“Poor kid,” Frank's secretary whispered, as Grace walked slowly back down the aisle, next to her father, behind her mother's casket. Poor John … poor Ellen … poor people. They'd been through so much.
People commented from time to time on how shy Grace was, and how uncommunicative. There had been a rumor a few years back that she might even be retarded, but anyone who had ever gone to school with her knew that that was a lie. She was brighter than most of them, she just didn't say much. She was a solitary soul, and it was only once in a while that someone in school would see her talking to someone, or laughing in a corridor, but then she would hurry away again, as though she was frightened to come out and be among them. She wasn't crazy, her classmates knew, but she wasn't friendly either. It was odd too, considering how sociable her parents were. But Grace never had been. Even as a small child, she had always been solitary, and somewhat lonely. And more than once as a child, she had had to go home from school with a bad attack of asthma.
John and Grace stood out in the noon sun for a little while, shaking hands with friends, thanking them for being there, embracing them, and more than ever, Grace looked wooden and removed as she greeted them. It was as though her body was there, but her mind and soul were elsewhere. And in her dreary too-big dress, she looked more pathetic than ever.
Her father commented on the way she looked on the way to the cemetery. Even her shoes looked worn. She had taken a pair of her mother's black high heels, but they were out of style, and they looked as though her mother had gotten plenty of use from them before she got sick. It was almost as though Grace wanted to be closer to her now, by wearing her mother's clothes, it was like camouflage, or protective coloring, but it wasn't flattering on a girl her age, and her father said so. She looked a lot like her mother, actually, people always commented on it, except that her mother had been more robust before she'd been taken ill, and her dress was at least three sizes too big for Grace's lithe figure.
“Couldn't you have worn something decent for a change?” her father asked with a look of irritation as they drove to St. Mary's Cemetery on the outskirts of town, with three-dozen cars behind them. He was a respected man, and he had a reputation to uphold. It looked strange for a man like him to have an only child who dressed like an orphan.
“Mama never let me wear black. And I thought … I thought I should …” She looked at him de-fenselessly, sitting miserably in the corner of the old limousine the funeral home had provided for the occasion. It was a Cadillac, and some of the kids had rented it for the senior prom two months before, but Grace hadn't wanted to go, and no one had asked her. With her mother so sick, she had barely even wanted to go to graduation. But she had, of course, and she had shown her mother the diploma as soon as she got home. She had been accepted at the University of Illinois, but had deferred it for a year, so she could continue taking care of her mother. Her father wanted it that way too, he felt that Ellen preferred Grace's loving touch to that of her nurses, and he had pretty much told Grace that he expected her to stay, and not leave for school in September. She hadn't argued with him. She knew there was no point. There was never any point arguing with him. He always got what he wanted. He was used to it. He had been too good-looking and too successful for too long, it had always worked for him, and he expected things to stay that way. Always. Particularly with his own family. Grace understood that. And so had Ellen.
“Is everything ready at the house?” he asked, glancing at her, and she nodded. For all her shyness and reticence, she ran a home beautifully, and had since she was thirteen. In the past four years, she had done everything for her mother.
“It's fine,” she said quietly. She had set everything out on the buffet before they left for church. And the rest was covered, on big platters in the refrigerator. People had been bringing them food for days. And Grace had cooked a turkey and a roast the night before. Mrs. Johnson had brought them a ham, and there were salads, and casseroles, some sausages, two plates of hors d'oeuvres, and lots of fresh vegetables, and every imaginable kind of cake and pastry. Their kitchen looked like a bake sale at the state fair, there was plenty for everyone. She was sure that they were going to be seeing well over a hundred people, maybe even twice that many, out of respect for John and what he meant to the people of Watseka.
People's kindness had been staggering. The sheer number of floral arrangements alone had surpassed anything they'd ever seen at the funeral home. “It's like royalty,” old Mr. Peabody had said when he handed the guest book full of signatures to her father.
“She was a rare woman,” John said quietly, and now, thinking of her, he glanced over at his daughter. She was such a beautiful girl, and so determined not to show it. That was just the way she was, he accepted it, and it was easier not to argue about it. She was good about other things, and she had been a godsend for him during all the years of her mother's illness. It was going to be strange for both of them now, but in a way, he had to admit, it was going to be easier now too. Ellen had been so sick for so long, and in so much pain, it was inhuman.
He looked out the window as they drove along, and then back at his only daughter. “I was just thinking about how odd it's going to be now without your mama … but maybe …” He wasn't sure how to say it without upsetting her more than he meant to,“… maybe easier for both of us. She suffered so much, poor thing,” he sighed, and Grace said nothing. She knew her mother's suffering better than anyone, better even than he did.
The ceremony at the cemetery was brief, their minister said a few words about Ellen and her family, and read from Proverbs and Psalms at the graveside, and then they all drove back to the Adamses’ home. A crowd of a hundred and fifty friends squeezed into the small neat house. It was painted white, with dark green shutters and a picket fence. There were daisy bushes in the front yard, and a small rose garden her mother had loved just outside her kitchen windows.
The babble of their friends sounded almost like a cocktail party, and Frank Wills held court in the living room, while John stood outside with friends in the hot July sunshine. Grace served lemonade and iced tea, and her father had brought out some wine, and even the huge crowd scarcely made a dent in all the food she served. It was four o'clock when the last guests finally left, and Grace walked around the house with a tray, picking up all their dishes.
“We've got good friends,” her father said with a warm smile. He was proud of the people who cared about them. He had done a lot for many of them over the years, and now they were there, in their hour of need, for him, and his daughter. He watched Grace moving quietly around the living room, and he realized how alone they were now. Ellen was gone, the nurses were gone, there was no one left except just the two of them. Yet he was not a man to dwell on his misfortunes.