After the service, we proceeded to the cemetery. It was a warm day in late September, and, contrary to popular belief, it didn’t have to rain during a funeral. Few clouds interrupted the flat blue of the sky. The trees had just started throwing out their brightest colors. We rode to the cemetery in Paul’s car, easing along right behind the hearse. Mom hadn’t felt the need to pay for an extra vehicle or anything as extravagant as a limo.
The graveside service passed quickly. A few words from the Bible, all of us standing there with our heads appropriately bowed. Birds chirped overhead and a light breeze ruffled everyone’s clothes. I stared at the ground, first at the hole that awaited my mother’s coffin. Then I turned my eyes to the space next to her, where my father lay buried. The gauge for my emotional tank showed empty. I’d cried everything out already and just wanted to get out of the cemetery.
The minister announced that everyone was invited back to Mom’s house for some snacks and drinks. As the mourners filed out, they took the time to talk to us and wish us well. The women doted on Ronnie, and he bore their fussing with the same blank look he’d worn for the past few days. The women also stopped and talked to me. They offered to bring food to us and to check in from time to time.
Then a woman named Nancy Porter, who volunteered at the library my mom always went to, stopped and leaned in close to my ear. She wore a floral dress with a white cardigan over top.
“I know you’ll take good care of your brother,” she said, her eyes wide and earnest. “You’re going to do what your mom wanted you to do, right?”
I gritted my teeth.
“She wanted you to do this for her, Elizabeth.”
Even then, speaking to someone I owed nothing to, I couldn’t say what I was supposed to say. Mrs. Porter moved on.
Finally, it was time for us to go. People were on their way to the house, so we needed to get back and open things up. Paul had ordered food from a local deli. It was all crammed into Mom’s refrigerator, waiting for the descending hordes of hungry mourners.
I looked around the cemetery. I didn’t see Paul. His car was still sitting in the cemetery roadway, the sun glinting off its chrome and glass. But he was nowhere in sight.
“Come on, Ronnie.” I took my brother by the hand, and we started for the car.
Then I saw Dan.
He stood in the shade of a big maple, wearing a white dress shirt and a vintage blue and gray tie with a thick knot. He was thirty, almost five years older than me. A few flecks of gray were starting to show in his dark hair, but he still managed to look boyish. A young, handsome intellectual.
“Hi, Elizabeth.” He came forward and gave me a hug. It felt good, and for the extra long moment he held me, I relaxed my body and let myself be supported by him, as though I were on the brink of collapse. I needed that. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said as he let me go. “How did you know?”
“Professor Niehaus told me. I’ve been calling you for the last two days, and you haven’t been responding. Plus you didn’t come to class, so I asked if something was wrong. I thought maybe you were sick.”
“I asked her not to tell anybody,” I said.
“She told me because I pushed,” Dan said. “And because she knew we were, or had been, close. Other people from school would have come to the funeral, you know. Why didn’t you want them to hear the news?”
“I just didn’t want to make a big deal,” I said. “I’ll be back to school tomorrow.”
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Really?”
“This is my brother, Ronnie,” I said.
“Hi, Ronnie,” Dan said.
Ronnie shook Dan’s hand but didn’t say anything.
“My uncle is here somewhere, but I don’t— Wait. There he is.”
Paul stood on the other side of the road, about fifty yards from the car. He was talking to a man I didn’t recognize, someone I didn’t think I had seen at either the church or the graveside service. If he had been there, he hadn’t spoken to me. Paul threw his hands out to his side a few times, as though exasperated and trying to make an important point that the man wasn’t understanding.
“Do you know who Paul is talking to, Ronnie?” I asked.
Ronnie shook his head.
“Do you need anything, Elizabeth?” Dan asked. “Help with school or your classes? Do you just want to get together and have a drink and talk?”
I looked over at Paul again. He made a dismissive gesture toward the other man, as if telling him he was finished with him. The two men walked off in opposite directions. Paul came toward us while the man—short and chubby—walked off the other way. I didn’t know where he was going. I didn’t see a car or anyone waiting for him.
I turned to Dan. “We have to go now,” I said. “We have to open the house for the guests.”
“I can’t make it to your house,” Dan said. “I have class.”
“That’s fine. It’s just some old people my mom knew. Nothing fancy.”
Paul used his remote key fob to unlock the car, and I began to head in that direction.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Okay,” Dan said.
I turned back on the way. “Thanks, Dan. Thanks for coming.”
“Call me if you need anything,” he said.
I looked back once as we drove away. Dan remained in his spot, waving good-bye.
Chapter Seven
Paul’s face was flushed as we drove to the house. I thought maybe it was from standing in the morning sun. Or maybe stress and grief. But I also remembered the way he’d walked away from the man at the cemetery. The big gestures, the dismissal. He gripped the wheel tight as he drove.
“Who was that you were talking to?” I asked.
“Who?” he asked.
“The man at the cemetery. Is he a friend?”
Paul didn’t respond right away. His eyes pointed straight ahead, fixed on the road and the traffic.
“Just someone we used to know growing up. He’s nobody.”
I thought about asking more, then remembered my own awkward encounter with the past in the cemetery. I decided not to press it. Some things were better left alone.
About fifteen people came back to the house after the graveside service. The die-hards, I supposed. They were waiting politely on the porch when we pulled up. The gathering passed with a lot of muted small talk. Comments about the weather were popular, as were compliments about the food. I realized an eternal truth: death makes people hungry. Either because they’ve decided to embrace life to the fullest in the wake of another’s death, or maybe because they don’t know what to talk about at such an event. In any case, the guests made a nice dent in the food. No one held back.
Paul seemed distracted during the gathering. When I was a kid, he would glide from group to group at family functions, talking to everyone with equal enthusiasm and energy. A funeral didn’t compare to a Christmas party, and I attributed his lack of energy to the accumulated toll of the previous days’ events. He sat on the couch, an empty paper plate balanced on his knee, and nodded thanks to the people who came by to talk to him.
I tried to play hostess. I made sure the bucket was full of ice, that enough napkins and plasticware sat on the small kitchen table. Some of the ladies helped as well, and they never failed to give me a gentle pat on the arm or back. I didn’t thank them for the kindness, but I appreciated it more than they could know.
Mrs. Porter came up to me again, and rather than let her dictate the subject of the conversation, I decided to initiate.
“Did my mom say anything to you about her health?” I asked. “Any complaints or worries?”
Mrs. Porter scrunched up her face, as though giving the question a good thinking over. I knew Mom had spent a lot of time at the library, checking out books for both herself and Ronnie. I wondered if she had said something to Mrs. Porter that she hadn’t said to anyone else. Something that would make the possibility of murder less real.