Page 77 of More With You

Her breath hitches. “I know, honey, but I’m scared of what you might do if you stay awake.”

“Why?” I murmur, dizzy with dehydration: my throat raw and arid.

Ms. T helps me up the porch steps. “Why am I scared?”

“No… just… why?”

A tear rolls down Ms. T’s blushed cheek. “Not a one of us has the answer to that, honey. I doubt even the heavens themselves know.”

* * *

Fierce sunshine bakes the earth on the day of his funeral, like the sun itself is furious, and didn’t see this tragedy coming. It was setting on the evening that he died, but I wonder if it might’ve warned me, had it happened in the daylight? Would it have tried to save him?

The congregation is huge, swelling back from the place where we got married, all the way to the cemetery gates. I think the entire town might be here. And there’s Pastor Cooke at the makeshift altar, standing behind an artisanally made ceramic urn, blanketed with flowers of every possible color. No plain, condolence-white for Ben. He’d have hated that.

Pastor Cooke keeps glancing my way, fully aware of the significance of this spot. During the funeral preparations, he asked time and time again if I was sure this was where I wanted Ben’s service to be held. I couldn’t have been surer. He’s not going to be buried here, though. His ashes will be thrown to the wind, to the earth, to the water – that way he will be everywhere I am. Everywhere Grace is.

Reading out the poem, “Immortality,” Pastor Cooke chokes up, and the congregation breaks with him. It’s like we’ve all been putting on a brave face until he gave us this permission to feel the grief in our hearts, and let it sweep over the cemetery like the bayou breaking its banks. Sniffs and sobs and strangled breaths echo behind me, and I allow the tears to come for the billionth time since the police arrived at my cottage.

“It’s true,” Grace whispers from beside me: one hand in mine, one hand in her mother’s.

I peer down. “What do you mean?”

“The poem. It’s true,” Grace explains. “Daddy is like Wispy. He’s everywhere. I hear him. I just have to listen really, really hard.”

My throat tightens. “What does he say?”

“He misses us,” she replies, and I exchange a sad smile with Lyndsey. I know they’re Lyndsey’s comforting words, being spoken from Grace’s mouth. I just wish I had her imagination. Maybe then, I’d be able to hear him, too.

“He does. Very much,” I tell her. “And if you ever want to talk to him, he’ll be anywhere you are.” I nod toward the sky. He’s in our memories and etched across his journal and brushed over the stretched canvases of his masterpieces and still living in the quirky mannerisms of his daughter.

Across the trampled grass there are two stony faces among the congregation. Mr. and Mrs. DuCate. In a cruel twist of fate for them, Mr. DuCate had held true to his promise of speaking with a lawyer as soon as Ben and I left that day, transferring all inheritance rights to Grace. It should have been a moment of great satisfaction for Mr. DuCate, but it would have been short-lived when, not long after, he found out that his son was gone. As for Mrs. DuCate… I can’t talk about her at all. Not that it stops her from spinning around in my head, as I wonder what might have happened if she hadn’t commanded him to move his motorcycle off the driveway that night. She stole my happy ending from me, just so she could have the last word.

Since Ben left us, I haven’t tried to speak to them. They know where I am if they want to build a bridge, though I’m not sure we’ll ever have the bricks for that. I’m still at the cottage, after Vasily made a sharp U-turn on kicking me out. As the DuCates haven’t tried to persuade Vasily again, I guess they’re giving me this one tiny sliver of comfort, while I try to gather up the courage to start putting the fragments of me back together. Either that, or it’s the only thing Mrs. DuCate could think to do, to alleviate the tiniest ounce of her guilt.

“Now, Summer DuCate, the wife of our late friend, will say a few words,” Pastor Cooke announces, to the choked sobs of the congregation.

I take a breath and try to head for the altar, but Grace tugs on my hand. “Take me, too.”

Lyndsey lets go of her daughter’s hand and gives me a nod. Shaking, I pick Grace up and rest her on my hip as I walk the short distance to the altar, where I can’t even look out on the sea of people. I feel their encouragement and their sorrow, but if I see it with my own eyes, I won’t be able to get a word out.

Instead, I find Ms. T’s face and focus on it. She smiles through free-flowing tears, and it’s precisely what I need.

“Many of you don’t know me, but I’m Summer. I’m Ben’s wife. Not was, but am,” I begin unsteadily, readjusting Grace’s weight as she burrows into my neck. “I’m not sure what you’re supposed to say at something like this, or what can be said that could even come close to describing what I’m feeling. All I know is, I’ve been to one other funeral in my life, and there were only two people there. Me and my grandma. There weren’t any tears or eulogies or stories to tell. It was just something to get through.

“Now, I look out at all of you, and my heart is so broken and yet so full, seeing so many people, crying openly over a man who touched us all in his own way.” My voice goes, but I soldier through. “This town will never be the same without him. I’ll never be the same. You can’t be, after you’ve loved and been loved by someone, the way we loved each other. I just… thought we’d have so much longer. Gray hair, rocking chairs, all of that cliché stuff that couples in love are so lucky to get.”

I turn my gaze toward the urn and close my eyes, imagining Ben in the very spot where I’m standing, but he’s got his hands in mine and that winning smile on his face, and we’re saying our vows, so foolishly certain of forever.

“I miss you, Ben.” My voice wavers. “I’ll miss you for the rest of my life. I miss you and I love you, but, as Grace told me just before, I know that I can hear you and feel you, if I just listen hard enough. Thank you, Ben. Thank you for… making my life feel easy and blessed, for the first time in twenty-six years. I’ll never forget you and I’ll never forget that, no matter how hard it gets from here on out. Thank you.”

Shy applause rises up from the congregation. I guess no one knows if they’re supposed to clap at a funeral, but they can celebrate Ben however they want to. They’re already casting off convention with their bright colors, so I say let them clap, let them cheer, let them drink and laugh and share stories of him, as if he’s still here.

Listening to the crashing wave of the applause growing louder, I find I have more to say, but this part is just for me and Ben. I’ll watch your little girl grow up and I’ll make sure that I’m a part of her life, in some way. She’s you, Ben. She’s the best part of the life you’ve left behind, and I swear I’ll be whatever she needs me to be. I wish we could’ve all met sooner, I wish you hadn’t taken the motorcycle that night, or that you could’ve stayed. I still don’t understand why you couldn’t, but, as Ms. T keeps telling me, no one has the answer to that. And if Ms. T doesn’t have the answer, no one does. It’s early days and time is going by in a haze but I’m going to try to live, as best I can, for you. So I have some stories to tell you, if nothing else, when we meet again. I love you, Ben. I love you.

With that, I take a step toward the urn and press my hand to its surface. It’s warmed by the sun, but it’ll never be as warm as his skin. It’s empty, and it should be, because he’s not there. He’s in the swaying leaves of the guardian cypress, the ripple of the bayou, the taste of spicy crawfish, the creak of the porch, the growl of thunder. He’s everywhere and nowhere, but always in my heart.

Swallowing thickly, I walk away from the altar and set Grace down: her hands slipping into mine and her mom’s. We’re an odd family, for sure, with Ms. T acting as a surrogate grandma, but I know we are one. Bound for life, through death.

---