34
CASS
St. James on Madison is one of those churches that’s so beautiful it makes you feel lesser than. Like you’re a smudge on the outside of a snow globe that someone ought to wipe away.
Soaring stone arches.
Stained glass pouring out puddles of reds and blues onto the marble floor.
Candles in tall brass stands flickering patiently.
I sit four rows from the back, gloves balled in my lap and my hat dripping melted snow onto my thigh. Raymond’s seat next to me is empty. He told me he’d meet me here, but the longer that seat stays empty, the more I start to wonder if he ever intended to come at all, or ifI’ll meet you therewas Raymond-speak forI have a body to dispose of and I’ll get to you when I get to you.
The church is packed. The Snyder & Oglethorpe partners and associates are clumped in the front pews. I recognize the back of every head: Lowery, Zimmerman, Harrington, the Tate twins,Janelle from Estates, the redhead from M&A whose name I can never remember.
Matvei must be up there somewhere, but I haven’t spotted him yet. I’m trying very hard not to crane my neck looking for him. As Susan implied, you never know who’s watching.
The organ wheezes into a hymn. People stand, then stand, then sit again. I’m a marionette with someone else working the strings, going through the motions, mouthing along to a song whose words refuse to stick.
The smell, though…
Thesmellis what’s getting to me.
The lilies are to blame. Lord knows there are enough of them. Banks and banks of the stuff, white and waxy, draped over the casket and spilling out of the urns on either side of the altar. Stargazers, by the look of them. The fancy kind, with the freckled throats and the pollen that stains your fingertips orange if you so much as look at them sideways.
I haven’t smelled stargazer lilies since Giana’s funeral.
I press my gloves harder into my lap and breathe through my mouth. It’s fine. It’s just a measly little flower. Who’s bothered? Not me. I’m the opposite of bothered.
After the eulogy—delivered by a senior partner I’ve never liked, full of phrases liketitan of the barandforce of nature,a man who suffered no fools—the procession files past the casket.
Raymond is still nowhere to be found.
I tag onto the end of my row and shuffle forward, head bowed, trying not to make eye contact with anyone who might want to make small talk.
As I get closer, though, someone draws my attention. Standing at the head of the casket, in a black coat that’s just a little too big in the shoulders, is a woman in her mid-thirties. She has Susan’s nose and Bill’s mouth and Susan’s wheat-blond hair pulled back in a low knot. Her eyes are red from crying.
I recognize her vaguely from a Christmas card we got two years ago.Bill and Susan’s eldest. Charlotte, I think. Or Caroline? One of those. Definitely a C-name.
I should slip past her with a murmur and keep moving. But then my feet stop, all on their own. The puppetmaster piloting my body wants me to talk to her, I guess.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I hear myself say robotically.
She looks up. Her gaze is empty at first, carefully glossed over. But then she recognizes me and it clears. “You’re Cassandra,” she says. “Snyder.”
“I am. I— I knew your father a little. I’m so sorry.”
“Caroline.” She offers her hand to shake. Her fingers are very cold. “Thank you for coming. I know my mother would— Shewill—” She breaks off and wipes the tissue under her nose. “Sorry. I keep doing that. The tenses.”
“How is she?” I ask.
Caroline’s face scrunches up. “She’s… alive.”
“Oh, thank God?—”
“She hasn’t woken up, though.”
“Oh.”
