Chapter 367 Confession
ADRIANA
The cemetery stretched before us in shades of gray and green, the headstones rising from the wet earth like teeth. We gathered at the freshly dug grave, the mound of dark soil covered by a tarp to protect it from the morning rain. But it was the dimensions that caught my attention—the hole was wider than standard, deeper somehow, more expansive than any burial plot I'd seen before.
Roy noticed my confusion and managed a ghost of a smile, the expression grotesque on his grief-ravaged face. "She was claustrophobic," he explained, his voice rough as gravel. "Ever since she was a child. She couldn't stand small spaces, elevators, crowded rooms." He paused, swallowing hard. "I couldn't bear the thought of her in a standard coffin, in a tight grave. She needs room to breathe. Even now."
The words shattered something inside me. I reached for Elijah's hand, finding his fingers already extended to meet mine. We stood together, our joined hands hidden by the folds of my black coat, and watched as Roy approached the casket.
He spoke to her then, his voice too low for the gathered mourners to hear, but I caught fragments on the wind—promises and apologies, declarations of love that would never be answered.
He told her about the children, about how the youngest had asked for her that morning, about how the world had already begun to feel dimmer without her light. He stayed there for nearly twenty minutes, his forehead pressed against the polished wood, while the rest of us stood in the rain-slicked grass and pretended not to witness his breaking.
The weather had turned malicious overnight, as if the sky itself mourned Marie's passing. Rain fell in sheets during the drive to the cemetery, and though it had slowed to a drizzle by the time we arrived, the dampness permeated everything—our clothes, our bones, the very air we breathed. It made the already somber occasion feel cinematic in its tragedy, a scene from some Gothic novel where the elements conspired to amplify human sorrow.
The reception at Roy's house was a blur of casseroles and whispered condolences. The dining room was filled with contributions from pack members—lasagnas and salads, breads and desserts. The food had been arriving since the previous evening, a steady stream of neighbors and acquaintances determined to feed grief even when appetite had fled.
I positioned myself in a corner near the window, Elijah beside me, watching as Roy moved through the crowd like an automaton. He accepted embraces, returned handshakes, thanked people for coming.
The children remained upstairs, sequestered in the game room where Leo had established a perimeter of normalcy—video games and pizza. Only Roy's eldest son moved among the guests, his young face set in an expression of premature maturity, standing sentinel beside his father.
When the last guest had been thanked and the final casserole dish emptied, Roy climbed onto the bottom step of the grand staircase, commanding silence with his presence alone. The room fell quiet, the shuffle of feet and clink of glasses ceasing as all eyes turned to him.
"I want to thank everyone for coming," he began, his voice carrying despite its roughness. "Marie would have been overwhelmed to see so many faces here, to know that she mattered to so many." He paused, his gaze drifting to the window, to the gray sky beyond. "It's a tragedy that it takes death to bring us together. She spent her life reaching out, checking on people, remembering birthdays and anniversaries. She deserved this crowd while she lived, not while she lies in the ground."
He gripped the banister, his knuckles white. "I don't have many words left. The past week has emptied me of language. But I loved my wife. I loved her with a ferocity that frightened me sometimes, with a depth I didn't know I was capable of until I met her." His voice cracked, but he pushed through. "She was the light of my life. The center of my gravity. And I know—I know—that light doesn't just extinguish. It transforms. It becomes memory, and memory is stronger than death."
He stepped down then, the speech concluded, and the room erupted in applause that felt inappropriate and necessary all at once. People surged forward to embrace him, to offer final words of comfort before departing into the afternoon.
The guards helped with cleanup once the house emptied. I climbed the stairs to check on the children, finding them sprawled in various states of exhaustion—Lorain asleep on a beanbag chair, the twins arguing quietly over a video game controller, Leo staring out the window with an expression too old for his years. I kissed each forehead, murmured reassurances, and retreated to find my own solace.
Elijah found me in the hallway, his hair still damp from the rain, his tie loosened in a way that signaled the formal portion of the day had ended. "I'm taking Roy out," he said, his hand warm on my shoulder. "Just for a drink. He needs to talk, and he won't do it here, surrounded by her things."
"Go," I said immediately. "He needs you. Guy time, no audience."
Elijah's eyes searched my face. "You're sure? You could come. You were her friend too."
I shook my head, reaching up to adjust his collar, to feel the pulse in his throat beneath my fingertips. "He needs his brother right now. Not his Queen. Take him somewhere he can cry without performing."
Elijah kissed my forehead and disappeared down the stairs. I heard the front door close, the low rumble of male voices fading into the distance.
The house felt suddenly vast, hollowed out by absence. I wandered through the rooms, searching for Hazel, finding only empty spaces and the echoes of earlier crowds. She wasn't in the kitchen, wasn't checking on the children, wasn't in any of the guest rooms where she'd been staying. I called her phone twice, got voicemail both times, and felt the first stirrings of genuine concern.
I found her eventually on the second-floor balcony, a space I'd overlooked in my search. She stood at the railing, her back to the house, facing the storm clouds that were gathering again on the horizon. The wind whipped her gray hair into a wild halo, and in her hand, she held a tumbler of amber liquid that caught the fading light.
I stepped onto the balcony quietly, not wanting to startle her, and took up a position beside her at the railing. The view was spectacular from here—rolling hills and dense forest, the territory stretching toward a horizon dark with approaching weather. The wind carried the scent of rain and earth, clean and violent.
"I've been looking for you," I said, my voice pitched to carry over the wind.
Hazel didn't turn, but I saw her grip tighten on the glass. "I needed air," she said. "The house was suffocating me."
I glanced at her drink, recognizing the color of good bourbon. "I don't think I've ever seen you drink hard liquor before," I observed. "Wine at dinner, champagne at celebrations. But never bourbon."
She lifted the glass, studying it as if seeing it for the first time. "It's not helping," she admitted. "I thought it would numb things, make the edges softer. Instead, I just feel everything more acutely. The alcohol strips away the defenses."
"Why do you need defenses?" I asked, though I suspected I knew the answer.
She turned to me then, and her eyes were red-rimmed, swollen with tears she hadn't bothered to hide. "Because I loved him," she said, the words exploding into the space between us. "I loved Roy. I have loved him for fifteen years, and I never said a word, never acted on it, never gave either of us the chance to see what might have been."