Theo and Dr. Neal rushed into the room, both with their doctor’s bags. “Let’s go,” Dr. Neal said.
“Should I drive us?” Theo asked.
“No, it’s quicker to go on foot,” I said.
The men nodded, and then we set out at a pace just under a run across the street and down the alley until we reached the parish. We all came in from the back door.
Father was on the floor where he’d collapsed. Mother, on her knees, knelt over him, sobbing and begging him to open his eyes.
“Let me have a look,” Dr. Neal said.
I looked at the doctor as the taste of copper pennies filled my mouth. Please, tell me I’m wrong, I thought. But I knew it was useless. He was gone.
Dr. Neal dropped to the floor next to Father’s body. Theo gently helped Mother to her feet and over to a chair. He exchanged a quick look with Dr. Neal that told me everything I needed to know. There was no hope. I hiccupped and then brought my hand to my mouth, hoping to silence the sounds of my sobs.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Neal said. “His heart must have given out.”
I went to Mother and sat beside her. Her skin was the color of raw chicken. She seemed to have slipped away, as if she too were no longer present in her body. As if she’d gone with him. Wherever Father was now. With the angels? Seeing Saint Peter?
“He was fine. He was talking to me, and then he slumped over,” Mother said.
“It appears to have been quick,” Dr. Neal said.
“He didn’t say a word,” Mother said. “Or even make a noise. He just slumped over and fell to the floor.”
I looked around the tidy, pleasant room that smelled of freshly brewed coffee. Our yellow tablecloth covered the table. Mother had washed the lunch dishes, and they sat drying in our wooden rack. Our painting of Jesus on the cross hung on the wall. Everything as normal as could be. The same scene I’d enjoyed since I’d first come here at nine years old. They’d made me feel safe and secure. Nothing could hurt me again. Mother had told me that when I first lived with them. But this? This hurt. My good, dear Father gone? No, it couldn’t be. I’d never hear his soft voice or hearty laugh again. Or one of his uplifting sermons that had given us all hope even during the terrible years of the war.
“I’m very sorry,” Dr. Neal said. “He was a great man.”
“Yes, yes, he was,” I said, almost defensively, as if the kind doctor has said the opposite. I started to shake. This couldn’t be happening. Please, God, let me wake up and this just be a nightmare.
An image of horrible Mrs. Poe came to me. Her beady eyes, hungry for power and dominance. The church had been taken over by awful people. They’d done this to him. Broken his heart. Their cruelty had killed him.
My mother had returned to Father. She brushed his hair back from his forehead and whispered to him. I couldn’t bear it, though. I couldn’t look at him that way.
Desperate to focus on something else, I scanned the room. What I found was Theo. His dark blue eyes locked to mine. Without a word, yet seeming to understand, he sat beside me.
***
Dr. Neal was on the phone. Making the arrangements for the body, I realized. A funeral. We’d have to have a funeral. I would have to take care of everything for Mother. What was I supposed to do? Families had relied on Father during these times. He would have gone to the house and sat with the widow, helped her decide how to proceed with a burial. But there was no pastor to help me. Father had buried so many during his time at the church. I’d never thought before how families must have needed him in those moments. Who was I supposed to call? Darkness closed in on me. I could see no farther than my own hands on my lap. “I don’t know what to do now,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone.
Theo’s voice was soft in my ear. “I’ll call my mother. She’ll know what to do. You’re not alone. My family will make sure of that.”
The church was filled to its capacity the day we buried Father. I sat with Mother in the front pew as Lord Barnes conducted the memorial. Theo and Quinn had made sure that the new pastor was nowhere near that day. After the emotional ceremony, Mother and I walked out of the church to the cemetery where the pallbearers would bring Father to his final resting place.
In a daze, I held on to Mother, afraid she would fall over without me, as they lowered the coffin into the ground. Fiona and Cymbeline had picked wildflowers and brought them to us. I took the bouquets gratefully and took the most beautiful of the columbine and tossed it into the grave first. One by one, I let the flowers tumble out of my hands until almost every inch of the surface of Father’s coffin was covered.
Li Wu accompanied Fiona with his violin as she sang “Amazing Grace.” I hadn’t cried until then. But that song and Fiona’s sweet, pure voice and the
mournful violin notes touched a place deep inside me. One that I’d stifled until then.
When they finished, the mourners who’d gathered around the grave site wandered away, perhaps sensing that Mother and I wanted to say goodbye alone. I knelt in the dirt in my stiff black dress. “Goodbye, Father. Thank you for rescuing me and teaching me what a true father’s love is like. Be with God now.”
Mother remained standing. She had one last flower in her hand. A purple lupine. Father’s favorite. He’d remembered gathering them with his mother when he was young.
Mother placed her hand on my shoulder as she let the flower drift to the coffin. “I can’t think of what to say that I haven’t already said to him.”
I stood and linked her arm with mine. “You said it all when he was here. That’s what matters most.”