The police-car pair had left us.
The ambulance swam down the street.
Michael Dunbar came to all of us; toward us, then out, and away. He got to the lawn, and walked on.
There were five of us stranded on the porch.
* * *
—
The funeral was one of those bright-lit things.
The sunny hilltop cemetery.
Our father read a passage from The Iliad:
They dragged their ships to the friendly sea.
He wore the suit he’d worn on his wedding day, and the one he’d wear years later, when he’d return and be faced with Achilles. His aqua eyes were lightless.
Henry had made a speech.
He imitated her put-on accent from the kitchen and people laughed, but he had tears in his eyes, and there were at least two hundred kids there, all from Hyperno High, and all in perfect uniform; heavy, and neat, dark green. Boys and girls alike. They talked about the metronome. A few she’d taught to read. The toughest took it hardest, I think. “Bye Miss, bye Miss, bye Miss.” Some of them touched the box as they walked and passed in the light.
The ceremony was outside.
They would take her back in to burn her.
The coffin-slide into the fire.
It was sort of like the piano, really, but the instrument’s homely cousin. You could dress it up all you wanted; it was still just a piece of hardwood, with daisies thrown on top. She’d chosen not to be scattered, or kept like sand in an urn. But we paid for a small memorial—a stone for us to stand and remember by, to watch her above the city.
From the service we carried her away.
On one side was Henry, Clay and me. On the other, Michael, Tommy and Rory—same as our Archer Street football teams—and the woman inside was weightless. The coffin weighed a ton.
She was a feather wrapped up in a chopping block.
* * *
—
At the end of the wake, and its assortment of teas and coffee cakes, we stood outside the building.
All of us in black pants.
All of us in white shirts.
We looked like a bunch of Mormons, but without the generous thoughts:
Rory was angry and quiet.
Me, like one more tombstone, but my eyes agleam and burning.
Henry looking outwards.
Tommy still wet with streaks.