filling it, temporarily causing him to experience blind panic that it would suffocate him as he returned his attention to Marilyn’s portrait.
They were one down.
One down.
Someone should be there, and he was not.
He should be there.
Marilyn adored him.
She’d want him there.
Genny needed him there.
Corey needed him there.
But Duncan was not there.
Because of Corey.
The feeling in his throat cleared when he felt a touch on his hand.
He turned to his right to see Chloe gazing at him from under her hat-veil.
“She liked you,” she said, and it was not lost on him what she meant.
She wasn’t being cruel.
As was her way, she was being honest.
In his entire world, only four people had truly liked him.
Genny.
Marilyn Swan.
Robert Swan.
And Duncan Holloway.
Until he made that last person walk away.
And stay away.
“She loved you,” he replied.
It was the wrong thing to say.
If a single look could share the world had just ended, Chloe’s did right then.
He’d forgotten.
He’d forgotten how close those two were.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, “of course, you already knew that.”
“It’s all right,” she whispered, having turned her gaze to the spray of flowers.
“Did you pick those?” he asked.
“I said red. Blood red. Like her signature lipstick. Mom picked those,” she told him. And then, “Of course, Mom was right. Gram would love that arrangement. Particularly the fact there are about a hundred more roses than are needed and Mom asked for it to be broken down when this is all done and the bouquets made from it sent around to the local nursing homes.”
He was not surprised at all that Genny requested this.
At this juncture, it seemed the low drone of voices in the packed space (save the front row, it was just Genny’s immediate family…and Corey in the front row) was dying away, so Cory looked over his shoulder to see the pastor making his way down the aisle.
The service was about to begin.
The man stopped at Genny and Tom, bent and took Genny’s hand, held it, speaking to her at the same time nodding, like he was agreeing with his own self.
Corey wanted to tackle him, demand he not touch her, just get his ass up front, say his words and get this done so Gen was not sitting in front of a room full of people. Some of them family. Some of them friends. Marilyn was social and popular.
But a lot of them, he knew, were craning their necks to get a good look at Imogen Swan, Tom Pierce…
And Corey Szabo.
“This, she’d hate,” Chloe said, and Corey returned his attention to her.
“She would,” he agreed, moving his gaze back to the pastor.
“She was religious and everything, but she told me she just wanted us to cremate her, have a big party, no tears, no ceremony, lots of booze and fattening food, and when we got back home, throw her ashes in the ocean.”
The ocean.
Corey actually had to close his eyes for a moment as that memory assailed him.
Though, only a moment.
“It’s good I have a driver,” he noted as they both watched the pastor leave Gen and Tom and start to move to the front of the room where the lectern was next to the spray and the picture.
“Why?” Chloe asked.
“Because, if your mom and dad don’t already have said plan, you and I are going out to get shitfaced drunk.”
Chloe snorted, and startled, because Corey did not often (as in hardly ever) make anyone laugh, he slid his gaze to her.
Her lips were trembling with the effort it took for her to stop smiling.
“Are you in?” he asked.
“Can we drink pink ladies?” she returned.
Marilyn’s preferred drink.
In fact, the portrait before them shared that.
“You can, I will not,” he refused.
He caused no offense. Quite the contrary, her lips were trembling again.
“I will also buy you two dozen of them, if that’s what it takes,” he offered.
“If you’re buying, you’re on.”
“Excellent,” he muttered just as the pastor cleared his throat.
The man started speaking, and the good news was, he knew Marilyn and he liked her. Therefore, even as he began, his tone was warm, and it was clear he was feeling his own grief.
Excellent.
That would soothe Genny.
Chloe leaned into Corey so far her arm was pressed to his.
“Uncle Corey?”
He turned his head and tipped his chin down to catch her gaze.
“Thank you,” she said.
He stared into her pretty brown eyes, wondering what another girl who had a different father but the same mother might look like.
He then shut that thought away, grabbed Chloe’s hand and faced front.
He would feel it minutes later, and in doing so, it would make him again turn his head left.
To see Gen angled a bit forward, her eyes aimed at Corey holding her daughter’s hand.
She caught his attention on her, lifted her gaze to his and gave him a small, grateful smile that did nothing to alleviate the anguish on her face.
That smile made Corey feel good.