I had absolutely nothing helpful to do or say in this situation.

“What about Derrick’s mom?” Immediately, heat flooded my cheeks. I shook my head and held up a hand. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”

Aidan stared out at the empty backyard. “She left when we were eighteen. We were young and she decided she wanted to be free and unattached.”

I knew that, but I was still surprised to hear him speak so simply about it. He said the words as if they meant nothing. As if he had spent years perfecting the lack of emotion.

He continued talking, not looking at me, and I had a feeling the words were more for himself than for me.

“We were sixteen when she got pregnant.” He paused, shook his head, and I saw a hint of a sad smile on his lips. The deep lines around the corners of his eyes crinkled, making him seem older than I knew he was.

“Kids ourselves, really. We tried to make it work. At least, I did. When Derrick turned two, she decided she didn’t want to be held down anymore.”

I said nothing. There was nothing to say. I couldn’t claim to understand a woman who would abandon her child because she couldn’t handle the responsibility. A bitter taste grew in my mouth for a woman I’d never met. Over the years, I had learned several things about Aidan and Derrick, even if it was from a greater distance than I truly wanted. The first one being that they were both honorable men. Derrick was a great kidone of the best. He had to have learned his manners and compassion and values from someone. It certainly couldn’t have been from the woman who had walked away from him.

It wasn’t hard to feel disgust toward the mother who hadn’t come to her own son’s funeral.

“She’s not here,” I observed.

He laughed. It was sad and harsh and sent a shiver down my spine. He didn’t look at me when he answered. “No, I have no way to reach her.”

He turned to me with his eyes narrowed and eyebrows raised. He took another drag from the cigarette as if he just remembered he had it in his hand, and I watched the smoke plume and drift into the air as he exhaled.

“And what about you, Chelsea? You still talk to your ex?”

My heart skipped when he said my name. I wasn’t aware he knew I had ever been married. It wasn’t information I made known. And while we said hello and made pleasantries while around our group of friends, we didn’t speak about anything personal.

“No,” I responded. The air felt warmer and my hands balled into fists. I hated having to think about how my marriage ended. The day Cory came home from work and said he didn’t want to keep trying to have kids. He said he couldn’t handle the stress anymore of doctor’s appointments and specialists. What he meant was that he didn’t want kids with me, because six months after he walked out our front door, I ran into him in public, and was forced to meet his new, visibly pregnant girlfriend.

God that shit burned. My gut flipped as if I were at Target all over again that Sunday afternoon when I saw Cory walking through the store, his arm curled around his girlfriend, smiling at her when she held up a pink baby outfit.

Still, I blurted out the honest, humiliating truth before I could force the words back down my throat. “He cheated on me, got another woman pregnant, and then married her right after our divorce was final. I haven’t talked to him since the day he walked out of my house.”

“People suck.” Aidan said it simply, lacking the emotion that he deserved not to have on this day above all days, and I was pulled back to the presentto the reality of what he was going through. Compared to his pain, mine was minimal.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sometimes they do.”

“Derrick didn’t.”

He looked away, tossed his cigarette onto the patio, and snuffed it out under black, scuffed dress shoes. They weren’t a designer brand, and they didn’t look overly expensive. In fact, the entire suit looked completely out of character on him; I was used to seeing him in faded jeans, T-shirts, and worn work boots.

“No,” I replied. My voice was soft and shaky. “Derrick was amazing.” Tears threatened, because it was true.

Something kept me there for several long moments before I pointed my thumb toward the sliding door that I had exited several minutes ago.

“I should go.” I swallowed the thickness in my throat. There was no reason for me to stay, yet the last thing I wanted to do was go home to an empty house, be surrounded in silence, and relive the day from a week ago that was haunting me.