Page 38 of Dying to Meet You
Mom pulls a tissue out of her purse and dabs at her own eyes.
The woman on the other side of Mom is in rough shape, sobbing so hard her whole body is shaking. Yet it’s almost completely silent. She has a paper napkin pressed to both eyes at once, and the thing is already shredded.
Digging into her purse, her mother finds a tissue and passes it to the sobbing woman.
She takes it with a jerky nod. Then she suddenly jumps to her feet. Whirling around, she pushes the door open and bolts from the room. Natalie gets a narrow glimpse of her literally running through the foyer before the door closes again.
Meanwhile, everyone else begins to stand up and follow the casket out the double doors at the opposite end of the room.
Natalie does the math. She and her mom are in back. They’ll be stuck here for hours.
The guitar player keeps strumming for several more minutes, until he eventually gives up. The line moves so slowly that she can barely see outside. There’s a lawn. Some people—probably Tim’s family—have formed a receiving line.
Natalie will be legal to drink before they ever make it to the front of this line. “Do we have to stay?”
“Well, I do,” her mother says.
“Okay,” she grumbles. “Whatever.”
Mom gives her a soft, patient look that she knows she doesn’t deserve.
Because she’s a liar, and her mom can never find out.
13
Rowan
Natalie is fidgety as we creep toward the lawn. And I get it. This line is atrocious. Even after we make it outside, there are still a hundred people in front of us, chatting in low, respectful voices.
A gleaming hearse waits nearby, the casket inside. There’s an ocean of flowers covering its lid.
“My feet are killing me,” I whisper in a feeble attempt to commiserate with my daughter.
“It’s those shoes,” she points out. “You should just give them to me.”
I snort. “Fine. But you can’t have that blouse. It’s dry-clean only.” And black is too severe on her anyway.
She glances down at it and looks annoyed. “Can we get take-out sushi tonight?”
“Heck yes. We deserveallthe sushi.”
“Cool.” She takes a step back from me and pulls her phone out of her bag, but only a few inches. She peeps at the screen and then zips her bag shut again.
She’s on that thing so much I’m honestly surprised she didn’t whip it out during the service.
The line moves forward, and we’re suddenly in front of a display of framed remembrances of Tim. There are photos, articles, and awards.
“So this is him,” Natalie says under her breath, bending close for a look at the pictures. “He looks, um...” She grasps for something nice to say. “Smart.”
“He was,” I quietly agree. Someone has done an impressive job commemorating his life. There are birthday party photos, with an apple-cheeked Tim blowing out four candles on a cake. There’s a photo ofTim as a schoolboy. Maybe he’s six or seven, but he’s already wearing a button-down shirt. No cuff links yet, though.
I peer at the earliest photo. A pair of smiling adults are cradling a newborn, although you can’t really see his face. Then I see something in the picture’s background that startles me.
“What?” Natalie asks. “You’re holding up the line.”
“Look,” I whisper, pointing at the photo. “The banner. What does that say?”
Natalie leans in and squints. “ ‘Adoption Day! Welcome Home...’ The rest is cropped out.”
