Natalie looked at Hannah with a mix of anxiety and anger, as though Hannah had asked something insane and insulting. “Thomas Bard was a friend of my husband. He was a wonderful man. Everything he did, he did for Nantucket Island.”
Hannah couldn’t fathom why Natalie was being so cagey. Hannah didn’t even work as a journalist anymore. Shouldn’t she be more trustworthy?
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Hannah said, adjusting her tone. “I suppose I misheard what was going on.”
“Thomas never would have hurt a fly.” Natalie sniffed. “Tonight at his funeral, I imagine half the town will stand up and want to say something to honor him. I already had to tell my husband not to speak for longer than a few minutes. He has a list a mile long of all the wonderful ways Thomas contributed to Nantucket.”
Hannah kept her face neutral. Why was Natalie being so defensive about Thomas’s death? Was it possible she knew something that she wanted kept a secret?
Again, it didn’t make any sense.
“In fact, I’d better be going soon,” Natalie said, having eaten approximately one-half of the tacos that Hannah had purchased for her. “We need to pick up the kids and prepare for the sitter. It was a struggle to get a sitter in the first place, what with everyone wanting to go to Thomas’s funeral.”
“I understand. Thanks for coming over,” Hannah said, standing up.
“We should do this again!” Natalie said falsely.
But Hannah understood that she and Natalie were no longer the sort of women who would be friends. Maybe Hannah’s obsession with Natalie’s photos of Nantucket had initially brought her here, but Natalie wouldn’t be the one to keep her here. Maybe they’d never really hang out again.
Hannah waved from the front porch as Natalie backed out of the driveway and disappeared. For a full minute, she stood out there, frowning, remembering how strange Natalie’s reaction had been when she’d asked about Thomas Bard. She realized that nothing would keep her from that funeral tonight.
After a weekin the shabby house by the sea, Hannah had done very little to organize herself. She hadn’t put any clothes in the closet or set out any of her books. In her bedroom, she rifled through her suitcases, searching for a black dress for the funeral home. For nearly five minutes, she struggled to zip up the back, hating how easily Kendall had done so. Before she left, she added a dash of makeup, then sent a text to Minnie.
HANNAH: Going out tonight. There’s frozen pizza in the freezer. Watch whatever you want. Love you.
The funeral was to start at three thirty, which was a half-hour after Minnie’s school got out. Wanting to arrive and sniff around a little bit, maybe to get a sense of what people actually thought of Thomas Bard’s mysterious death, Hannah drove to the funeral home, which was located two blocks from city hall. It shouldn’t have surprised her that the funeral home and surrounding streets were packed. People dressed in black milled down the sidewalks, greeting one another with grim faces. She drove slowly, conscious that pedestrians were extra chaotic when grieving. She didn’t want to hit anyone darting across the road.
Eventually, still searching for a parking spot, Hannah wound her way to the harbor, where she found a little spot directly behind some rusty dumpsters. Hannah marveled at how much it stung to be treated this way by her daughter. Should they go to therapy? Should she try to mend this with professional help? Or was it better to maintain this tepid relationship?
Suddenly, there was a knock on the window. Hannah nearly leaped from her skin. A large, bearded man on the other side of the glass gestured for her to roll down her window. From the looks of things and the way he was dressed, he was maybe a dock worker. Hannah did as he said, her heart still beating.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said. “This is a no-parking zone. Dock workers only.”
Hannah groaned and let her head fall back on the seat. She was worried she was going to miss the funeral. “I’ve been looking for a long time.”
“There’s an event downtown,” the dock worker affirmed.
“I know. I’m trying to go,” she said.
The dock worker looked taken aback. “You’re going to the funeral?”
Hannah nodded and narrowed her eyes at him, but she saw no indication in his face that he distrusted her.
“I’m heading there too,” the man said. “Are you from the mainland?”
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “I’m distant family. Thomas was my second cousin.”
Why did she feel the need to lie? Lying only made her more untrustworthy! But she didn’t know how to tell this man the truth, that she was an investigative journalist hoping to understand what was really going on with Thomas Bard and his mysterious death. This was especially difficult given that she wasn’t a working investigative journalist, that no editor had sent her here, and that she was only here out of curiosity.
She was a walking red flag.
“I can show you where to park,” the man offered. “I’m from around here. I know all the secrets.” He flashed the briefest of smiles, then added, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Hannah said, “Get in,” and the man did so, buckling himself into the passenger side of her secondhand car. He looked even bigger in here, unzipping his Carhartt coat partially and letting his legs extend as much as he could.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Florida,” Hannah said, feeling comfort from the truth. “I didn’t know Thomas well. But I’m here to, um, represent my side of the family. Did you know him well?”
