“Dadfell? Off aroof?” My voice squeaked.
A pool of silence spread around us. I could feel myself fraying and reached desperately for the threads to hold myself together.
“He had no business up that ladder and so Joe told him,” my mother said.
She might as well have kickedmeoff that roof. I stared at her, feeling the ground fall away beneath my feet.
“I’m sorry,” Joe said.
I believed him. There was an awful sincerity in his deep voice, a terrible pity in his warm brown eyes. His sympathy broke me. My throat constricted. My sinuses swelled. I was going to cry. In front of him. Because of him. This was his fault.
“It’s your fault,” I blurted.
He went still.
“Annie,” Mom said sharply.
“If you’d been up on the roof instead of Dad, he wouldn’t have died.”
“That’s quite enough,” my mother said. “Apologize.”
I whirled on her. “I can’t believe you’re taking his side.”
“It’s all right,” Joe intervened. His gaze met mine. “I understand.”
The horrible thing was I thought he did.
I turned hot. Cold. My palms were sweating. My lips were frozen. Everybody was watching—my mother’s friends, the Altar Guild, Chief Petrovski, Mrs.Johnson—with varying degrees of judgment or indulgence.JustAnnie being Annie, their expressions said.What did you expect?
And tomorrow I had to face them all again.
—
I set myphone alarm for seven thirty and then lay awake for hours. My brain buzzed. My whole body shivered. Eventually, I gave up, got up, and dug in my closet for the old flannel men’s shirt stuffed in the back. Wrapping myself in its familiar comfort, I flopped back into bed. I’d broughtAnne of Green Gableson the plane with me as my emergency book, my homage to my father. But even reading about the Christmas concert (the dress with the darling puffed sleeves! thebeaded kid slippers! Gilbert Blythe saving the rose from her hair in his breast pocket!) didn’t quiet my mental storm.
I tried, and failed, to imagine Chris saving a flower from my hair. Not that I wore flowers in my hair. Not for years and years, anyway. Not since Daanis and I wandered the woods, making crowns of dandelions and honeysuckle…
When I woke, gray light streamed through a chink in the curtains. I grabbed for my phone and groaned.
Twenty minutes later, I hopped from my room, jamming my right heel into my boot, clutching my earrings in one hand.
Mom was waiting by the door, her squat black bag tucked under her arm. Judging by her heavy eyes, she hadn’t slept well, either.
My heart wrenched. “What can I do for you, Mom?”
“This isn’t about me, Anne. Or you, either.” She swung open the door. A chilly wind sliced through my jacket. “Just try not to embarrass your father.”
And I did try, sitting motionless as Father Steve’s voice droned like a bee bumbling against a screen door. Almost motionless, only my knee bouncing up and down. It helped that I was mostly numb.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Mrs.Mosley said after the service as the mourners drifted from the church.
As if Dad were temporarily misplaced instead of dead.
My mother was descending the steps ahead of us, her shoulders square under her good black coat. I opened my mouth. Shut it before I could say something I would regret. That she would regret.
I remembered my script. “Thank you for coming, Mrs.Mosley.”
She sniffed. “I’m surprised your fiancé isn’t with you.”
