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“Yep. Are you going back to your parents?”
“I need to find Gerard.”
“Want me to come with you?”
I nodded happily.
Grinning back at me, Lizzie slipped her arm through mine and skipped along beside me in the direction of where the boys had gone. “I don’t like the smell in the church.”
“Me either,” she agreed. “It stinks.”
“And it’s too hot,” I added. “Mammy made me wear tights and this big cardigan.” Feeling hot, I tugged at the buttons on my cardigan and sighed loudly when they wouldn’t open. “I’m still not good with the buttons, Liz.”
“That’s okay,” she replied, reaching for my cardigan. “I’m excellent.”
She was excellent. Lizzie was so excellent she could even spell the word excellent. She always got the super-work stars from Teacher in class. I didn’t mind, though. Apart from Gerard and Shannon, Lizzie was my third favorite friend in the world.
“Do you think he’s going to be okay?” I asked a little while later when we turned a corner in the empty part of the graveyard and the boys came into sight.
Up ahead, I could see my brother, Hugh. He was holding Gerard in his arms. Keeping him close while their other friend, Patrick, sat on the footpath with his arm around the both of them. I couldn’t hear what my brother was saying to Gerard, but I knew it was something smart. Hugh was good that way. He always knew what to say.
“Who?”
“Gerard.”
“I don’t know, Claire.” Lizzie shrugged as she helped to retie my cardigan around my waist when it slipped off. “Caoimhe says that Gibsie’s going to be sad for a long time.”
“A really long time,” I agreed, feeling sad thinking about it.
“She said we need to leave him alone and give him time.”
“Time?”
“Yep.”
“Time for what?”
“Don’t know,” she replied with a shrug. “But Caoimhe says it’s important.”
“I want to hug him.”
“You should,” she told me. “You give the best hugs.”
“Your hugs are pretty good, too,” I replied. “Super squishy.”
“But your hugs feel like sunshine.”
“Like sunshine?” I frowned in confusion. “How?”
“Because you are sunshine, silly,” she laughed before skipping off in the direction of the boys. “Or maybe it’s your shampoo.”
“My shampoo?” Reaching around, I grabbed a curl and took a whiff. “That’s not sunshine, Liz. That’s strawberries.”
“I’m really sorry about your dad, Gibsie,” Lizzie said when she reached their huddle. Not stopping until she was kneeling on the footpath in front of him, she wrapped her arms around our friend and squeezed him tight. “And your sister, too.”
“Thanks, Liz,” Gerard sniffled, hugging her back.
“Oh, I brought this for you,” she added, reaching into the pocket of her skirt. “Sorry, it got bent in my pocket.” She placed a broken daisy on his lap before settling down on the footpath next to my brother. “It’s for the grave.”
