me.
It wasn’t her fault, though. She didn’t know how else to be. What do you do when you’re five years old and your mother dies? And in her place is a strange woman who you haven’t seen in two years, claiming she’ll take care of you?
I stood, painting a smile on my face as I reached my full height. “What do you think of my dress?” I asked.
Her eyes roamed from my face to my feet, then back up to my face, but didn’t betray her thoughts, and since this question required more than a nod for an answer, she didn’t tell me what she thought.
“Do you like it?” I rephrased.
She nodded and turned the corners of her mouth up, nearly managing a smile. I almost wrapped her in my arms as a thank you for acknowledging me, for taking this small but significant step on our road back to verbal communication.
“It’s not as pretty as yours,” I stated.
The corners of Tegan’s mouth returned to a flatline but I remembered the twitch of her lips when she smiled at me. That would keep me going for a couple of hours. “OK, I’m ready, finally. Let’s go.”
chapter 11
Adele Brannon
(formerly Lucinda-Jayne Hamilton-Mackenzie)
died recently after a valiant battle with leukemia.
She is survived by her daughter, Tegan Brannon.
The funeral will be held on July 31, at 4 p.m.
St. Agnes’s Church, Ealing.
I n the gray brick Catholic church Tegan sat motionless and impassive beside me, watching the people who stood in the pulpit, talking about her mother. I wasn’t sure she knew what was going on—I’d explained that a funeral was where you said goodbye to someone who’d died, but like everything I’d said to her since her cry in the hotel room, she’d given no sign of understanding what I was talking about. Nevertheless, now she was silent and still, as though she sensed the gravity of the occasion.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t, wouldn’t sit still. My body, hot and coated with a film of sweat under the black linen dress and matching jacket, wouldn’t stop fidgeting. The wooden pew beneath me, smoothed shiny by hundreds if not thousands of bums over the years, was unsuited to long periods of sitting, but even if it had been a comfy armchair, I wouldn’t have sat still. To sit still would be to agree with what had happened. I would be telling the world that I approved of Adele being taken away from us. That this dying business and the accompanying funeral were acceptable to me.
The church vibrated with the presence of hundreds of people.
Hundreds
. Hundreds of them had come to pay their last respects—Adele had thought she’d be lucky if enough people to make a football team turned up.
“I tell you, leukemia sure helps you find out who your friends are,” she’d said with her characteristic laugh. Her humor had stayed at the edge of the gallows in those last few days. Always saying things that only the terminally ill were allowed to get away with. I usually laughed, but some of the things Adele came out with horrified even me. “I don’t blame people for not coming to visit, though. Who wants to sit in a hospital room and be reminded of death?” she’d continued. “Besides, how do you react when you find out someone you vaguely know is knocking on heaven’s door? You can’t mourn them when you don’t know them, can you? And what do you say when you visit? ‘Sorry we didn’t get to know you, now it’s too late’?”
“Suppose,” I’d mumbled, eager to change the subject; desperate to stop her using the D word.
“One of my biggest regrets is that I don’t know that many people. I wish I’d made the effort to touch more lives.”
She had touched lives, I wish she’d known that. The church was filled to capacity, with two rows of people standing at the back. People did care and did remember; they had dusted off their black suits, black dresses, black skirts and tops and, like a steady stream of mournful ravens, had flocked to St. Agnes’s. I’d contacted only a couple of
It wasn’t her fault, though. She didn’t know how else to be. What do you do when you’re five years old and your mother dies? And in her place is a strange woman who you haven’t seen in two years, claiming she’ll take care of you?
I stood, painting a smile on my face as I reached my full height. “What do you think of my dress?” I asked.
Her eyes roamed from my face to my feet, then back up to my face, but didn’t betray her thoughts, and since this question required more than a nod for an answer, she didn’t tell me what she thought.
“Do you like it?” I rephrased.
She nodded and turned the corners of her mouth up, nearly managing a smile. I almost wrapped her in my arms as a thank you for acknowledging me, for taking this small but significant step on our road back to verbal communication.
“It’s not as pretty as yours,” I stated.
The corners of Tegan’s mouth returned to a flatline but I remembered the twitch of her lips when she smiled at me. That would keep me going for a couple of hours. “OK, I’m ready, finally. Let’s go.”
chapter 11
Adele Brannon
(formerly Lucinda-Jayne Hamilton-Mackenzie)
died recently after a valiant battle with leukemia.
She is survived by her daughter, Tegan Brannon.
The funeral will be held on July 31, at 4 p.m.
St. Agnes’s Church, Ealing.
I n the gray brick Catholic church Tegan sat motionless and impassive beside me, watching the people who stood in the pulpit, talking about her mother. I wasn’t sure she knew what was going on—I’d explained that a funeral was where you said goodbye to someone who’d died, but like everything I’d said to her since her cry in the hotel room, she’d given no sign of understanding what I was talking about. Nevertheless, now she was silent and still, as though she sensed the gravity of the occasion.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t, wouldn’t sit still. My body, hot and coated with a film of sweat under the black linen dress and matching jacket, wouldn’t stop fidgeting. The wooden pew beneath me, smoothed shiny by hundreds if not thousands of bums over the years, was unsuited to long periods of sitting, but even if it had been a comfy armchair, I wouldn’t have sat still. To sit still would be to agree with what had happened. I would be telling the world that I approved of Adele being taken away from us. That this dying business and the accompanying funeral were acceptable to me.
The church vibrated with the presence of hundreds of people.
Hundreds
. Hundreds of them had come to pay their last respects—Adele had thought she’d be lucky if enough people to make a football team turned up.
“I tell you, leukemia sure helps you find out who your friends are,” she’d said with her characteristic laugh. Her humor had stayed at the edge of the gallows in those last few days. Always saying things that only the terminally ill were allowed to get away with. I usually laughed, but some of the things Adele came out with horrified even me. “I don’t blame people for not coming to visit, though. Who wants to sit in a hospital room and be reminded of death?” she’d continued. “Besides, how do you react when you find out someone you vaguely know is knocking on heaven’s door? You can’t mourn them when you don’t know them, can you? And what do you say when you visit? ‘Sorry we didn’t get to know you, now it’s too late’?”
“Suppose,” I’d mumbled, eager to change the subject; desperate to stop her using the D word.
“One of my biggest regrets is that I don’t know that many people. I wish I’d made the effort to touch more lives.”
She had touched lives, I wish she’d known that. The church was filled to capacity, with two rows of people standing at the back. People did care and did remember; they had dusted off their black suits, black dresses, black skirts and tops and, like a steady stream of mournful ravens, had flocked to St. Agnes’s. I’d contacted only a couple of
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