mother on the floor in the guest room, insisting that Cynthia had been there during the night.
Still, given the cruelty of the words Emily was capable of speaking on the “good” days, versus the rambling near-incoherence of the “bad” days, Joan often wondered if the two appellations shouldn’t be reversed. Finally, when the coffee was done and she’d drunk a cup, she knew she could put it off no longer, and made herself go back upstairs.
She tapped softly at her mother’s door, then opened it. “Mother? Are you awake?”
“Did you bring me a cup of coffee?” Emily countered.
No “Good morning,” Joan thought. No “How are you?” And why was she asking for coffee? The last time she had brought her mother a cup of coffee, Emily had refused to touch it.
“I’m not an invalid,” she’d grumbled. “I’ll drink my coffee in the kitchen, like I always do.”
“I’m sorry,” Joan said now. “I’ll bring a cup up right away.” She paused, then: “This is the day of the funeral, Mother.” Her voice trembled as she spoke the words, praying that at least her mother would remember what she was talking about. “We have to decide what you’re going to wear.”
“I’m not going to any funeral,” Emily announced. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
Not going? What was she talking about? “Don’t you feel well?” Joan asked. “Would you like me to call Dr. Henderson?”
“I’m fine. But I’m not going to sit at that funeral and be stared at.”
“Stared at?” Joan echoed. “What are you talking about? Why would people stare at you?” Even as she asked the question, she knew the answer but despite being forearmed her mother’s next words lashed at her with the sting of a whip.
“Your son murdered him,” Emily said, her eyes fixing balefully on Joan. “Everyone will be staring. They’ll be staring at him, and they’ll be staring at you. But they won’t stare at me, because I won’t be there. I’ll stay here, with Cynthia!”
Joan recoiled, pain and anger churning within her. “That’s not true, Mother. It was just an accident! A stupid hunting accident that wasn’t anybody’s fault! And it certainly wasn’t Matt’s fault!”
“Wasn’t it?” Emily shot back. Her eyes narrowed accusingly. “It was his finger on the trigger, Joan.”
Joan stared at her mother. What was she talking about? Why was she talking as if she’d seen what had happened? “Who told you that?” she asked. “How could anyone have told you that?”
“It’s true,” Emily insisted. “Cynthia told me!”
Joan’s eyes widened in shock, and before she could even think about them, angry words began pouring from her lips: “Cynthia didn’t tell you anything, Mother! She’s dead! She’s been dead for years!”
“She’s not!” Emily cried, pulling herself off the bed and onto her feet. She took an unsteady step toward Joan. “She’s here!” she insisted. “She’s in this house, and she talks to me!”
In the face of her mother’s wrath, Joan backed toward the door. “That’s not true, Mother. You’re just confused… you’re just…”
“Get out!” Emily spat the words at her daughter. “Just get out and leave me alone.”
Too hurt — too upset — to argue, Joan escaped into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. Her chest heaving, her pulse racing, she leaned against the door for a moment, willing herself to calm down. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, she insisted to herself. She doesn’t know.
Slowly, she regained control of her emotions, but her mother’s words still echoed in her mind. At least Matt didn’t hear her, she told herself. At least —
But then she opened her eyes, and there, standing in the corridor only ten feet away, was her son. And she knew by the look on his face that she was wrong.
He’d heard what his grandmother had said.
He’d heard it all.
* * *
THE STONE FACADE of the new congregational church on Hartford Street looked almost as dour as the face of its founding minister, Seth Frobisher, whose portrait — darkened with age — hung in the parish hall that adjoined the church. As the car bearing Joan and Matt to Bill Hapgood’s funeral pulled up and stopped in the space reserved for it directly in front of the great double doors — carved from a single tree that had been felled to make way for the building its wood now adorned — Joan almost wished she’d chosen another site for her husband’s memorial service. Yet where else could the funeral have been held? Bill’s family had worshiped in the Congregational Church for more years than the edifice itself had stood. It was Bill’s great-grandfather who had commissioned the doors when the “new” church was constructed seventy years ago to replace the original wooden structure built by Seth Frobisher. Except for a handful of Catholics, nearly everyone in town prayed at the New Congregational Church, was married in it, and was buried in the cemetery that took up the rest of the block upon which it stood. So when it came to Bill’s memorial ceremony, there really hadn’t been a choice at all.
Stepping out of the car, Joan tucked her right hand under Matt’s left arm. “Are you going to be all right?” she asked softly as they started up the walk toward the doors.
Matt, his face strained and looking thinner than it had just three days earlier, shook his head. “I’m never going to be all right again.”
Joan squeezed his arm, certain he was remembering the cruel words his grandmother had uttered earlier. “You’re not responsible, Matt. You have to believe that whatever happened, it was an accident.”
Before Matt could reply, the double doors were pulled open by two of the pallbearers, and a terrible sensation of deja vu suddenly gripped Joan. Except it wasn’t deja vu at all, for ten years earlier she had stood at the doors to this same church, with Matt at her side, nervously waiting to start down the aisle to the altar where Bill Hapgood was waiting for her.
Waiting for her to marry him.
She could still remember how terrified she’d been, wondering what all the people gathered inside the church — Bill’s friends, every one of them — really thought of her. Were they snickering behind their smiles? Were they laughing at the dress she’d chosen? That day, it had been Matt who squeezed her hand and looked up into her face. “You look beautiful, Mommy,” he’d told her, and his words had been enough. Taking a deep breath, she’d strode down the aisle, her son beside her, to marry the one man she’d ever loved.
Now all of Bill’s friends were gathered in the church once more, and once more Bill was waiting for her in front of the altar.
Waiting for her to bury him.
The casket stood open, but as she paused at the top of the aisle, Joan refused to let herself look at it, knowing her tenuous hold on her emotions might easily give way the moment she saw her husband’s face. Taking a deep breath — just as she had a decade ago — she started down the aisle toward the front pew, Matt on her right, Gerry Conroe, who was serving as chief pallbearer, on her left.
Ten years ago Gerry had been standing beside Bill, serving as his best man.
Now, murmuring the same sympathetic words Joan had heard so many times over the last few days that they no longer seemed to have any meaning at all, he saw them into their pew, then retreated to his own, one pew back and on the other side of the aisle.
The pew directly across from Joan and Matt was as empty as their own.
As soon as they were settled in, Myra Conklin began muting the organ and Reverend Charles Frobisher, whose ancestor had founded the church, slipped through the side door and entered the pulpit. His eyes scanned the quiet mourners, then came to rest on the front pew, and as he began to speak, his gaze fixed on Matthew Moore. “We are gathered together to mark the tragically premature passing of our dear brother William Apperson Hapgood into the company of angels.”
Matt, his mother’s fingers squeezing his left hand, did his best to concentrate on the minister’s words. All the way down the aisle he’d kept his eyes riveted on the face of his stepfather, terrified that if he let his gaze waver at all, he’d see the accusing looks on the faces of everyone he’d ever known.
Somehow he had survived the walk and slipped into the pew and kept his mind on what the minister was saying. But his eyes kept going back to his stepfather.
