1
Fern Lawrence had been dead a full week, and she was still bossing people around. Tessa Lawrence could only marvel at how her ex-ish mother-in-law could reach from beyond the grave to do it.
Every detail of this memorial celebration had been dictated by Fern, down to what food went where on the table. Tessa wouldn’t have minded so much if the letter hadn’t ended with a snarky comment in Fern’s messy handwriting about how Tessa, left to her own devices, would get this shindig all wrong.
As if. She’d been trained to organize, plan, and graciously host events by one of the most accomplished and polished socialites on the eastern seaboard.
Speaking of which, she glanced over at the refreshments table and noticed the deviled egg tray was empty. Picking it up, she headed for the church kitchen to restock it.
Grace O’Donnell looked up from a box of cookies she was unpacking onto a tray. “How’re you holding up, sweetie?”
Tessa shrugged, unsure of the answer. She took the container of deviled eggs out of the refrigerator and commenced refilling the serving platter’s shallow, egg-shaped indentations.
“This must be hard for you, Tess. I know how complicated your relationship was with your mother-in-law. Or should I say ex-mother-in-law?”
“I never have been sure about that,” Tessa answered ruefully. “When I hear the word ex, I think divorce. But what happens when the son slash husband dies? Does the marriage end and make Fern my ex mother-in-law, or does the marriage not technically dissolve and mean she was still my mother-in-law?”
“Either way, she’s gone now,” Grace said gently. “And it’s kind of you to put on her funeral like this.”
Tessa sighed. “She wasn’t a bad person. She and I were just . . . different.”
Grace laughed quietly as was fitting at a funeral. “She was a royal pain in your side from the day you two met till the day she died.”
Tessa allowed herself a small smile of acknowledgement at Grace’s pithy and entirely true observation. But she’d been taught that one did not speak ill of the dead, particularly at said person’s memorial service.
Tessa carried the reloaded egg tray back into the drafty fellowship hall of the Cobbler Cove Community Church. Her chic stiletto heels kept catching in the ancient orange rug splayed across the middle of the room like a giant orangutan pelt, and she did her best not to look like a crippled flamingo as she cautiously minced across the treacherous rug to the refreshment table.
Fern might have been a constant aggravation that she wasn’t going to miss, but she was sad Makayla had lost her only real grandparent. Mick Lawrence had been Fern’s only son, the product of a summer fling in Europe, and Fern had raised him alone back here in Cobbler Cove.
Tessa’s parents were alive and well in New York, but they’d disowned her when she came to Montana for a ski vacation, met Mick, and never went back East. They’d never met Makayla, who’d just turned eleven, and she was fine with keeping it that way.
Tessa pasted on a polite smile as Fern’s next door neighbor, Arlo Pickett, came over and announced, “Fern was specific about the potato salad at her memorial, you know.”
“Specific how?” she asked, startled. Although it had been on the menu Fern provided for this party, Fern’s instructions hadn’t included any details about the potato salad.
“She said—and I’m quoting here—‘If anybody brings store-bought potato salad to my funeral, I will haunt them.’” His eyes twinkled behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “She was dead serious about it.”
“Good thing I didn’t bring it, then,” she replied with a genuine smile. “I don’t have the first idea how to make potato salad.”
“It’s all in the right potatoes and cooking ‘em the right way,” he declared. “Fern gave me her recipe twenty years ago, and I’ve been making it for every funeral, potluck, and picnic in this valley since. If anyone complains about it, you send ’em to me.”
Was she somehow in charge of potato salad complaints, now? She was barely in charge of herself today.
This morning, she’d stood in front of her closet and debated what to wear for longer than she cared to admit. Normally, she was at ease with and decisive about fashion. She had unerring instincts for choosing the right clothing and accessories for any occasion.
But this morning she’d blanked out as she stared at her closet. Should she wear a black dress to the funeral because Fern was sort of her mother-in-law and black would be respectful? Or should she wear something bright and colorful because Fern had despised black and she should honor Fern’s taste? She eventually settled on a dark plum sheath dress with a matching bolero jacket. But she tucked a silk scarf in shades of turquoise, gold, teal, and purple in her purse in case everyone else at the funeral went full technicolor rainbow for Fern, who’d been proud to call herself the town’s token hippie.
Then Tessa had to make the whole decision again standing in front of Makayla’s closet. Not only did her daughter lack a wide selection of funeral-appropriate clothes, but Makayla had shot up in height the past few months and half her wardrobe didn’t fit any more.
And that had been before breakfast.
Now, standing in the fellowship hall in her plum dress and pearls, she was trying very hard to be the composed, gracious hostess her mother had raised her to be. The kind of woman who said the right things to put others at ease, who accepted condolences with a gentle smile, who didn’t give any hint of the uncomfortable friction that had characterized her relationship with Fern.
Makayla appeared at her elbow, holding a cup of punch in both hands and looking like a miniature socialite in her navy dress with the white Peter Pan collar, matching headband, and black patent leather Mary Jane shoes.
“Mom, there’s a man outside with a horse. Can I go see them?”
“We’re at a funeral, Makayla..”
