Chapter 29: The venting
I’m sad because I’m not getting to have my baby,” Luna continued, her eyes already watering as she talked. “I just came from Dr. Gina, and she said how I was going to have to wait for a while before I can start the insemination process.”
Luna sat down on the cemented ground around her father’s grave, she continued stroking his grave.
“She said it was most likely stress that caused the delay, emotional stress,” Luna swallowed. “And I know the cause of the stress.”
Luna fell silent as she stared at her father’s tombstone. She remembered the last six months before his death. She remembered the toll his thoughts and guilt had taken on him. His thoughts about how he could pay off the debts he’d owed the Lakes, and his guilt at having to ship off his first daughter to the same family to be married as collateral for not paying off his debts.
Luna remembered all, and that was why she couldn’t even say his name in front of her dad now. Her dad hadn’t so much said the words before he died, but Luna personally took it as an abomination to speak Justin’s name in the presence of her father. His spirit, his ghost, his grave, anything as long as it was her father’s, Justin’s name was prohibited there.
“If I let what happened between us tie me up in knots and make me obsess and think about him all the time,” Luna continued, “then I’m allowing what happened years ago to happen all over again. I’m letting him take my baby away from me again.”
A mild afternoon breeze flittered by, whipping Luna’s hair around her face.
“And damned if I ever let that happen,” Luna’s voice rang with conviction. “I don’t need to sort through anything, like Gina had said. There is nothing to sort through, there is nothing between me and him. There never was, and there never will be. I am going to forget him, and what happened between us that night, like how I had to forget him three years ago to build myself back up after he broke me. I am going to forget him, and I am going to have my baby.”
Luna sat in silence for the next few minutes as she let her words settle deep in her heart.
She hadn’t just said them, she meant them. She wasn’t going to let Justin take the one thing she wanted the most in the world from her, never again. She was going to go to battle with him in her mind, and this time, she was going to win the war.
She glanced around her at the tombstones surrounding her. Rich, powerful and highborn. All of them had been in their lifetimes, she was sure of it. One, because of how rich and powerful and highborn their names sounded. And two, because the memorial ground they were buried in was a private one, and it belonged to an equally rich, powerful and highborn person like them. Clayton Pierre. A multi-billionaire who had several companies all around the world that were fetching him steady millions every month, and billions every quarter.
Luna hated his guts as much as he did hers, but that hadn’t mattered because his memorial ground had been where she had wanted to bury her father. And all because of a Red Sox legend.
Luna looked around her again, most of the names on the tombstones had probably been buried there because of the status of the graveyard and the status of its owner. But she’d buried her father here because Brandon Jones had believed his favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, had won their 2004 game because he had said a prayer for them while working his night shift at the cemetery.
He had been twenty years old, fresh out of college and still working odd jobs before he landed his first big break with the Lakes company. While he’d been sweeping the graveyards with one hand, he’d been listening to the game live on his Walkman. And when they’d been down 4-3 going into the bottom of the 9th, he had said a prayer. He had felt a wind blow past him, he had always said whenever he told the story, which was a lot, and he believed that that wind had been the answer to his prayers. Because barely a minute after the wind blew, Dave Roberts steals second.
Whenever her father had told that story, his eyes twinkled with the memory, and Luna had felt it was one of the greatest moments of his life.
So while others might be buried here for the fame, her father rested here because Luna and her sister and her mother had all agreed that he would be pleased with their choice.
Other tombstones also read titles and dignitaries that they were affiliated with, while Brandon Jones’ had three simple words. 'Father, Husband, Friend.' The three most important duties to him in his lifetime.
Feeling lighter, Luna let out a breath as she smiled at her father’s tombstone.
“I love you, dad,” she said.
And just like the words ‘I miss you’ were the first words she said whenever she came to visit him, ‘I love you’ was the last she said whenever she was leaving.
She stood up, dusting herself off. The rich might have been all-powerful and untouchable when they were alive, but dead, they are all just tombstones too.
Luna looked around one last time, saying her goodbyes silently when her phone rang in her pocket. She dipped her hand in to bring the phone out, she swiped on the call when she saw Rita’s name on the screen.
“Luna,” Rita said immediately after she picked up the call, “you have to come quick. A news is circulating about you in the press.”
Luna recognized the urgency in Rita’s voice, and knew that whatever the news was, it wasn’t good. Peaceful feelings and nostalgic memories instantly forgotten, Luna snapped into business mode.
“I’ll be right there,” she said into the phone.
She cut the call and made her way towards her car, she got in and started the ignition. She zoomed off, her promise to Paul about meeting him before she left already forgotten in her thoughts about how to handle the press.