Seven squeezes my hand and I squeeze back, hoping that I can convey how grateful I am that she’s here. If she wasn’t holding me together I think I would have been shredded by guilt by now and I’d just blow away in a million little pieces.
We file into the funeral home and Tank greets us at the door. My head is a blur as I shake hands with so many people, none of whom I will remember later. We follow Gabe and Sasha up front and sit in the front row. Zack and Josie are already there. Sitting in the row behind us, I see Claire, Tank and Finn’s mom.
Carol, the assistant I hacked all those weeks ago, taps on the microphone set up in front of the casket.
“Hello. My name is Carol Ryan.” She glances down at the little scrap of paper in her hand. “I first met Max Marshall when I was a twenty-two-year-old waitress at an Irish pub in Boston. My parents had kicked me out and I was on my own for the first time. Max gave me a job. He took care of me then and I’ve been taking care of him ever since. He was more than just an employer. He was a friend.”
She stops to collect herself. After a few deep breaths, she motions behind her at the closed casket. “Max wasn’t one for making a fuss so he left explicit instructions that there aren’t to be any tears. Just reflections on a life well lived.”
She sits and someone else I don’t recognize gets up and reads a poem. Then a trio sings a sad lament in Gaelic that brings a lump to my throat even if I don’t understand a word of it. When the last mournful note trails off, people stand and start leaving.
I stand, content to just follow the flow of traffic when Tank leans over his seat and tugs my arm.
“Luke, come on. Max’s lawyer has something for us.”
“I’ll wait for you here.” Seven kisses me on the cheek and then goes to stand with Sasha, Josie and Emma.
Tank leads us into a room off the back. An older man meets us at the door and motions for us to come inside. He seems very somber and I wonder if it’s just because of the occasion or if he and Max were actually friends. I’ve never met this particular lawyer before but that’s not surprising. I’m pretty sure Max has always employed a team of them for his many interests.
He motions for us to sit in the chairs in front of the desk. There isn’t enough room so Tank and I lean against the wall near the door.
“Thank you for coming. I’m Harold Levitt. Mr. Marshall left explicit instructions for how he wanted his will to be read. So I’ll just proceed.”
Finn leans forward. “He told us he distributed his estate early. I assumed that we’d already received our inheritance.”
Mr. Levitt places a pair of wire frames on his face. “He distributed a portion of his estate earlier this year, that’s true. However, he has bequeathed an additional sum to each of you.”
He clears his throat and begins to read.
I, Maxwell Marshall, direct my executors to pay all estate and inheritance taxes. I give all my tangible personal property to my sons, Tanner, Finnigan, Gabriel, Zachary and Lucas subject to the following conditions …
It all sounds like a lot of legalese to me but halfway through Tank starts chuckling. Gabe follows suit and then Zack. Finn just smiles with a hand over his mouth.
“Why are you all laughing?” I ask, shocked that they would be this disrespectful while our father’s will is being read.
Mr. Levitt doesn’t seem at all concerned and in fact when he lowers the paper he’s been reading from, I see he’s smiling as well.
Tank looks over at me. “Even in death, Max can’t resist having the last laugh. He’s put conditions on us receiving the remainder of his money. Just like last time. The cranky old bastard wants us all to get married and have kids before we inherit the rest.”
Finn shakes his head. “I bet he had a grand time coming up with this idea. It’s almost like he’s still here.”
Mr. Levitt puts down the document he’s been reading from. “This is the part where I’ve been instructed to stop reading that boring shit, as Max called it and read his personal missive to you.”
He picks up a white envelope and pulls out a single sheet of paper. It’s a distinctive shade of blue.
My sons.
If you’re hearing this, I’m finally gone. I hope you got a bit of a laugh out of my last will and testament. Had to throw a few curveballs in there just to shake things up. I meant what I told Carol about no tears. This isn’t a time for sadness but for joy. Knowing all of you was the culmination of a lifelong dream. You are all the embodiment of the man I could never be.
Until the next lifetime,
Max
Mr. Levitt places the letter carefully back in the envelope. Then he leans down and pulls out a bottle of Jameson.
“Your father requested that we share a drink in his honor. His favorite Irish whiskey for his favorite Irish boys. His words.”
He pulls out five glasses and pours a little in each. Tank hands one back to me and I stare at the amber liquid, Max’s last words to us rolling around in my head.
We all take a sip and then Tank starts laughing again.
“Only Max could turn a funeral into a pub crawl.”
They all laugh again but I can’t summon any levity. I’m burdened not just by the loss but by my part in it. Looking back I’m not sure that I would do anything differently. I had a hand to play and I played it. Max himself seemed to understand why I was doing it. He called it doing what I had to do. But none of it matters now, does it?
The end result is the same. He’s still gone.
I walk out, their laughter echoing behind me. I walk past the girls still sitting in the front row before the altar and past the people congregating in the lobby. Maybe if I walk far enough I can forget that doing what I had to do came at a very high price.
One I’m not yet sure how to live with.
chapter fourteen
†
SEVEN
I trot out of the funeral home and look frantically left and right. When Sasha told me she saw Luke walk past, I assumed he was going to the bathroom or just out front to get some air. Not that he wouldn’t be coming back.
But it’s been an hour and there’s no sign of him.
“We drove around the block and didn’t see him. Did you try to track his cell phone?”
I nod. That was the first thing I tried. I’m too embarrassed to admit that he’s deliberately turned his GPS off. He doesn’t want to be found. But that doesn’t mean that I can just give up. Tank said that he was upset after hearing his father’s last letter.
Even if he doesn’t think he wants company right now, he needs it. No one should be alone while they’re hurting. I know all too well how that feels.
Another ten minutes goes by and then I see something at the end of the street. “Is that him?”
Tank has been leaning against his car talking on his phone but stands at my shout. He shades his eyes with his hand. He nods at me and then tells whoever is on the other end of the phone, “We found him. I’ll call you back.”
Luke is walking on the sidewalk, his head down so he hasn’t noticed us yet. By the time he gets closer I can see that he looks all disheveled. The legs of his pants are dusty like he’s been walking for a long time.
“You’re all dirty.”
He looks down at his shoes. “Yes. I am.”