Never Come Back

Chapter Six

The funeral was, indeed, small. Before the service Ronnie, Paul, and I stood in the back of the church and greeted the arriving mourners. There weren’t that many. Maybe forty total, including the three of us. Most of them were women my mom’s age, ladies she had known to some degree during the thirty years she’d lived in Dover. If I had ever met or seen any of them, it would have been years earlier, and as they approached me, shaking my hand and hugging me, it amazed me how much they had aged. Graying hair, deeper wrinkles. Funerals do make us think of our own mortality. How much time had flown by for me?

After the service, we proceeded to the cemetery. It was a warm day in late September, and, contrary to popular belief, it didn’t have to rain during a funeral. Few clouds interrupted the flat blue of the sky. The trees had just started throwing out their brightest colors. We rode to the cemetery in Paul’s car, easing along right behind the hearse. Mom hadn’t felt the need to pay for an extra vehicle or anything as extravagant as a limo.

The graveside service passed quickly. A few words from the Bible, all of us standing there with our heads appropriately bowed. Birds chirped overhead and a light breeze ruffled everyone’s clothes. I stared at the ground, first at the hole that awaited my mother’s coffin. Then I turned my eyes to the space next to her, where my father lay buried. The gauge for my emotional tank showed empty. I’d cried everything out already and just wanted to get out of the cemetery.

The minister announced that everyone was invited back to Mom’s house for some snacks and drinks. As the mourners filed out, they took the time to talk to us and wish us well. The women doted on Ronnie, and he bore their fussing with the same blank look he’d worn for the past few days. The women also stopped and talked to me. They offered to bring food to us and to check in from time to time.

Then a woman named Nancy Porter, who volunteered at the library my mom always went to, stopped and leaned in close to my ear. She wore a floral dress with a white cardigan over top.

“I know you’ll take good care of your brother,” she said, her eyes wide and earnest. “You’re going to do what your mom wanted you to do, right?”

I gritted my teeth.

“She wanted you to do this for her, Elizabeth.”

Even then, speaking to someone I owed nothing to, I couldn’t say what I was supposed to say. Mrs. Porter moved on.

Finally, it was time for us to go. People were on their way to the house, so we needed to get back and open things up. Paul had ordered food from a local deli. It was all crammed into Mom’s refrigerator, waiting for the descending hordes of hungry mourners.

I looked around the cemetery. I didn’t see Paul. His car was still sitting in the cemetery roadway, the sun glinting off its chrome and glass. But he was nowhere in sight.

“Come on, Ronnie.” I took my brother by the hand, and we started for the car.

Then I saw Dan.

He stood in the shade of a big maple, wearing a white dress shirt and a vintage blue and gray tie with a thick knot. He was thirty, almost five years older than me. A few flecks of gray were starting to show in his dark hair, but he still managed to look boyish. A young, handsome intellectual.

“Hi, Elizabeth.” He came forward and gave me a hug. It felt good, and for the extra long moment he held me, I relaxed my body and let myself be supported by him, as though I were on the brink of collapse. I needed that. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said as he let me go. “How did you know?”

“Professor Niehaus told me. I’ve been calling you for the last two days, and you haven’t been responding. Plus you didn’t come to class, so I asked if something was wrong. I thought maybe you were sick.”

“I asked her not to tell anybody,” I said.

“She told me because I pushed,” Dan said. “And because she knew we were, or had been, close. Other people from school would have come to the funeral, you know. Why didn’t you want them to hear the news?”

“I just didn’t want to make a big deal,” I said. “I’ll be back to school tomorrow.”

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Really?”

“This is my brother, Ronnie,” I said.

“Hi, Ronnie,” Dan said.

Ronnie shook Dan’s hand but didn’t say anything.

“My uncle is here somewhere, but I don’t— Wait. There he is.”

Paul stood on the other side of the road, about fifty yards from the car. He was talking to a man I didn’t recognize, someone I didn’t think I had seen at either the church or the graveside service. If he had been there, he hadn’t spoken to me. Paul threw his hands out to his side a few times, as though exasperated and trying to make an important point that the man wasn’t understanding.

“Do you know who Paul is talking to, Ronnie?” I asked.

Ronnie shook his head.

“Do you need anything, Elizabeth?” Dan asked. “Help with school or your classes? Do you just want to get together and have a drink and talk?”

I looked over at Paul again. He made a dismissive gesture toward the other man, as if telling him he was finished with him. The two men walked off in opposite directions. Paul came toward us while the man—short and chubby—walked off the other way. I didn’t know where he was going. I didn’t see a car or anyone waiting for him.

I turned to Dan. “We have to go now,” I said. “We have to open the house for the guests.”

“I can’t make it to your house,” Dan said. “I have class.”

“That’s fine. It’s just some old people my mom knew. Nothing fancy.”

Paul used his remote key fob to unlock the car, and I began to head in that direction.

“I have to go,” I said.

“Okay,” Dan said.

I turned back on the way. “Thanks, Dan. Thanks for coming.”

“Call me if you need anything,” he said.

I looked back once as we drove away. Dan remained in his spot, waving good-bye.