Week 5 / Wednesday - Thursday

In the morning, she woke up before the others, and extracted herself out of Thomas’ arms. She grabbed her runners from her bag and her sports undies from the day before and put them on. While she was going to the loo, she checked her phone. It was all she could not to laugh aloud. Julian had posed exactly like she had with Thomas with Fiona, except in reverse: Fiona on her back, Julian lying against her, with her arm around him and her hand on his butt. But what was funny was that Alan was on the other side, in exactly the same pose. All three of them had big cheesy grins. Now that was very funny indeed.

She left her phone behind, and went and found Dee’s swag. It was cold outside! Up in the mountains, of course. Dee pushed herself out of her swag, looked at what Larissa was wearing, and said, “Guess I don’t need anything more on!” Dee went and squatted in the garden, then put her runners on, and they hit the road. While they ran, they talked. Dee knew all about Larissa, it was part of her briefing. “You’re definitely the most fun and challenging principal I’ve ever protected, but it’s lovely you’re so easy to get along with.”

Larissa asked Dee about her experience. She’d been physical all her life, multiple martial arts, track, and football, and then she’d joined the army reserves. Doing security was really fun and interesting and she got to experience all sorts of things she otherwise wouldn’t, but she could see that soon it would be time to settle down with her guy. But they were both training for the ninja show on TV, give it a couple of years. Then they’d decide about settling down. And Dee was happy to get to know Larissa, because she was probably going to be on Bob and family pretty consistently now. “Some of the stuff they get up to at home won’t be a problem?”

“Oh, no, it’s part of the briefing, and it’s their business, and I’m fine with it.”

They’d run around the town a few times, and up and down the highway a bit. This time, going past the service station, someone gave them a wolf whistle. “Stupid prat,” Dee said, “I’ve taken to running them down lately, well, just about hitting them. Funny when they jump out of the way. But I’m officially working right now, so I better not. You can.”

“What, hip and shoulder him like Sam Kerr did to that guy on the football field? That was awesome.”

“Well, pretend to anyway.”

Larissa laughed. “Nah, it’s the country. Probably some old guy with his head stuck in the 1960s. I just ignore them.”

When she got back, Mary and her Mum were up, but Thomas was still asleep. She had a quick shower and got dressed for the funeral. Finding the right clothes had been a problem, so she’d stolen a few minutes for lunch the day before and bought a cheap outfit at a women’s clothing store. Unlike her usual plan of buying something because it was going to knock people’s socks off, her request to the assistant was ‘clothes for a funeral that no one will notice,” and she had black pants, a white singlet top, and a cheap black jacket over that, along with black flats.

“Thomas, wake up!” she told him, and pulled the covers off.

“Get off, I didn’t sleep well!” Why? “I had my arms full of naked sister, and I wanted to enjoy it while I had it. And my mind was busy thinking of all the sweet and loving things she did for me!”

Larissa laughed and said he wouldn’t get to see Julian’s photo till he got up. That did it, and he dragged himself up. When she showed him the photo he burst into laughter, and said, “That’s awesome. I talked to Fiona and Alan at the wedding, I hadn’t seen Fiona for ages.”

Down at the hotel breakfast, the room was full of extended family. Her grandparents were there, and introduced Mary, Thomas and Larissa to all of the family. In theory, Larissa had met them all before, but that was so long ago, they wouldn’t recognise each other.

She did recognise Aunt Anne, though she was getting on now. She told her Aunt about the little soft toy dog, and how much it meant to her, and she could see that was a comforting for her aunt.

Not long after, Micky walked in with her family. Larissa ran over and hugged Micky tight, and she returned it. Lovely to have Micky, and Thomas came and hugged her tight too. Micky spent all breakfast hanging tight with them both. Nice, a little threesome of friends.

After breakfast, they walked as a group to the little local church where the service was. Larissa quickly figured out that the funeral party was divided into two parts: a group of family, and a much larger group which was pretty much all the inhabitants of the little town. Her uncle had driven the local school bus for so many decades that he’d driven just about every one of the current inhabitants, and everyone thought he was their best friend.

The service was full of stories from local kids that he’d saved from one family disaster or another. Some of them like her own story, and Larissa was very moved by that. What a rich life he’d had. So many of them had stayed connected to him over the years, always welcome to drop in for a cuppa, and many in the town wept openly. Wow, what a life. An honour guard of locals and Uncle Johns’ son, who she didn’t know well, carried the casket slowly from the church and then the hundred metres or so to the grave that was waiting for him.

They laid him to rest with a prayer and the town sang his favourite church hymn acapella – amazing, that was quite something. Larissa joined the line to throw flower petals down on the coffin, and then afterwards she stood behind the coffin next to Micky, looking down at it and thinking about what she’d seen. Nothing of his life remained but memories, but those were uniformly positive. Covid had taken him from them, and every one of them knew that was unfair, but that was also life. But what really stood out was that he’d known how strong his friendships and connections were and had treasured them every day. So was she on the right track herself? Yes, but she could always think back to this day to remind herself never to waver from her principles and her relationships. Julian, her family, her friends. No compromise allowed.

