Mourning Glory by Warren Adler

the
room, obviously gathering the strength to control his emotions.
    "Friends," he began, his voice deep, mellow,
wonderfully resonant. Grace felt thrilled by its sound. Her pounding heart beat
heavily in her chest.
    "Anne would have been delighted by the turnout."
He stopped abruptly, and Grace knew he was reaching for control with all his
resources. "She had this uncanny ability to relate to people. It was a
phenomena I observed the moment I met her at a sorority dance at Wellesley College. She was a magnet for people. They clustered around her, sought her out.
Like me. I remember how I, too, sought her out, basking in the light of her
lovely face, her beautiful eyes that radiated wonder and beckoned me, a rather
shy, stumbling and bumbling young man. I was captivated by her, charmed, and
passionately committed to this rare human being for forty years. For me it was
forty years of sheer joy and happiness. We enjoyed every moment we were
together. She was my pillar of strength, my lover, my confidante, my best
friend. She thought I was hopelessly disorganized and I probably was, because
she took on the job of organizing me from the day we met. She was beautiful,
vivacious, giving, a loyal and faithful wife, a cherished pal.... "He
paused and studied the assemblage through a long pause. Grace could not hold
back her tears. Sobs echoed through the auditorium, and she suspected that there
wasn't a dry eye in the house.
    It was not just the words he spoke. It was the way he said
them, the wonderful resonance of his voice, its solemn lilt, the sincerity of
his meaning. Oh God, Grace thought, would anyone ever say such words about me?
    "Good-bye, sweet Anne, my love. You are too soon gone.
I should have preceded you."
    The sounds of grief, the sobs and coughing, accelerated as
he left the lectern and returned slowly to his seat.
    Grace felt the urge suddenly to rise and embrace him. He
looked, to her Catholic-conditioned eye, positively saintly, a man to love. Was
he, Sam Goodwin, her destiny?
    After the ceremony, she asked one of the men organizing the
ride to the cemetery if he might find her room in one of the cars in the
procession.
    The man arranged for her to ride with two couples in a
Lincoln Town Car. In the front seat were the McDermotts, Sally and Mike, people
in their sixties, and in the rear were the Hales, Bob and Clara, slightly
younger.
    "Did you know Anne long?" Clara Hale asked as the
car moved along in the line of the long procession. She was a bleached blonde
with thin parchment skin and the pale, mottled look of a woman who received
most of her calories from alcohol. Her husband Bob had a complementary
appearance, and Grace had the impression that tippling was their principal
common bond and the basis of their marriage.
    "About five years. I was involved with one of her
charities."
    "She was a helluva lady," Mike McDermott said as
he drove.
    "A little imperious," his wife Sally said, realizing
suddenly that the remark seemed inappropriate under the circumstances.
"But giving. Very giving."
    "Jewish people are very charitable," Grace said.
"I'm Italian. Most of our charity goes to the Church."
    "They do give," Clara said. "But you've got to
admit, they are different from us."
    Grace wondered about that remark. They did seem different,
but she attributed that more to the difference in economic status than to their
being Jewish. Were they different? It was hard for her to know.
    "How did you know her?" Grace asked.
    "Mike was the contractor for their house," Bob
said. "Have you seen it?"
    "Yes," Grace said.
    "She was one tough lady, that Anne. Jewed us down to
rock bottom."
    "Be careful about your remarks, Mike," Sally
said, looking around her reflexively.
    "I'm among friends, aren't I?"
    Grace felt him eyeing her through the rear-view mirror.
    "She ran the roost," Sally said. "Never met
a man so pussy-whipped in my life."
    "Except me," Mike chuckled.
    "Not me," Bob interjected. "I'm the absolute
master of my home