Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
One thing—bad choices, or otherwise—didn’t define him.
Jacob was so much more than just that.
By a quarter past noon, the priest who had baptized Jacob and Lucas as children would say a few things. Lucas had put out requests to certain individuals, like Jacob’s old sponsor and his buddy from the gym that introduced him to the rescue, if they’d like a moment to say anything. Both had agreed.
All that left … was him.
Lucas was still trying to figure that bit out.
Well, he told himself, shifting the gear into park in one of three parking spots lining the front of the large funeral home designated to immediate family—the other two were empty, of course—you start by getting out of the fucking car, Lucas.
So, he did.
*
“A little birdy in HR told me that thirty people called in for a sick day at the brewery today,” came a quiet voice at Lucas’ left.
There, he found a grinning Nola.
“I can believe it,” Lucas told her, tipped his head toward the overwhelming crowd gathering in the gallery room. He ended up at the opened doorway between the entrance and gallery next to the director, despite being hesitant, because the crowd had parted for him the second he neared the front steps. Every pat on his back, muttered sorry, we loved Jacob, or otherwise made the ground a little easier to walk on.
He took the hug Nola offered.
A couple of steps behind her, Kimmie from accounting waved.
“Jacob always said hi whenever he stopped by the office,” the brunette explained, shrugging. “I thought it was fair to come say goodbye.”
Nola stepped back from Lucas with a nod of her own, and tear-filled eyes that she did her best to hide. “I’m really sorry, Lucas.”
“Thanks,” he managed, but his smile didn’t linger long.
It couldn’t.
Thankfully, nobody expected it from him today, either.
“No work talk today,” Nola said, shaking a finger at him, and then Kimmie, too.
“Who said anything about work?”
“Definitely not me,” Lucas said in a chuckle.
He took another hug from Nola, and a quick one from Kimmie, before the two women disappeared into the gallery to find seats before they all filled up. Lucas wouldn’t have to worry about that on his side of things. A change with a seating card just for him waited at the very front where he had a view of the slightly raised stage where Jacob’s silver urn sat in front of a large portrait of him taken only a few short months ago.
Grinning wide and carefree with water up to his ankles on the Bay of Fundy’s shore.
From his position between the two rooms, Lucas had a good view of the makeshift alter meant to honor his brother. He wasn’t sure what would happen to all the flowers, or what in the hell he would do with the portrait and collages, but each and every single thing he could take would be carefully loaded into the back of his Bronco for his safekeeping.
Another dozen guests down the line later, including a little boy—six, he’d told Lucas when asked his age—who had began fostering dogs with his mom and dad because of Jacob, and he started to feel like he needed a break.
The priest who would speak later chose that moment to slide in alongside Lucas with a heavy hand to his shoulder.
“How’re you doing?” Father Burke asked.
“Take a second,” the funeral director, keeping things on schedule and smooth, told Lucas.
He turned away with a nod, but didn’t leave his position at the door. Instead, he opted to speak to the Catholic priest while his gaze surveyed the reflection of his brother’s life made up of the gathered people and makeshift memorial of teddy bears and folded up letters making a pile under Jacob’s urn.
“I’m getting through it,” Lucas settled on telling the priest.
He had to look down to meet the short man’s eyes, but the bespectacled priest only squinted back with a sympathetic smile.
“I worry about you, Luke,” Father Burke told him. “It wasn’t so bad when I saw you every other week at church—at least then I could check in on you.”
Lucas opted not to discuss his decision to stop attending his family’s parish in Quispamsis. He had been the last Dalton to stop attending regular services, because as he’d gotten older, his philosophical beliefs didn’t necessarily align with what had been taught to him growing up. He didn’t find a connection to a deity sitting in hard pews or between the pages of the pocket Bible he’d kept for years up until he left it behind on Delaney’s workstation that day.
Besides, the blind faith thing never really worked out for Lucas.
If there was a God, and He did listen, then what did it matter?
God should already know what was in Lucas’ heart.
The important bits.
“Thank you for doing a small sermon today,” Lucas said to Father Burke. “I know Ronald probably asked you not to, but it means a lot.”