she always wore when working in the gardens.
“That’s what we have to remember now,” Chester said in a tear-clogged voice, putting away a handkerchief.
“That’s our consolation,” Hilda agreed. She mopped her face with her apron, sniffed and all but wailed, “I should start dinner!” before trundling from the room. Carol followed.
Chester shook his head then said, “She isn’t thinking clearly,” and he went after her.
A collective sigh filled the air. A moment later, Nathan jerked away and ran from the room. Carissa calmly set Tucker onto his feet and, after a moment of uncertainty, looked to Phillip. He desperately wanted to open his arms and pull them both in, but he knew what she needed from him, so he lifted his hand to Tucker alone. The boy stumbled into his side and wrapped his arms around Phillip’s waist. Phillip awkwardly patted the boy’s back, and Carissa quietly went after her oldest son.
When he turned again to his aunts, they were staring as if he’d grown a second pair of arms. All but Odelia, who clasped her beringed hands beneath her double chin and, for some reason, smiled at him as if he’d hung the moon.
* * *
Carissa and the children stayed the night at Chatam House, not in the building out back where Chester and Hilda lived with Hilda’s sister, Carol, but in the main house, in a three-bedroom, three-bath suite upstairs that was bigger and far finer than her father’s old apartment. The Chatam sisters had suggested it, and Carissa had let herself be talked into it. Partly because she was too tired to argue, but mostly because she didn’t think the children ought to go back to the apartment so soon after their grandfather’s death. It seemed best to get through the next few days first.
Plucking at the black T-shirt that she’d tucked into the waist of her denim skirt, she sighed and asked, “Do you think this is all right to wear to the funeral home?”
“I think it’s fine,” Phillip told her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
She had twisted it into a bun low on her neck, but no matter what she did, wisps escaped. Someday she would have money for a decent haircut.
“Maybe I should tie a scarf around my hair.”
“No.” He curled a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up. “You look lovely just as you are.”
Despite the luxury of having had a room and a bed entirely to herself, she was too tired to scold herself for enjoying the compliment. “Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about the kids,” he told her. “I’ll sit right here in the suite with them until they wake. Then I’ll send them down to Hilda for breakfast.”
“I’ve laid out their clothes.”
“Don’t worry.”
“They can dress themselves.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Uncle Chester says it won’t take long.” She bit her lip to stop its trembling.
Phillip leaned forward until his forehead touched hers. “Don’t. Worry.”
But how could she not? Funerals cost money, which she didn’t have. Despite her best efforts, tears suddenly streamed down her face. Phillip said nothing, just gathered her loosely against him until she regained control. It would be so easy to lean on him. He had promised her father, after all, that she wouldn’t be alone after his death, but she knew better than to hold him to that promise. Phillip had been pledging the support of the Chatams, not him personally. She pushed him away, grabbed her handbag and rushed out of the suite as fast as she could.
Chester, the Chatam sisters and Kent waited for her in the foyer downstairs. What a trio the sisters were, Hypatia all elegance in her silk and pearls, her silver hair expertly styled, Odelia flamboyant in eye-popping prints and oversize jewelry, her shockingly white hair curling with abandon, and Magnolia looking like a bag lady in her moth-eaten shirtwaists, her steel-gray braid hanging over her shoulder. Surprised to find them dressed to go out, their handbags dangling from their elbows, Carissa automatically protested.
“Ladies, Uncle Chester and I can take care of this.”
Hypatia shook her elegant silver head. “Your uncle has been an enormous part of our lives for many years. We would never abandon him in his hour of need.”
“Oh, of course.”
They did far more than “not abandon” Chester, however. They made suggestions that helped trim costs without sacrificing the dignity of the service, including offering Chatam House to hold the reception at afterward. It shamed Carissa to have to ask the funeral director if he could provide a payment plan, but she had no choice.
“Oh, no, honey,” Chester said, slipping an arm about her shoulders. “Hilda and I will take care of this.”
“But, Uncle Chester—”
“It’s been decided, Carissa. I know he was your father, but he was my brother, and he worried so about you and the children. You have enough to take care of as it is.”
Carissa closed her eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks before hugging her uncle’s neck. She didn’t miss the small, satisfied smiles that the Chatam sisters traded or the wink that Kent gave Chester. She knew very well where Chester was getting the money to pay for this, but for once she was going to look the other way and be grateful.
* * *
The funeral service took place on Monday morning at Chester and Hilda’s small church. Marshall wasn’t a member, but he had often attended worship there. Dallas, Phillip’s youngest sister, stepped in to watch the children at Chatam House. Carissa hoped to the very end that her sister, Lyla, would somehow get wind of the situation and arrive in time for the funeral, but that didn’t happen. Thankfully, their mother didn’t turn up, either. Though Alexandra had divorced their father many years ago, he had never remarried, and Alexandra was shameless enough to make a grand entrance decked out in widow’s weeds and claim the spotlight. Carissa wouldn’t even put it past her to bring along her current husband, a much younger man, to show off.
After the service, the Chatams hosted a reception at the mansion, catered by a local catering company to spare Hilda the trouble. Dallas brought the children in, clean and dressed. When the children became restless, Dallas took them out again, and they went off without a peep of protest.
The past few days, Carissa had let herself just drift along, going with the flow, but the moment was coming when she must again take a stand and assert her independence. Otherwise, she would wind up letting the Chatams do everything for her. She couldn’t help wondering where she would find the energy to do what she must. Glancing around the large but crowded dining room, where the food had been laid out, she set aside her plate, rose to her feet and quietly slipped out of the house to the front porch. An old-fashioned bench swing hung from the east end of the porch. She kicked off her navy pumps and sat down in the middle of the swing, tucking her bare feet onto the seat beneath her.
Hanging baskets of ivy bracketed the swing, and green lawns sloped away to the street beyond. Her father would have enjoyed this place, but she didn’t think he’d ever done more than drive by here. She’d seen a rose arbor on the east lawn and a towering magnolia tree on the west, as well as other trees clustered about the property. Despite
