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She hated how everything was ending at once. It might have been poetic, but it was not justice.
A rivulet of moisture slithered down her back. This funeral home was too hot. Allison wanted to shrug out of her cardigan but the goddess neckline of her dress didn’t seem appropriate for the somber setting. The heat mixed with the heavy perfume of the countless flower arrangements caught like a thick fog in her throat.
Someone had worked hard to make the space seem cozy with soft and well-worn sofas, sunny yellow paint, and knit throw pillows in inviting shades of green. Yet Allison wasn’t comforted by the decor. Instead, she felt like her muscles had been attached to her bones all wrong. She wanted to run screaming from the room, rip out her tight bun, and let her hair stream behind her as she dashed for the trees.
The ash-blond woman kneeling in front of Jed’s casket made the sign of the cross, and Allison tensed. Everything about this wake was so performative. Jed wasn’t a practicing Catholic. He’d specifically asked for no church service in his will. Just a wake and a quick burial. Then burgers and beers at the house of Paula’s son. Allison would be skipping that. And maybe the burial, too. She didn’t need to see her father lowered into the ground to know he was gone. For her, he’d never really been there to begin with.
The couple stood, and Allison and her mother straightened their backs, ready for another round of small talk with someone else whose name Allison would forget before they’d finished introducing themselves.
As Jed’s only biological child, Allison had been placed first in line for condolences with her mother beside her for support. Paula and her son sat in the first row of seats facing the casket. Neither of them had spoken to Allison.
She preferred it that way.
The blond woman sniffled as she reached for Allison’s hands. “You’ve got to be Jed’s daughter.”
Allison forced a smile. “Allison.”
“I’m Nancy, your father’s secretary. I recognize your picture from his desk.”
That was new information. Allison hadn’t been to her father’s office since she was in high school, but she didn’t recall anything there besides a signed baseball and his precious beer cap display. She also didn’t recognize Nancy.
The woman clung to Allison’s hand and patted her knuckles. “He used to talk about you all the time.”
Allison choked. “He what?”
Nancy smiled sadly, assuming she was overcome with emotion. “Just before he went into the hospital, he was telling me that you were a teacher. In college. He said it’s not easy to do. Most people never get into those programs.” Not exactly accurate, but more than Allison had thought Jed understood about her life.
Her gaze flicked to her mother, who gave her a small shrug. Clearly, this was news to her as well. “I’m still in school,” she said to Nancy, “but hopefully someday I’ll teach in college.”
Nancy tapped her cheek as she turned away. “I hope you know your father was proud of you.” With that, she moved down the line.
Allison’s attention drifted to the casket. Her eyes burned. Hearing Jed described this way, as someone who could have maybe loved his daughter, only made him more of a stranger.
She wished Nancy had never said anything. Or that she hadn’t heard it.
More sweat pooled down Allison’s back. Her body was starting to develop that parched, sandy feeling that accompanies a bad hangover. She moistened her lips and tried to swallow what little saliva still existed in her mouth. She needed water. And a snack. Something to give her blood sugar a jolt. There should be food at these things. And more chairs. And open fucking windows. Somehow, it seemed as if twenty more people had beamed into the space, sucking up what little air was left.
When Allison died, she was going to ask people to stay home andread their favorite book instead of subjecting her loved ones to this misery.
She was attempting to rescue her mascara from another onslaught of perspiration when she caught sight of a familiar face cresting the front of the line.
Wendy Frances tightened the gray shawl thrown over her black sheath dress as she approached the casket. The swirls of flying birds embroidered on the thin fabric seemed to spread their soaring wings wider with the motion. Her stack of black ceramic bangles slid down her arm as she kneeled.
Allison’s hands began to shake. What was her professor doing here? Providence was a good four-hour drive from Stonington without midweek traffic. She couldn’t possibly have made that trip to spend half an hour at the wake of a man she’d never met.
Had Wendy made her decision? Had she chosen Colin? Did she drive all this way to let Allison down gently?
Smoothing the front of her dress, Allison braced herself. If that was the case,good. She’d be thrilled to get that issue resolved, too. After the emotional train wreck the last few days had been, her pain receptors were shot. She’d barely feel the news if she received it now. Then she could truly put this whole mess of a semester (and Colin with it) behind her.
And smash that rearview mirror to smithereens.
Wendy turned from the casket and faced Allison, her arms opened wide.
“What are you doing here?” Allison mumbled as she let her teacher embrace her.
“I had to pay my respects and see how you were holding up.” Stepping back, Wendy’s gray-blue eyes surveyed her, as if Allison’s feelings might be scrawled across her skin. Or pinned there with sticky notes like her old word wall.
“I’m okay. My relationship with my father was… fraught.”
