People keep arriving, crowding in wherever there’s room. I spot a couple from the bait shop, a girl from Cassie’s old swim team, the mail carrier with the perpetually sunburned forehead. There’s even a group from Andrew’s old law firm in Atlanta, according to the guest book, though I can’t tell who they are by sight alone. For a moment I’m annoyed. Some of these people barely knew Sara, or else haven’t spoken to her in years, but the feeling passes as quickly as it came. The math of loss is never tidy. It multiplies, divides, carries over into strangers’ lives without warning.
The service starts with a hymn. I don’t know the words, but Cassie mouths them anyway. The minister is a thin, affable man who introduces himself as “Pastor Frank, but just Frank is fine.” He talks about Sara’s spirit, her “bright curiosity,” her “generosity of love.” It sounds canned, but he delivers it like a well-worn story, full of the pauses and sidelong smiles of someone who’s practiced it on real pain.
There’s a reading, a poem I recognize from Sara’s desk drawer, and then Judy stands to speak. Her voice is jagged and wet, but she makes it all the way through. She tells a story about a road trip she and Sara and my birth mother took in their thirties, how Sara insisted on detouring two hundred miles to see the world’s largest frying pan. “It was hideous,” Judy says, cracking a smile through her tears. “But she made us laugh until we couldn’t breathe.” The congregation ripples with nervous laughter, the kind that has to escape or else turn into sobs.
The rest of the eulogies blur together. I stop hearing the words and start watching the crowd instead. There are people hugging in the aisle, clasping hands, dabbing at their eyes with whatever’s handy. The rawness of it is overwhelming. I wonder if Sara would be touched, or if she’d just make a face and say, “Jesus, you’d think I cured cancer or something.”
It’s during the last hymn that I notice him.
He’s standing at the very back, one shoulder braced against the wall like it’s holding him upright. Younger than I expected, but with a shock of silver hair that gives away his age. His suit fits like it’s borrowed, but his posture is unyielding. He watches the service with a surgeon’s detachment, eyes fixed and unblinking. I know him instantly. Not from any prior meeting, but from the photograph Sara kept in her library. Jack. The Jack. The one who lived in Tennessee, who taught her how to fish, how to love, and how to rise from the ashes of a broken heart.
I glance at Nathan, then Cassie, but they are singing, too, eyes straight ahead and hearts somewhere near their shoes. Nobody notices my distraction.
Jack doesn’t sit, doesn’t fidget, just stands with his hands folded and waits for the service to end. When the final prayer is said and the crowd rises, Jack moves down the aisle with the slow, careful precision of someone recovering from a wound. He doesn’t look at anyone. He doesn’t need to.
The receiving line forms at the front. They press in, offering condolences, then trailing off into the reception room for coffee and Ladyfingers and the ceremonial sharing of stories.
I don’t move. I can’t. My legs have turned to seawater, or maybe I’m just afraid that if I stand, the fragile equilibrium I’ve found will disappear. Cassie slips her hand from mine and stands, brushing crumbs from her dress. “Do you want to go up?” she asks, so matter-of-fact that I almost laugh.
“I’m not sure I can,” I say.
Nathan rises, stretching the stiffness from his back. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
But I do. I have to. The feeling grows in my chest, insistent and hot. I need to see the casket, to touch it, to pay tribute the way Sara would have wanted. I nod, and Nathan takes my elbow, not guiding, just supporting as I pick my way down the aisle.
The lilies are so close now I can taste them. The casket is even smaller than I thought. I rest my fingers on the lid, tracing the grain of the wood, and think of Sara’s hands. My eyes sting, but I force the tears down, unwilling to lose my composure in front of a hundred strangers. I lean in, just close enough that no one else can hear.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For everything.”
I step back, nearly colliding with Jack. He stands a respectful distance away, head bowed, lips moving in what might be prayer or just private thought. There’s something about the tilt of his shoulders, the careful way he holds himself, that reminds me so much of Sara I almost say her name out loud. Instead, I just watch as he presses one palm to the casket—brief, reverent, final—and then retreats before the next mourner can move in.
The sanctuary is emptying now,the crowd herding toward coffee urns and folding tables in the fellowship hall. I follow, trailing Nathan and Cassie, but my mind keeps circling back to Jack. He stands alone at the coffee station, swirling cream into a Styrofoam cup. I want to talk to him, to ask about Sara as a girl, to fill in the blanks she always kept private, even when I was writing her memoir. But I don’t know where to start, or if he’d even welcome it.
Cassie is surrounded by a gaggle of teenagers, all bearing the raw, unfiltered curiosity of the young. They talk about school and video games and the upcoming homecoming dance, as if nothing at all has changed. Nathan hovers nearby, fielding grown-up condolences and steering the conversation away from anything too direct. I watch them, grateful and a little ashamed for how normal it all seems.
Judy finds me by the cookies. Her makeup is a disaster, but her expression is steady.
“She would’ve hated this,” she says, popping a piece of crust into her mouth. “Too many people, not enough wine.”
“She’d probably fake her own death to get out of it,” I say, and it feels good to laugh, even if it’s hollow.
Judy leans in, lowering her voice. “Did you see him?”
“Yes. I recognized him from the photo.”
Judy looks over her shoulder. Jack is talking to the pastor now, hands clenched around the coffee cup like it might float away. “He drove all night,” she says. “Didn’t even stop in Raleigh. Said he just got in the car and kept going.”
“Do you think she wanted him here?” I ask.
Judy shrugs. “I think she wanted closure. For both of them.”
We stand, picking at the cookies, watching the sea of mourners ebb and flow. Cassie weaves through the crowd, snagging another cup of juice. She moves with a kind of purpose, as if she’s decided the best way to honor her mother is simply to keep moving.
I keep one eye on Jack. He finishes his coffee, then slips out the side door, unnoticed by most. I watch the door swing shut behind him, and with it a wave of panic rises in me. If I don’t go after him now, I never will.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Judy, abandoning my plate.
The air outside is cooler, rinsed clean by the wind. I spot Jack at the edge of the churchyard, back turned, staring down the length of Lillian Avenue. For a long time I just watch him, memorizing the slope of his shoulders, the way his hands disappear into his coat pockets. He stands there for what feels like hours, unmoving, until I finally gather the nerve to cross the grass.