Page 48 of Weight of Guilt

Wren and Nash had stopped at a gas station on the way out of town because she couldn’t make herself pull into the driveway empty-handed. Now she had an eleven-dollar bouquet of flowers and no idea what to say to a woman she’d barely seen in years.

The house was a low brick ranch with an attached garage. The yard had been cut recently, close and even, except for a strip along the sidewalk where the grass had gotten away from somebody.

Wren climbed out before she could talk herself into staying put. Nash quickly joined her, and they walked toward the door.

“You know what you’re going to say?” Nash asked.

“No, I’m going to wing it.”

“That sounds like a terrible⁠—”

Before he could finish his statement, the door flew open.

“Wren Loveless.” Paige said her whole name, the way people did when they’d known you as a child.

Paige had gotten heavier and grayer in recent years, and she appeared to still be wearing yesterday’s pale blue blouse. The collar had a crease in it from being slept in and a small coffee stain on the front. Her eyes were red and puffy.

“Paige,” Wren started. “I’m so sorry.”

The next instant, Paige fell into her arms, carnations squashed between them, and she started sobbing.

Wren waited for Paige to let go first. She pulled back and wiped beneath both eyes with the heel of her hand as she tried to pull herself back together.

She turned to them and sniffled. “Come in. I don’t have a thing to put those in. I’ve gotta be honest—I don’t think my uncle ever owned a vase in his life.”

“We’ll find something,” Wren told her.

Inside, the smell of food hit them. The aroma reminded Wren of their church-basement during a potluck: chicken and cream of mushroom, breadcrumbs, and pasta. Underneath that scent, the house smelled like Roy. Wren hadn’t expected to recognize the scent. She was pretty sure it was coffee, Old Spice, and dust.

Paige’s gaze traveled over Wren’s shoulder, and she remembered Nash was with her.

“Excuse my manners,” Wren murmured. “This is Nash. He’s my neighbor. He offered to drive me here.”

“Ma’am.” Nash stayed a step back and didn’t put out his hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Paige, please. Ma’am makes me feel like my mother.” She motioned for them to follow. “Kitchen’s back here. Excuse the boxes.”

The hall was lined with photographs, four and five high, in frames that didn’t match. Quartets in matching jackets on flatbed stages. A church sign with movable letters. Roy at thirty, maybe, his arm slung around a man in a white suit as they both squinted into the sun.

Wren paused by one. It was her father. He was in a photo on the third from the end, low, in a cheap black frame. The picture showed her dad at the mic with his sleeves rolled to his elbows and her mother behind him at the piano. Roy stood off to the side of the platform with his arms crossed and his chin up, watching them like a man watching something he’d built.

Wren studied the image. She’d never seen it before.

“My uncle never took even one of them photos down,” Paige said from the kitchen doorway. “He loved your family.”

Wren forced a smile, unsure how to react, and continued walking into the kitchen.

This room was where the last two days had piled up. Casserole dishes lined the counter, three of them still taped with a name and cooking instructions on masking tape. A stack of mail teetered precariously. A legal pad sat in the middle of the table with a list on it—funeral home, church, bank, mow. Half the items had been crossed out.

“Sit anywhere,” Paige instructed. “Move anything you need to move.”

Wren lifted a folded church bulletin off a chair and sat there. Nash sat in a chair beside her.

Meanwhile, Paige ran water into a plastic pitcher, put the carnations in it, and set the bouquet in the middle of the table where the legal pad had been.

She stood back and gazed at the flowers a second. “That’s the first thing anybody’s brought that wasn’t food.”

“I didn’t know what to bring.” Wren shrugged.