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THE OBJECT OF LOVE
SHARON CULLARS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 1
Through her haze, Lacey barely heard the minister’s prayer. Instead, she scanned the bowed heads, still surprised at the number of friends Calvin had made in his twenty-one years. That small consolation did little to ease the ache tearing her apart. All of the platitudes, the well-wishes, even her faith rang hollow at her loss.
She couldn’t find it inside herself to pray. She was angry—at God, at life, hell, even at Calvin, who had tempted fate one too many times and now lay enclosed in the ebony coffin half lowered in the crypt. She didn’t think she would be able to survive hearing the motorized whirring as the coffin travelled the last distance, or the sound of the dirt thrown on the burnished wood. That was her baby in there. It shouldn’t be over, not this soon. Not this way.
Tears blinded her as a tremor shook her body. She fought hard against a total meltdown; Calvin never liked it when she made a scene.
“Ah, c’mon, Ma, you’re not gonna start with the tears again,” she could hear him saying in her mind.
“No, baby,” Lacey whispered to him. “I’m not going to make a scene.”
She felt her mother’s hand tighten around her own, although the older woman’s head was still bowed. Her sister Estelle sat on her other side, tears trailing down her cheeks. She lifted a wadded tissue to wipe them away, but they were quickly replaced with a newer downpour. Calvin’s godmother as well as his aunt, Estelle had unofficially adopted Calvin as her own, long ago conceding her own childlessness. Now two mothers sat, feeling barren.
Lacey heard the muffled “Amens,” saw heads go up. Distraught faces mirrored one another in various colors and tones, some etched with the wear of age, others still in the smoothness of youth. She saw Ellen, her neighbor, standing across from Calvin’s grave, her eyes and nose reddened by grief as well as the unseasonably cold temperature. The climate seemed to be taking issue with Calvin’s death, the thermometer having dropped into the forties well into late spring. The cold spell had started almost simultaneously with the first word of Calvin’s car crash and still had not broken.
Through her fog, Lacey realized everyone was waiting for her to complete the ceremony. The red rose in her hand was starting to wilt along the edges, but its beauty still held. She stood slowly, walked the long minute to her son’s coffin. Refusing to look into the chasm that would forever close her away from her son, she tossed in the flower. The action was duplicated by her mother, her sister, then a line of people forming behind them.
Her first steps were steady as she turned her back on the grave, seeking escape to her car. Her mother and Estelle on either side, she almost made it. Almost. Then, out of nowhere, a sudden deluge hit her. A torrent welled up from within, rushing so fast she had no time to put up barriers to stem the onslaught. The anguish ran through her brain, her heart, threatened to suffocate her lungs.
“Oh, Godddd,” she moaned loudly as her knees buckled. She had almost made it. Almost. Calvin would be so disappointed.
Her mother, almost sixty-five and partially arthritic, was hardly capable of holding up a grown woman whose body had given out. Estelle tried to grasp her, but Lacey’s strength had silently seeped away during the ceremony, and she collapsed to the ground like a rag doll, sitting on a patch of grass that edged the pathway to the parking lot. She could see the people gathered around her, could hear their voices calling to her.
“Lacey! Lacey!” Her mother’s voice barely penetrated her fog. Lacey didn’t care now. Didn’t care what the others thought of a grown woman sitting on the ground, bawling like a baby. Didn’t care that she was making a grand, embarrassing production of her son’s funeral, something she had sworn to herself and Calvin’s spirit she wouldn’t do. She imagined Calvin looking down, shaking his head in mortification as his mother made a fool of herself in front of his friends. But even that image couldn’t motivate her to get off her behind, wipe the grass and sodden dirt from her black dress, and grab hold of whatever shred of dignity she had left.
A hand clasped her upper arm, helped lift her, sturdily but gently. She found herself looking into a familiar face, although much older, harder.
“Sean, what are…?” she started, then bit off the rest of the question. Of course Sean would be here. Death had a way of putting pettiness aside. No matter what had happened, Sean would have found a way to be here. If only he and Calvin had reconciled before this, before death.
“Mrs. Burnham, just hold on to me,” Sean instructed, his arm going around her shoulder to steady her. For a moment, it felt as though Calvin was there beside her, helping her along. Unconsciously, she leaned into the sturdy body, let his arm lead her.
“Which one’s your car?”
He scanned the vehicles as though he would be able to pick hers from among the many clustered along the pathway leading to the cemetery gates. As though he expected to see the old blue Pontiac she used to chauffeur him and Calvin around in to their Little League games. But she had gotten rid of the Pontiac a long time ago. A lifetime ago.
“It’s over there,” she nodded her head in the direction of her gray Lexus. Although the funeral home had offered limousine services, she had declined the depressing ride. She had escorted both her mother and sister; they were steps behind her and Sean at the moment.
Most of the mourners were heading toward their cars. Some were already pulling off. Still, a few people were standing together in collective angst, talking or just waiting for the crowd to thin. A couple of Calvin’s college friends stopped her to give their condolences. One of his former girlfriends, Angie, unceremoniously hugged her, muddy tears streaming down her face. Lacey hugged Angie back tightly, although she barely remembered the girl. She had exchanged many hugs today, accepted kisses from people she barely knew or was only meeting for the first time. They approached her cautiously, wary of her grief, then paused as they searched for appropriate words, settling on safe expressions: