Page 35 of Dying to Meet You
“Do you know anyone here?” Natalie whispers.
I shake my head. “Your grandmother had a rule—always go to the funeral. Even if it makes you uncomfortable. Even if you’re not sure it matters.”
“But I didn’t go to hers,” Natalie points out.
“You were five. She would have understood.”
Natalie takes the program out of my hands. It’s just a folded page that reads:Timothy Everett Kovak, February 1, 1979–June 6, 2024.
“He was an Aquarius. Clever. Self-reliant.” Natalie gives me a sideways glance. “But also moody and unpredictable.”
“Is that so?” I knew Tim well enough to be sure that he would have rolled his eyes at any mention of astrology, and yet I hadn’t known his middle name.
At the front of the room, a man with an acoustic guitar slung around his neck sets himself on a stool and begins to play. The song is Kamakawiwo‘ole’s version of “Over the Rainbow.”
Natalie puts down the program and listens.
The guitar notes wash over the room like a gentle rain. Voices go quiet. When the guitarist begins to sing, goose bumps rise on my arms.
After the first verse, I notice two older men taking the podium—a pastor and a rabbi. Tim had told me that his mother was Jewish, but not religious, and his father a “lapsed Catholic.”
It’s so easy to hear his voice in my head. He’s still in there.
Just as the song comes to a close, a woman opens the door and slips into the crowded room. Since I’m so near the door, she hovers at my elbow for a moment until I scoot a few inches closer to Natalie, making room on the bench.
“Thank you,” she whispers, claiming the seat.
I sneak a glance at her. She looks familiar, but it’s not the time or place to ask how I might know her.
The service begins with a greeting from the rabbi and a few words about Tim. It’s nice, but disorienting. I feel as though I’m hearing about a stranger.
Probably because I am.
12
Natalie
Among the beautiful pictures
That hang on Memory’s wall.
Is one of a dim old forest,
That seemeth best of all.
Chills rise on Natalie’s back as she listens to the rabbi read a poem. She can’t seem to take her eyes off the coffin at the front of the room. It’s a closed casket. It would have to be, wouldn’t it?
The thought makes her shiver.
She hadn’t lied. Well, not exactly. She’s here to support her mom, but she’s also curious. Although she hadn’t counted on the strangeness of sitting in the same room with his body.
Do they still put makeup on corpses that were shot in the face?
What does it say about her that she thinks about these things?
But even without the bullet hole in his head, this ritual would be eerie. A shell of a person, lying in a box—and all these people sitting politely in front of him.
Moving only her eyes, she surveys the mourners in the room. Friends of the dead man, carefully dressed. Rows and rows of them, with sad expressions on all their faces.
