Chapter 5: Peach's Loss
I've never planned a funeral before. I have attended many, too many, but I have never been part of the planning process before.
My parents' funerals were planned by my grandparents, my grandmother took care of my grandfather's, my sister, Crystal, took charge of my Nana's funeral... and Anna, who was the foundation of the Varn family before Michael even married her, took care of Crystal's and her own son Devlin's, but there was no one else to shoulder this affair.
Norma Ester O'Neal, age eighty-four, died in her sleep of natural causes in the early hours of June 9th 2045. It was the day before my fifty-fourth birthday and just hours before the birth of Tristan Littlesea, Soli and Randy's first child, who was beautiful beyond belief. He fit perfectly across my forearm and though he tried to hide it, I couldn't help but notice the single tear that fell down Mark's cheek when he held him. He was such a softy, and children were his soft spot.
Mark and I, still not entirely awake after spending the night at the hospital with the newborn, got the call from the retirement home around eight thirty. I can't say it was unexpected. She was eighty-four years old and had a wide range of health problems, but we had taken Hazel to see her just a week ago and she looked healthy, or at least as healthy as an eighty year old woman should. We weren't prepared, which wasn't like us, but another death was the last thing we wanted to think about.
We had a pow-wow, our first parent meeting since Eli hit puberty and we had to give him the sex talk. Hazel was a few months shy of seven, so when it came down to breaking the news, we couldn't exactly get away with telling her Norma moved to the farm, but death was just so much heavier than we ever wanted to get with your little girl.
Eli came with us, he held her in his lap as we explained and Hazel was devastated. My Peach didn't cry much, in fact she barely cried at all, so her endless stream of tears was like little jabs to my heart.
"But why did she die?" She asked Eli holding his face in her hands and speaking slowly so he could read her lips. Hazel aimed most of her important questions to Eli, there was a trust there and just a hint of the big brother worship Michael had for me growing up.
Eli shrugged his shoulders, pulling her in for a hug when he couldn't think of an answer for her. Maybe I'm naïve, but at fifty-four years old I come from a completely different generation. I can't say it was a simpler time, it was a time of war, unemployment, high crime rates and raging controversy over gay marriage, but I very stupidly thought, that my Angel wouldn't really understand the finality or seriousness of death, but she did.
Mark took the week off of work and her brother, Eli, almost fourteen and even more protective and loving than before, stayed by her side the entire time I planned. Norma had no living family and very little money, though her life insurance covered most of the expenses that her service incurred.
I planned a simple event; sent a notice to her assisted living facility and on the day of the funeral, when I thought none but our small nuclear family would come, our entire family showed up, paying their respects to a woman they never knew. Each and every Varn was in attendance, imprints and all, and not a Uley was absent.
Hazel was passed from hug to hug as we cooked, her tears drying up by the time we settled down for dinner in our cabin, which was impromptu, the house almost bursting at the seams with wolves and wives and kids. Our cabin was too small for everyone, in recent history with our growing families we had never attempted to host any family events, not with everyone all together at least. Emily, Trisha, Levi and I took center stage in the kitchen trying to make enough food for more than twenty people.
Seth, who was particularly good with kids, and who Hazel was partial to in a very girly-giggly kind of way, kept her attached to his hip and for the first time in years we were just together, no bickering, no glares or frowns, no off-handed comments, no arguments, just family. Even Sam forgot to be uncomfortable around me, taking the beer I passed him with a smile.
Soli, fresh out of the hospital came over with her boy, bursting to show him off. She had that beaming new mommy look, matched with the signature high heels and rocker clothes that complimented her in such a way that she glowed. Randy, who seemed entirely overwhelmed with the tiny three-day-old, followed them around like a jittery magnet, the new father paranoia I'd seen almost every wolf go through. Jared had carried Ethan as if he were made of the most fragile blown glass, watched him with the kind of eyes that sparkled like he was inspecting the world's largest unblemished diamond and Sam... Sam held his boys, my Mark, with an awed reverence he normally reserved solely for Emily.
