the tie in front of me. If I looked only at the necktie, it was easier not to lose my shit and start with the hehn-hehn-hehn sounds of hyperventilating. It was so fucking embarrassing. I sounded like a dying duck.
My language had seriously deteriorated since my husband died.
“Bernard, how good of you to come. Thank you for being so kind,” said Eloise next to me. She wore a black knit St. John dress and pearls. Her eyes were dry, her heart broken, and she made Jackie Kennedy look like a strung-out wreck. “This is our daughter-in-law, Kate. Kate, our very dear friend Bernard Helms.”
“Great to meet you,” I said, then covered my mouth with my hand. “Oh, shit, I didn’t mean that. Obviously, I wish we’d met under different circumstances. But you know, thanks for coming.” My left heel wobbled. I felt drunk with fatigue and grief. Now I looked drunk, too, wobbling around, constantly off balance. Eloise’s heels were higher than mine, but she was not the wobbling type. Brooke wore flats. Smart of her. “Did you know Nathan well?”
Bernard’s eyes filled. “I’ve known him since he was a baby. Such a good boy. I remember this terrible snowstorm, oh, maybe ten years ago. My wife had cancer, and we lost power, and I look out the window, and there’s Nathan, coming up our driveway. His place had an automatic generator, and damned if he didn’t take the both of us to his house and treat us like royalty the whole four days. Cooked us dinner, played Scrabble.” Bernard was now openly weeping. “I’m so sorry for you, my dear. Such a tremendous loss.”
I seemed to be gulping and sort of barking with a little choking thrown in for good measure. Pressing my hand against my mouth, I glanced at Eloise helplessly. Pain was carved so deeply on her face that it hurt to look, but she smiled sadly and patted Bernard’s arm, murmured something.
I felt like a junkie next to her.
My sister slipped up with a box of tissues. I didn’t need them, though. I was just barking, like a dog, or a fox, or a...a...stegosaurus. Did they bark? What was the question? Oh, tissues. The really good ones, with lotion. Ainsley was still waiting, so I took one, blew and wobbled. Ainsley steadied me, and I hated that she was being so nice. I didn’t want her to be nice. I wanted to be home with Nathan. “Hang in there,” she whispered, then went back to her seat.
“I’m so, so sorry,” said another one of Eloise’s friends, her eyes red and wet. “You just got married! How can you stand it?”
I have no fucking idea, lady. “I... It was a terrible shock.” Eloise had been saying that, so I borrowed her line.
“Awful! Did he...” She lowered her voice. “Did he make any noise?”
Jesus. “I... No. It was very fast.”
“This is why Indian women throw themselves on the pyre, isn’t it? You must want to do the same thing.” She looked at the casket. “He almost looks alive, doesn’t he?”
Yeah. We had an open casket. I wasn’t sure who said yes to that. It might have been me.
Most of the people here were strangers to me—friends I hadn’t met, friends of the elder Coburns, friends of Brooke. The boys’ classmates came, which was just brutal, seeing Miles and Atticus trying not to cry, and failing. The Little League team Nathan and Chase coached together came in as well, the little sweaty boy hands shaking mine, the kids unable to look me in the eye.
As wife, I came first in the reception line. Then Eloise, her finishing school posture ramrod straight, and Nathan Senior, who was medicated, I was pretty sure, the lucky dog. God. No, he wasn’t lucky. The rusty spike twisted.
Then came Brooke, who was being so brave and kind, though how, I could not imagine. Chase was solemn, nodding, speaking in a low voice, moving the line along, putting his arm around Brooke. At the end were Atticus and Miles in their little navy suits, which just ruined me.
My sister and Eric sat in the front row with Matthias and Esther, Esther crying quietly, Matt giving me a sad smile when our eyes met. And Mom, who wore a you should’ve listened to me look on her face. What was she? A fucking gypsy? Sean and Kiara were murmuring in the back, shaking hands, listening sympathetically. They’d left Sadie with a sitter, but they’d brought a drawing she made for me, smears of pink and green paint.
“Oh, Kate! I’m just so sorry!” Hugging me now was one of Nathan’s workmates, a fellow architect whose name I couldn’t summon. Her body shook with sobs. “I am so, so, so sorry.”
Three sos. He deserved them.
“He was so happy with you,” she whispered, pulling back to look at me.
“Oh. Yes. Thank you.” My throat was so tight, the words croaked out. “He was—” was? Shit, all this past tense! “—so fond of you.” Whoever you are.
The coworker’s mouth trembled, her eyes red. “Anything you need, just call me,” she whispered, moving on to Eloise.
“Susannah,” my mother-in-law said, never one to forget a name. Her Boston accent made the name sound like Susahnner. “You’re so kind to be here. I know Kate appreciates it very much, as do we.”
Nathan and I would never make fun of his mother again. Oh, he’d loved her, all right, but he could do a killer imitation of that upper-crust accent, her soft Rs and long vowels. “Is this hahf-and-hahf?” he’d say. “Hahven’t you any skim, my deah?”
I’d never hear him do that again. How was that possible?
“Hello. Thank you for coming,” I said to the next tie, my voice wobbling.
“Kate, these are the Parkersons,” Eloise said, her voice trembling slightly. “Our next-door neighbors when Nathan was a boy.”
“We can’t believe it,” Mrs. Parkerson said, tears pouring down her face. “We just can’t believe it. He was such a good person!”
“I’m Kate,” I said. “Thank you so much for coming.”
“We flew in from Arizona. Terrible storms in Chicago.”
“Well. We appreciate it.”
“He used to rake our leaves,” the husband said. “We’d pay him a dollar, remember, Eloise? Imagine that. Kids today can’t drop their iBoxes to do a damn thing, but Nathan did our whole yard for one dollar.”
So you were cheap and took advantage of a kid. Got it.
“At least you don’t have children,” the woman said. It felt like a punch in the throat. Before I could answer—and what do you say to that?—they moved on to Brooke and fell on her like vampires.
Poor Eloise. I had no idea how she could hold it together like this. On impulse, I reached out to squeeze her hand, but she turned away to say something to the neighbors before I could, and my hand was left floating, awkward and alone.
Impressions of people swarmed me like bats after dark. There was what’s-his-name, the guy whose office was next to Nathan’s, covering his face with his hand, crying. They’d worked together for a long time, I thought. Just inching through the doorway now was one of the shop owners from downtown—Jenny, who owned the wedding dress shop, and her boyfriend. Lenny? No. Something cooler. Leo. So nice of them to come. We were going to have dinner, Jenny and Leo, Nathan and I. Not now. No more foursomes.
