As I slipped on my kitten heels on the front porch and made my way down Main Street toward the Days Gone Funeral Home, the townsfolk, wearing blacks and reds, began to close up their stores, carrying platters of cheese and crackers and lasagna and fried chicken and collard greens and various oven bakes.
For an hour, Mairmont had paused, all save for the lone Victorian house with black shutters and wrought iron fencing on the parapets. The closer I got, the more people there were. A sea of people, spilling out of the front door and down the sidewalk.
Seaburn was standing at the front gate in a brown suit, an orchid in his pocket. He saw me as I crossed the road, and pulled me into a tight hug. “Why’re they all outside?” I asked.
“Well”—Seaburn extended a hand toward the front door—“see for yourself.”
I walked up the pathway to the front steps, and hesitantly opened the front door—and stopped dead in my tracks. Becausetwo of the three parlor rooms were full of flowers. Not just any flowers—wildflowers. All separated by color in clear glass vases. There must have been... there must have been athousandof them.
I was baffled. “How... how did...”
Mom came out of the red parlor room, where Dad’s casket sat. “Oh, Florence! Aren’t all these flowerslovely?”
“Who... how did... when—”
Then Heather stepped out of one of the parlor rooms, wiping her hands off on a handkerchief. What wasshedoing here? I began to ask that exact thing when she outstretched her hand to me and said, “Your dad was a good man. We will always want to help when we can. And you were right. But people change. Even me.”
I looked down at her hand, then at her again. “You... did this?”
“Dana helped me,” Heather replied, not retracting her hand, waiting. “We organized donations last night and this morning to buy and deliver the flowers needed. I’m sorry,” she added.
I didn’t know if she was telling the truth, or if she had some ulterior motives—to look better if word got out about our confrontation? To paint me as the spoiled woman who never grew up? See? Heatherdidchange, it was Florence who couldn’t let the past die!
Or... maybe that was my brain being cold and bitter. Thinking everyone had an ulterior motive when maybe, this was just what it looked like.
I took her hand. “Thank you,” I said.
We shook.
Then she took the vase of blue wildflowers and disappeared into the blue parlor room. Mom motioned for me to come into the viewing room when I was ready.
Seaburn elbowed me in the side. “Go see your old man so we can open up the house.”
“Yeah, I should.”
I breathed out a long breath, steeling my shoulders. One step at a time. Carver and Alice were waiting inside the red parlor room—Dad’s favorite room—and outstretched their hands to me. I took them, and squeezed them tightly, and together we walked up to the dark mahogany casket decorated in wildflowers of blues and reds and yellows and pinks, to begin to figure out how to say goodbye.
The afternoon was a blur of people drifting in and out of the funeral home, shaking my hand and giving me their condolences. Casseroles began to pile up in the refrigerator in the kitchen, and more than one bottle of champagne was spilled on the hardwood floors. The entire town was here, crowded into the old Victorian house and across the lawn, in their best black clothes. They paid their respects to Dad one at a time, and the three Day siblings stood off to the side, our hands clasping one another’s, keeping ourselves upright. Mom was stalwart, sipping on a glass of champagne, so gracious to everyone who came to say their goodbyes.
“Of course he’d be buried in that god-awful red suit,” Karen said, dabbing her eyes so her makeup wouldn’t run. “Of course he would.”
“Alice did a great job,” John said, in his best black boater shorts, black shirt, and pizza hat. “Looks like he’s still kickin’.”
Someone else said, “He was so proud of you.”
And everyone else just went by in a blur. I barely registered their faces.
“You three are the best kids an undertaker could have.”
“So proud.”
“Great guy.”
“He was so proud.”
“Such a good man.”
My bottom lip wobbled, but I bit it to keep myself firm.Whenever I felt myself giving way, Carver would squeeze my hand tightly, as if to ask,Do you need a moment?And I would squeeze back that I was okay, and tighten my grip on Alice’s hand, too. The world spun on, and we were still here.