Page 99 of Someone to Remember
“Thank you for coming.”
“No problem.”
“That’s hardly true.”
“Even though I hate what we have to do and why, I love that I get to spend a random Monday with you. That doesn’t happen very often.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Lean on me today, babe. I’ve got you.”
I nod because a huge lump has formed in my throat, and that’s the best I can do.
We meet up with Iris, Gage and Joy outside the church and go in together to find the church packed with mourners.
“Bernie wanted to come but couldn’t move his appointments around in time. He sends his best to everyone.”
“I like him,” Iris says. “He’s the real deal.”
“Yes, he is,” Joy says on a sigh as we settle in one of the wooden pews.
“Why do you not sound happy about that?” I ask her.
“I am happy, but you know… It’s always tinged with other shit now.”
“You said ‘shit’ in church,” Iris says with a scandalized whisper that nearly sets us off. At any other time, there would’ve been laughter.
“What’re we doing here?” Joy asks. “Whatin the heckare we doing here?”
“Is this seat taken?”
We gasp when we look up to see Aurora, who was a regularmember of the group before she stopped coming to meetings. As always, every one of her blonde hairs is perfectly styled, and her makeup is artfully applied. But there’s a sadness about her that I can certainly understand.
“Oh my goodness, it’s so good to see you!” I hug her and introduce her to Trey as one of the Wild Widows. Her husband was arrested, charged with rape and convicted at trial. When she asked to join our group, we agreed she was as much a “widow” as the rest of us since her life was changed irrevocably by her husband’s crime. We’ve worried about her since she checked out of our group around the time of his trial.
“We’ve missed you,” Iris says.
“I’ve missed you, too.” After she hugs Gage and Joy, she takes a seat next to me. “I’m so, so sorry for Taylor. It’s such a tragedy.”
“It sure is.”
“Is she… How’s she doing?”
“As you might expect. Shocked but functioning somehow for her kids.”
“And a new one coming soon… It’s so sad.”
We lean on each other, heads on shoulders, hands clasped until the service begins with a soaring hymn sung by the church’s choir. The casket is rolled down the center aisle by the pallbearers, followed by Taylor, holding hands with her children.
It’s unbearable.
The Catholic mass is familiar to me from a childhood of Sundays spent going through the motions of stand, sit, kneel.
Will’s sister, Catherine, makes her way to the altar to read the twenty-third Psalm.
TheLordis my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
