wearing that wretched old bathrobe, her face in that awful mudpack.”
“Will you please stop? People are looking!”
“And what about the time she ran outside, screaming like a banshee after finding a snake in the toilet? Did you ever tell her it was Jake who put it there?”
“Cass, I’m warning you!” But it was too late. Laura had doubled over in a fit of giggles. Cassie could always make her laugh, in any place or situation, even a funeral.
What’s wrong with me? she thought. This is a funeral. My aunt’s funeral. It doesn’t matter that she left me all day with baby-sitters. It doesn’t matter that she was always so critical, scolding me for the least little thing. Control yourself! What kind of person behaves this way at a funeral? “Stop it, Cass! What will people think?”
“You mean what will Jake think, don’t you?” Cassie’s face turned sober. “Okay, take it easy, kiddo,” she said. “Put your head on my shoulder. They’ll all think you’re crying.”
Except that Laura was crying, somewhere deep inside.
From her pew in the front row, she could feel Jake’s eyes on her back. Who was he to judge her? What did he know about her life? When they were growing up, he’d been her ally and her foe, her friend and her tormentor and, always, her secret love. But throughout their three-year marriage, he’d remained distant, as if he’d never really known her.
She turned in her seat and looked in his direction. Their eyes met, and for a moment she felt dizzy. He needs to keep a safe distance, she thought sadly, noting that he’d chosen to sit in the last pew.
She looked back at the minister, who was now saying, “…a beautiful soul who will be mourned by her dearly beloved niece and friends…”
One glimpse at Cassie and she fell into another fit of giggles.
Laura’s feet were aching. After the service, people had been dropping by the house all afternoon and evening. Laura had been standing for hours, acting as hostess to a stream of strangers, and now she was in the hallway, bidding her guests farewell.
“What a caring, lovely person she was,” Reverend Barnes was saying. Except for Cassie, he was the last to leave. “When I heard that a stroke had taken her from us, I insisted on giving the eulogy.”
Laura was having difficulty concentrating on the minister’s words. Her thoughts kept returning to the scene in the chapel. It had shaken her to discover that Jake was still angry, or that she even cared how he felt. She kept playing his words over in her head like a song on repeat until she was sure she’d lose her mind.
“…great childhood friends,” the minister was saying. “I had a secret crush on her, but she had her eye on some other fellow….”
Angry or not, he should have come to the house. Not that she’d been expecting him. Not that she’d wanted him to come. But they had been married. It would have been the right thing, the decent thing, for him to do.
“…didn’t work out. Poor Tess, bless her heart…”
Every time the doorbell had rung, she’d stiffened, half with anticipation, half with dread. But he hadn’t shown up. This is ridiculous, she rebuked herself, glancing at the front door. What did she care?
“…would always tag along. But we never minded. Your mother was such an adorable little thing. Just like you at that age.”
Laura’s attention was riveted back to the minister. “You knew my mother?”
“Of course I did! Even though she was six years younger, Elizabeth used to take her everywhere. I can still picture little Caroline, her golden-brown pigtails, those shining turquoise eyes. And those freckles! She couldn’t say the word ‘sun’ without twenty new dots popping up all over her face. And she had a cute little bump on her nose, just like yours.”
Automatically Laura raised her hand to the bridge of her nose. As a teenager, she’d wanted to have it fixed, but all her friends had been against it. “It gives you character,” Jake had said, “not that you lack any.” Later, she decided that the bump she had inherited from her mother was too small for her to even consider having it removed.
Why can’t I remember what my mother looked like? Laura thought now. I wasn’t that young when she died. I should be able to remember something. For years after the crash Laura had searched for her mother in the park, at school, at the doctor’s office. Even to this day she still caught herself looking around corners in department stores, in the supermarket, in the library. It’s no wonder, she told herself, considering I’ve never seen pictures of my parents. Where are the mementos of our lives? Where are the family albums? These were questions Aunt Tess had never answered.
“My mother looked like me.” The statement had been meant as a question.
“My stars, yes! And how your aunt doted on her! Until the day I performed the wedding ceremony for your parents, Tess was always there, looking out for her. Always sewing something special for her to wear or fixing her hair or baking a special treat. That girl was more like a mother than a sister.”
It was as if Reverend Barnes were describing some other person. Aunt Tess, so it seemed, had worn two faces, one at home, the other for the outside world.
A honking outside jolted Laura back to the moment.
“My taxi must be here,” the minister said, taking her hands in his. “Don’t be a stranger, Laura. Come visit our church in Ridgefield. You might find comfort there.”
She watched as he shuffled down the front walk, leaning heavily on his cane. The taxi drove away and she closed the door.
Her thoughts returned to Jake. She remained in the hallway for several minutes, her eyes fixed on the door as though she could will the bell to ring.
“Weren’t they a nice bunch? Who would have figured she knew so many people?”
Laura sat on the couch next to Cassie, her feet propped up on the coffee table. They had just finished rounding up plates and coffee cups and were relaxing in the living room, going over the events of the day.
“Just be grateful that everyone from the chapel didn’t show up,” Cassie answered, yawning. “These walls would have burst wide open. It would have been a geriatric nightmare. Speaking of absenteeism, why wasn’t Steady Eddy at the service?”
“I told you, Edward couldn’t get away. His surgery schedule is set weeks in advance.” In truth, Laura was relieved. Somehow she couldn’t picture her fiancé here in Middlewood, Connecticut, as she went on with her everyday life. She burst out laughing, trying to imagine the prominent heart surgeon wearing one of her aunt’s prissy smocks, helping her clean the house.
“No fair,” Cassie said. “You’ve got to share your private jokes.”
There was no stopping Cassie once she got started on the defectiveness of the male species, and Laura had no desire to discuss Edward’s flaws. “I was thinking about Ellen with all those bandages, the night we climbed down the tree. I wish she could have been here today. But you know Ellen, busy saving the world.”
“How is our little Florence Nightingale? It must be months since she last called me. Any man in her life?”