"So are you and Mark thinking about adopting another baby?" Trisha asked, noting my rapt attention to the newly formed Call-Littlesea family.
"I don't know really... Mark hasn't brought it up," I said honestly as Seth made his way into the kitchen where Trisha and I were busy putting together an assembly of pies for the masses.
"I'm starving! Can't I get some salad or something?" Seth whined holding Hazel in one arm as he lifted various pot lids from the pans gently simmering on the stove and peaked under aluminum foil covering the finished trays resting on the counter.
"The food will be done in half an hour," Emily cooed, roughly rustling Seth's shaggy hair and pressing Hazel's nose like a little button. Hazel laughed, the deep indent of her dimple nearly blinding everyone around her. Trisha, who was rolling out the homemade pastry for the pies, granted her an answering smile.
"You have such beautiful hair, Ms. Hazel," Trisha whispered in a sing-song voice. Once Seth brought her within arms reach, she pulled Hazel to her chest and placed her on the little stepping stool between her and the mound of dough she was manipulating. With one arm wrapped expertly around Hazel's middle, Trisha taught her how to roll out the dough, using the thick wooden rolling-pin and spray bottle of water.
"Have you finished setting up Tristan's room," Mark called to Soli as he pulled me in from behind and wrapped his arms over my torso. He leaned in, running his nose along my neck then up to the tender shell of my ear which he nibbled playfully.
"I love you," he breathed in my ear as Soli filled us in on the details of Tristan's newly remodeled nursery in the Cullen mansion.
"I love you more," I insisted. He kissed me long and hard in the middle of the kitchen, not listening to the awkward silence that followed, completely immune to our audiences' reactions after so many wonderful years together.
When he pulled away, leaving me all dazed, I coaxed Tristan out of Soli's loving arms and pulled him to my chest. His heartbeat was so fast, double the speed of a typical infant though his eyes were firmly shut, eyelids fluttering along with his REM cycle. Tristan was an exact armful, his tan light against my dark forearms, the wisps of hair on his soft head nearly black.
"Daddy?" Hazel called to me as I held baby Tristan, Mark watching him over my shoulder.
"Yes, Hazel," Mark and I answered her in unison. She was still in Trisha's arms and my sister-in-law, Jessy Uley, stood by their side holding Seth's free hand happily as he devoured a sandwich Emily made special for him, covered in mustard and relish just like he liked them.
"Why don't you and Daddy have a baby too?" Hazel asked Mark, motioning to me curiously. She still wore her black fluffy funeral dress, which was now sprinkled with flour in adorable, starkly contrasting powdery dots and smeared streaks of off white. Trisha playing with Hazel's long curly red locks froze, before erupting in a fit of laughter that roused even baby Tristan, who had slept through the better part of the late afternoon.
Soledad hopped into full mother mode and whisked her boy away, hushing him with soft, comforting cooing sounds as he cried out in general annoyance and probable hunger.
Mark and I shared a look, the long kind of meaningful look we shared when we had no fucking clue what to say to our beautiful kids. When we adopted Eli he was about Hazel's age now, but in a way he was already more worldly. He wasn't hardened or callous like a lot of kids growing up in the system, but he had a very intuitive understanding of people, so that when we adopted him and brought him home, we didn't really have to explain the logistics of me and Jordan as a couple. He knew the mechanics, and though we knew he knew it was odd, maybe even thought it was strange at first, we provided Eli with unconditional love and support and he never questioned it.
Hazel came to us much smaller, entirely pure and innocent. She was growing, starting to question just about everything around her, and we had been waiting for her to finally ask the big question, "why do I have two daddies?" This, however, wasn't exactly how we expected it to come forward. We figured she would be presented with the birds and the bees before she became curious about the Adam and Steve's, but that was just my Hazel, she did things out of order sometimes.
"Peach, two men can't have a baby... but maybe when you're a little older, daddy and I can apply to open our house to another baby?" I said it like a question, eyeing Mark's reaction, his smile grew wide.
"We'll have to get a bigger place first," Mark said seriously, but the bright sparkle in his eyes was blindingly joyful.
