“Chris and I aren’t engaged. Anyway, he had to work,” I explained.
“At the hospital,” Daanis said loyally from beside me. “Anne’s boyfriend is a doctor at Children’s in Chicago.”
“What a shame,” Mrs.Mosley said, “that he couldn’t be here to support you.”
Daanis and I exchanged looks, as if we were still lab partners in Mrs.Mosley’s seventh-grade science class. “I thought for sure she’d approve of a doctor,” Daanis whispered as Mrs.Mosley moved on, seeking another victim.
“She doesn’t approve of anybody. Even God.”
Daanis snickered and then sobered. “How are you holding up, sweetie?”
An ache rose in my throat. “I hate this,” I whispered. “I miss him so much.”
She put her arms around me. I closed my eyes, leaning my head against her shoulder, relieved of the need to pretend.
“Hey, honey. You ready?” Zack appeared in the church doorway, carrying Rose. “Anne.” He nodded to me. I liked him because he loved Daanis. He tolerated me for the same reason. “Sorry about all this.”
All this.That my dad was dead. That Zack had to be here on a Saturday morning. That he was taking my best friend away.
“It’s okay.” It was not okay. “Thanks for coming,” I said.
Rose reached out her chubby little arms. “Ma. Mamama…”
“Let’s go, babe,” Zack said. “Taxi’s waiting.”
“I’m going to walk with Anne.”
“Rose needs you,” Zack said.
Ineeded her. But since I wasn’t two years old, I smiled bravely. “You go. I’ll see you there.” At the cemetery.
She left me to climb into one of the horse-drawn carriages. Zack handed up Rose. The toddler wriggled like a kitten, fitting herself around Daanis’s baby bump. Daanis whispered to her daughter, her shiny black hair falling over them both. They looked so cute together. The hot constriction in my chest eased.
Most of the thin crowd was on foot. I spotted Zoe’s goldendoodle head beside Mrs.Powell in a sensible knit hat. Joe was there, too, standing with his mother and a round-faced teen with brown hair I vaguely recognized as his half sister.
I fell into place next to Mom, behind the dray holding Dad’s ashes and a spray of lilacs. The piper who played at island weddings took his position in front, his tartan bright against the winter-brown grass. The harness creaked and jingled. Hooves clopped. Feet shuffled. Someone coughed. We started the mile-long walk to the cemetery to the sound of bagpipes playing “Ashokan Farewell” and the whisper of wind in the pines.
Dad would have loved it.
Residents walking their dogs or collecting their mail stood by the side of the road in respect. A few early visitors stopped to stare, their phones flashing in the sunlight as they recorded the piper and the procession. My heart burned. I wanted to yell at them. My dad’s funeral wasn’t some bit of local color for their social media feeds. I imagined the headlines, the comments (crazy mourner attacks island tourist!) and took a deep breath.
Just try not to embarrass your father.
The carriage wheels rumbled under the stone arch and through the iron gate. Past the carved wooden turtle and totem pole that flanked the Chippewa burial mound. Past oldgraves to the new burial section, finally stopping by an open scar in the turf. My bootheels sank in the muddy ground. My mother listened, her face as gray and hard as the stones, as the priest spoke.
My father was lowered into the earth.
A crow cawed. Bagpipes keened.
A sob escaped me. Maybe Mom reached out her hand? Or not. I couldn’t see. When a heavy arm settled over my shoulders, I turned blindly into the warmth, comforted by a whiff of my father, soap and wool and mineral spirits. And something that wasn’t Dad at all, a deep, delicious note of…Joe.
Son of a frickin’ biscuit. Yesterday I’d accused him publicly of causing my father’s death.
I pulled away, my face flaming.
My emotions were too raw. Our history was too messy. I did not want—I could notbear—his comfort now.
4
