“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Summer pulled away, rubbing her hands over her face. “The glasses are in the cupboard next the fridge, top shelf.” She dropped into the couch heavily, still feeling the weight of it.
Victor gave her another kiss on her forehead then went to get cups for them. He brought the wine glasses back and opened the bottle then poured some for the each of them. He sat down next to her and put his arm around her back so that she could be close to him if she wanted. “What’s his name, love?”
“Buddy. William Edward Rainault, Jr.” Summer settled herself back into Victor’s arm, needing the warmth of him — why was he warm, as a vampire, the part of her mind trying to just run away wondered — and stared at the wine in her glass. “I don’t know where Buddy came from, but I know why it stuck, because it was just the most literally perfect description of his personality. He was everyone’s buddy. I never saw him angry. I almost never even saw him not smiling — I couldn’t look, at the viewing, because they’d made his face without that little smile, that crinkled the corners of his eyes. It wasn’t him, there.” Abruptly she drank half the glass.
He was a little concerned by the way she had downed half the glass and rubbed his thumb in circles on her shoulder. “They should’ve made him with that smile of his since that’s how he was in life. He sounds like he was a very nice person though, it’s always hard when someone like that moves on from our lives.” Victor paused a moment then twisted his body so that he was facing her a bit more. “Cheers, to Buddy and may he find more happiness wherever he is now.”
“To Buddy,” Summer echoed, draining her glass. She didn’t even ordinarily drink much, but nothing was as bitter as the taste of her sorrow, of the family’s sorrow that she could already feel leaching into her. The bonds of family were unlike other empathic bonds, but they still carried emotion, and she carried it all. She curled over, around the empty space where her sense of her grandfather had lived, and rocked silently. “I’ll have to go down there tomorrow,” she murmured into her knees.