The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(97)

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November 30 dawns with a uniquely Florida kind of weather. Despite the overhang of grey clouds and the slow, misting rain, the sun is brightly shining, sparking rainbows off of everything, the light looking golden and alive. It’s beautiful and contradictory, and a bit perfect really.

Today is Faith’s funeral.

It’s a quiet drive to the cemetery, with as many people packing into the cars as is legally and safely possible. Spilling out into the parking lot has something to the effect of a fleet of clown cars. The cemetery is a little ways outside of Tampa, on slightly higher ground because graveyards aren’t really the kind of place you want right at sea level. We walk in clumps along the winding paths to the small hill Xiomara and Paul chose for their daughter’s final resting place. The whole team came down, as did Jenny and Marlene Hanoverian, and despite it being nearly finals week, all three of Vic’s daughters took a few days off school to be here as well. Bran has been a part of the family nearly all their lives, after all. It took only a little grumbling to convince Marlene that her wheelchair would be a better option than her walker. To keep her from getting stubborn, Vic told her it was because the ground would be slick with rain, which is true. It’s also true that Marlene had another cluster of small strokes just a couple of weeks ago, and we’re all worried about her.

Inara, Victoria-Bliss, and Priya are here. Deshani, too, Priya’s mother, looking as fierce and gorgeous as ever. Priya has mellowed somewhat since I first met the two of them, a little less likely to set the world on fire just to dance in the flames. Deshani is unchanged, and perhaps unchanging. Both Sravasti women are dressed in white, because no matter how divorced Priya feels from the culture and religion of her ancestors, some things carry through. Inara and Victoria-Bliss never wear black to funerals—none of the former Butterflies do, not after they were forced to wear black every single day in the Garden—but Inara wears a dress in a deep cranberry that flatters the golden tones in her brown skin, and Victoria-Bliss is in royal blue only a shade or two brighter than her eyes. Sometime during the year of funerals they attended for the girls who died in the destruction of the Garden and the survivors who took their lives after, this became their ritual.

Paul is all that’s left of his family, an only child of only children who have since passed, but a significant portion of Xiomara’s family has come. Some of them have resettled in Florida over the past year, as Puerto Rico struggles to recover from the effects of Hurricane Maria. Others already lived in Florida, and still others have traveled from the island, bringing the love of those who remain behind. Mixed in with them are people from the neighborhood, friendships that have spanned the decades. There’s Rafi and Alberto, with a tiny spitfire who looks to be Rafi’s wife, along with a small swarm of other children who answer to any number of parents. Some of those kids look to be Manny’s, from the way they cling to him as he herds them and the others along. Behind him, two older women carefully guide the remaining kids out of the way of the wheelchair that follows. I hadn’t met Stanzi until last night, but she pushes Lissi’s chair, a toddler perched in Lissi’s lap, and alongside them walk a man and two women. The man is Stanzi’s fiancé. The woman with the rainbow-patterned scarf wrapped around her head, her face sunken and thin from illness, is Amanda, and her wife is beside her.

Ian is there, of course, wearing his sunglasses and looking a little shaky, his wife keeping a hand on his back as they walk. When anybody asks, they say they’re still discussing whether or not they want to pursue treatment. It’s an easier answer, I think, than trying to explain why declining treatment is not the same as giving up on life. He may only have a few months left, but he’s determined to live them as much as possible. He’s not giving up on anything. Sachin Karwan walks beside them, the yellow ribbon still looped on his lapel. Where the ribbon crosses over itself, he also wears a tiny rainbow pin.

Shira and her ima Illa are here too. Bran looked startled at that, especially since the funeral for Shira’s father was only three weeks ago near Coleman Correctional, but she swatted his shoulder and told him I was her sister, which makes him her brother, and of course they were going to be here. Illa just put a hand to his cheek and welcomed him to the family. My father was going to travel out with Shira and Illa—Bran’s never actually met him—but he slid across a patch of ice on his front walk and fractured his femur, so he’ll be in a rehab facility for a little while.

No mention was made of my mother joining us. No one asked. She hasn’t spoken to me in years.

Bran hesitates at the base of the hill, leaning back against a tree. Water pools in the leaves before dripping down. I wait with him, waving Shira and Illa on. Somewhat to my surprise, it’s Inara, rather than Priya, who stays back with us.

Bran gives her a sideways look. “You don’t have to be here, you know.”

She just smiles serenely. “I really do.”

“Careful, Inara. Someone might hear and think you almost like me.”

“Almost.”

He chuckles and turns his attention back to the mass of family moving up the hill. “We’d stopped hoping this day would come.”

“No, you didn’t,” Inara corrects softly. “You stopped expecting this day to come. If you’d stopped hoping, you wouldn’t be in CAC.”

“How’s that?”