How great Gran was and how sad it was she was gone.

This desire of Gran’s was probably for me. She knew her two sons wouldn’t show. My dad and uncle had long since disappeared from her life and mine. And if they did show (which, thankfully, they didn’t), the idea of them socializing, even at a post-funeral get-together, would be alarming. Neither of them was young and I’d not seen them in decades but I knew without a doubt that if they were still alive, they had not changed.

They never would.

They were apples that fell right to the root of the tree. Not Gran’s tree. My grandfather’s. And he was mean as a snake, selfish, controlling and all of these to the point where it wasn’t in question he was mentally unstable.

And luckily, he was also long since dead.

So there was no reason to socialize, no one left of Gran’s blood to stand around hearing how wonderful she was and thus what a loss it was now that she’d been laid in the ground.

As expected, it took some time for me to get to my car, what with the amount of people there, the amount of love Gran had built in this town, therefore the amount of people who wished to share with me they were sorry for my loss.

I was glad Gran had that.

This didn’t mean I enjoyed the journey to the car. As lovely as it felt to know she had this kind of esteem, I already knew it. I didn’t need to be reminded of it.

I told myself it made them feel better to say the words, make the eye contact, think their sentiments in some small way made me feel better. And Gran would want me to give them that.

So I did.

I managed to negotiate this obstacle course to my car only having to endure two hugs and I didn’t trip or even falter. Not once. Henry would be proud. Gran would be disappointed.

Gran thought my frequent stumbles were hilarious but whenever she threw her chuckle my way after she’d witnessed one, I knew she was laughing with me, not at me. She’d long since tried to teach me that we should embrace who we were, even, or maybe especially, what she called the “special things, buttercup, the things no one else has, but you.”

For me, this was being awkward. There were times when I could forget, but if there was something to trip over or something to set crashing to the ground, I would find it.

Gran thought it was cute.

When I did these things, I’d more than once seen Henry’s lips twitch too.

Try as I might to take Gran’s advice, I found it annoying.

However, I didn’t manage this journey without the heels of my Manolos sinking into the turf, which I found irritating.

Finally, I made it to my rental car. The lanes winding through the cemetery were packed with cars, many of them now purring, cars doors slamming, wheels pulling out.

Amongst this, I heard a girl’s annoyed, whiny, “Dad!” piercing the solemn air of the graveyard.

This tone was so inappropriate I stopped in the open door of my car and looked down the road.

Some three or four cars up on the opposite side from where my vehicle was parked, there was a big burgundy truck. It seemed relatively new. It was one of those that had four doors in the cab making it a tall, long sedan with flatbed. It wasn’t flashy but somehow it was. Maybe because it sparkled in the sun like it had just been washed and waxed.

All the doors were open and climbing in them was the man who’d been watching me earlier and his three offspring. His eldest son was pulling himself into the front passenger seat of the truck. His youngest was already in the back. And the man was standing in the open driver’s side door facing his girl, who was standing in the street, hands on her hips.

No wife.

Surprising.

I heard an indistinct rumble then the girl leaned slightly forward, her face screwing up in an unattractive way and she yelled, “I don’t care!”

This was also surprising because, considering the place we were in and what had just happened in it, it was beyond rude.

I glanced around and saw some of the other attendees were obviously, but studiously, avoiding this exchange.

Since the man had his back to me and the girl had her attention on her father, I didn’t bother avoiding it. They were in the throes of a squabble. They wouldn’t notice me.

I heard another rumble then the girl shouted, “I said, I don’t care!”

To this, there was no rumble.

There was a roar.

“Jesus Christ! Get in the goddamned truck, Amber!”

Her face twisted and I saw her body do a physical humph! She then moved and climbed into the backseat of the truck.

The man slammed her door and turned to his.

I instantly moved to get in mine thinking anyone who had the means and good taste to own a Hugo Boss suit should not be so ill-mannered as to shout obscenities at his daughter in a cemetery after a funeral service for a ninety-three year old dead woman.