"Why don't you have a wife then, Daddy?" She asked Mark, reaching for him to take her from Trisha's grasp.
"Because Daddy Jay is my husband," Mark explained placing her between us like a loving Hazel sandwich.
"Husband and husband?" She asked leaning her head against mine in a serious moment of thoughtfulness. I could see the wheels behind her eyes turning as she tried to process the thought of men together, contrary to every Disney movie and Fairytale romance she'd every encountered.
"Yup, me and Jordan are husband and husband and you and Eli are our babies, right?" Mark said looking over Hazel's shoulder to catch my eye. 'How was that?' He mouthed and I shrugged nervously.
"Oh," she said simply, nodding to herself thoughtfully.
We ate dinner in the garden behind our house, mosquito tikis lighting up the boundaries of our backyard and swarms of fireflies twinkling in the darkness. Melody and Anna returned after dinner with their guitars, taking turns holding Hazel on their lap and teaching her chords to old rock tunes, her small fingers stretching to reach the correct positions, the girls helping when her petite hand couldn't.
"So, you're thinking about another child?" Mark asked pinning me securely against the side of the cabin where we'd made our home and raised our family.
"When they are older... off to college, starting families of their own," I whispered against the skin of his neck as he held me.
"So then you came to a decision about phasing again?" He asked, pushing me further against the stone siding, pressing fully against me in the most enticing way, which still powerfully stirred my blood, even after all these years.
I hadn't made a decision, not really, the thought was always in the back of my mind, but I hadn't really worked out the pros and cons as of yet. "Not really... Anna and Michael have stopped."
"And you don't want to watch your brother die," Mark spoke my unsaid fear. I had not mentioned it, but he knew me well. I did not think I could take anymore death, could handle the loss of anymore of my family. That was why my brother and my sister-in-law had stopped phasing now that their children were both settled and happy.
"No, I don't, do you?" I shot back and he pulled away far enough to look into my eyes.
"And if I lose you? I can't live through that loss Jordan, I can't. Do you know why I quit so early? To ensure that I leave this world before you because I can't suffer the torture, I can't even discuss the possibility of losing you. All others I can live through with you by my side, but I can not risk the possibility of not having you for every second of my life," Mark hissed, trying not to call attention to us as the celebration of Norma's life raged on around us.
"If we go back to phasing everyone we know will be gone, the world around us as we know it will cease to exist and we will have to watch them all go," I reasoned, though the thought of breathing for even a second after Mark departed this world made my chest feel heavy, painful to pull in the next gulp of air.
"Look at Tristan, Jordan, look at him," he urged, pointing towards Soli, who sang along to the rhythmic drumming of our Peach's guitar, Tristan rocking slowly in her arms.
"There will always be us, our relationship and the pack will live on forever. Tristan's little Tristan and his Tristan and all the Tristans and Coopers and Hopes and Harrisons, there won't be an end, only a continuation of the world we live in," he whispered with quiet passion, his eyes burning with intensity and determination.
"Okay but we won't be able to live in it. We'll have to leave like Embry and Letty, we'll need new identities and new lives…. and it—it won't be easy to phase again, we'd need a trigger now," I reasoned. The feel of passion, the wolf inside of me had gone completely dormant sometime in the last two years, I didn't know if I even could transform now.
"Then we'll take the family to Italy or go to Claire's sister Lana, she lives in Alaska."
"Okay," I conceded kissing the soft corner of his luscious mouth.
"Okay," he smiled kissing me long and hard. "Wow, so our Peach might get a little brother or sister," he mused sucking on my plump bottom lip.
"Yeah, and then maybe she can explain why Daddy Jay and Daddy Mark don't have wives," I chuckled pulling him towards the crowd where Eli played hacky sack with Krista and Levi.
"Hmm... good idea," he agreed taking a seat next to his niece Sarah around the small bonfire lit on the edge of the clearing. We roasted marshmallows over the crackling flames until the children grew tired and I was finally able to lay my beautiful girl in her bed, peaceful in her slumber.