Thomas came up to her and cuddled her gently, and asked her how she was feeling. She told him what she’d just been thinking and he said, “It was a very remarkable funeral, I’ve never heard anything quite like it. I think you’re right, and I’ll talk to Jane about it, make it part of our principles.” He saw her reaction to that and said, “Yes, we agreed that we’re going to do that too after the other night. Larissa, you’re a remarkable person. I know that your funeral in a hundred years time will be the same.”

She turned to him and held him tight. “So will yours, you and Jane are building a wonderful set of relationships where you live.”

Micky turned to her, and said, “I was listening to that, and thinking about that. You’re already living like that. Your lives are awesome. And I wasn’t. I promise you, that’s what I’m all about now, and that’s what Dan is all about. I can’t thank you enough.”

“That’s lovely,” Thomas said, since Larissa was too overwhelmed to say anything, “and we’ll support you as much as we can.”

They were still hugging like that, in silence, when a middled aged woman walked up to them. “Hi, Larissa, Thomas and Micky. I’m Kim.” Oh yes, that’s right. She hadn’t been at breakfast. “I just want to thank you both very much indeed for writing that letter. It was really brave of you to do that, and to my shame, I initially dismissed it. But then those cousins invited my daughters to stay at their place, and I got cold feet, and looked into it. I’m very very glad I listened to you, and I would never have known if you hadn’t said. So thank you very much. It’s amazing that you loved us like that, after what they did to you.”

Oh that was lovely. “I’m really glad that we helped you. Writing that letter was very good for us, but I was sad that it caused problems in the family. Not surprised though.”

“Would you come and say hello to my daughters? They’d like to meet you.” Of course, so she led them over to two teenagers. “Charlotte and Amber, meet Larissa and Thomas. You’ve met them before, but it was many years ago and you were little kids.”

“Wow, Larissa, it’s awesome to meet you,” the older one said. “You’re my hero, and can you sign a poster of you for me? It’s in the car.”

“Of course, Charlotte, I’d love to do that.” She grinned at Kim’s surprise – these girls hadn’t told Kim everything. “But I only do that for girls that I’ve got to know, so tell me about yourself, and I’ll sign the poster when we get back to the hotel, OK?”

That got the girls talking, and she introduced them to Thomas and Micky as well, “Thomas isn’t on Youtube, because he’s too busy doing other stuff, but he’s just as awesome, and Micky’s going to be.”

They were still talking to the girls when they got back to the hotel, and they went off to get their posters from the car. Larissa signed them, along with a personal note to the cousins, and went into the wake. She had intended to seek out some of the people who talked at the service to thank them for helping her understand her great-uncle so well, but it turned out that many of the town knew exactly who she was – Anne had spread the news about their wedding video. Layna and Larissa had lots of fans, and now that the funeral was over, everyone felt free to talk to her about it. Micky hung close to her, enjoying the show, while Thomas was dragged off to talk to other cousins. Well, this was her lot in life, and she could hardly blame anyone else, really.

Eventually the throng around her stopped, and she went and found Micky’s mum. “Wow, Larissa, it’s hard to me to get my head around just how much Micky’s changed.” She shook her head. “I had given up, you know. She was in a very bad place, and I could see that there was nothing I could do other than wait, and hope for a miracle. And then, a miracle happened. I’ve tried to understand what happened, and it always comes back to three names. Larissa, Jane, Dan.”

“Right. I plucked her out of there,” Larissa said, “and put her in an empty house. Though I couldn’t have done that if you hadn’t already done your hard work. But It was Jane who gave her structure, orientated her in her new life and held her hand enough so she was ready for Dan. And Dan ... he’s the miracle. I would never have dated Dan in a million years, but what a guy he is now that I know him! Make sure you treasure him and support him with Micky.”

“Oh, we’re completely on board with that. Micky’s obsessed with him, which is lovely, and he’s the first guy she’s ever looked at that we think is a good thing for her, and he’s really a very good thing. My husband’s going down there this week to help Dan with a building project, and I’m going along, just for a show of support. But what can I do to thank you? You’ve given me my life back, and Micky.”

“Oh, please, pay it forward. Keep your eyes open for other lost sheep, and offer them a loving helping hand, and just steady compassionate friendship. There’s too much loneliness in the world today.”

Eventually, it was time to go. She went up and grabbed her stuff from their room; since everyone staying at the hotel was at the wake, along with the reception and cleaning staff, the hotel had said to just check out afterwards. She found Dee at the entry to the wake. “Wow, what can you do about this, huh?” Larissa asked her.

“Not much, really. It’s a lovely atmosphere, and I’m just pretty much standing back and enjoying. Anyway, she’s just about to leave.”

Larissa went and waited by the van. A couple approached her ... yes, this was Alice and Philip’s parents. She tensed up, what did they want?

“Larissa,” the wife said. “We’ve come to apologise to you. We understand that there’s nothing we can say or do that will possibly help you, but it’s our great shame that our children did what they did to you, Micky, and others, and that we didn’t believe you.” This was obviously very hard for her to say. “They lied to us consistently and convincingly, and we just didn’t want to believe otherwise. We’re very sorry for what they did, and we’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching. We did not teach them to be like that, we’re appalled.”