However, in saying that, Gran would probably laugh herself sick at what just happened. That and wander over to the quarrel and wade right in.

As with my awkwardness, she found the foibles of others amusing and got away with this because she had the uncanny ability of pointing them out to people and guiding them into finding themselves amusing. Gran didn’t take anything too seriously and she was quite adept at helping others see the world her way.

She’d had enough serious to last a lifetime with the man she married and the sons he gave her, and when she got out of that, she put it behind her.

The only serious she let leak in was me. How I was raised. What it did to me. What it made me become.

And Gran let me be me. The only one to do that, except Henry.

By the time I’d started the car, got it in gear and checked my mirrors, the big burgundy truck was driving by. I didn’t get the chance to look into the cab. I also didn’t think much of the fact that the man, nor his kids, approached me to tell me they were sorry for my loss.

That was probably good, seeing as I knew the kind of man he was and if his and his daughter’s behavior was anything to go by, I never wanted to meet them.

And with them gone, I found myself strangely relieved that I knew I likely never would.

* * * * *

“I should have come with you,” Henry muttered in my ear through the phone and I drew in a deep breath as I stared out the window at the sea.

“I’m all right, Henry,” I assured him.

“There’s no way you should be there alone.”

“I’m all right, Henry,” I repeated. “You have to be there. You do this shoot for Tisimo every year.”

“Yeah, which means I need a fucking break from it.”

I sighed, sat in the window seat and kept my eyes out to sea.

The sun setting had washed the sky in peachy pink with slashes of butter yellow and tufts of lavender.

I missed those sunsets over the sea.

I just wished Gran was right there, sitting with me.

“I get done with this, I’ll fly out there,” Henry said into my silence.

“You get done with that shoot, Henry, you need to be in Rome.”

“I need to be with you.”

I closed my eyes, blocking out the sunset, having wished so many times in my twenty-three years as personal assistant to Henry Gagnon, renowned fashion photographer, video director and handsome, dashing, reckless, adventurous, audacious, daring international lady’s man, that he meant it in a different way when he said words like those to me.

Not that he valued me as his personal assistant.

Not that he liked me just because he did.

Not because we had over two decades of history and no one knew him better than me and the same was true for him with me (though, he didn’t know me quite as much but that was part of me being me).

No.

For other reasons.

Now it was too late.

Not that there even was a time when that would be a possibility. He had models and actresses on his arm (and in his bed). And I’d lost count how many times I’d seen him smile his lazy smile at unbelievably gorgeous waitresses, tourists or the like and fifteen minutes later, I’d be finishing my coffee alone or heading to a park with a free few hours because Henry was away to our hotel to enjoy those hours a different way.

There was no way Henry Gagnon would turn his beautiful eyes to me.

Not then.

Definitely not now, with me forty-five, way past my prime. Even if Henry was forty-nine.

Then again, Henry’s last two lovers had been thirty-nine and forty-two respectively.

In fact, thinking on this, it occurred to me his lovers had aged as he had. He hadn’t had a twenty-something since, well…he was twenty-something (or, at latest, he was early thirty-something).

“Josephine?”

I blinked myself out of my reverie and came back to the conversation.

“I’ll meet you in Rome. Or in Paris,” I told him. “I just have to go to the reading of the will tomorrow and see to things here once I know what’s what. It shouldn’t take long.”

Why I said this, I had no idea except it was my job to make Henry’s life aggravation-free and I’d lived and breathed that for so long, I didn’t know how to do anything else.

The truth of the matter was Gran had a home and it was packed to the gills. I had no idea what I was going to do with it all.

However, I could easily hire an estate agency to deal with an auction and I didn’t need to be present for that. Nor did I need to be present for a sale of the property.

I felt acute pain in my midsection at these thoughts so I put them aside and returned to Henry.