had affected her. Bennie shifted in the armchair and wondered if she should have tried to notify her father. Winslow wasn’t her mother’s husband, but he might have wanted to be here, if the saved note was any indication. Still, he could read the obituaries as well as anyone. Maybe he’d come, suddenly appear out of nowhere. How many times had Bennie wished that as a child? And how many times did it happen?
She didn’t bother to look for him and realized that she felt about him the way Connolly felt about her mother. He had missed her life, and whether or not it was his decision at the outset, he hadn’t tried to correct it. Hadn’t once tried to contact Bennie, so why should she bend over backward to contact him? How would she feel at his passing? Would she care as little as Connolly did at her mother’s?
Bennie’s feelings were jumbled, her thoughts disoriented. She sank into the chair, with Grady’s arm at her back. She felt so distant from him, from everyone, in willed isolation. She hadn’t invited anyone from the office to the wake or even her oldest friend, Sam Freminet. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this, or know her this way.
“Father Teobaldo is here,” said the funeral director, who materialized from nowhere. Behind him stood a slight Catholic priest, with a damp forehead, a long bony nose, and a face too gaunt for a young man.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Rosato,” he said, extending a slim hand and shaking hers. He eased into the seat beside Hattie, who introduced herself and shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, too,” he said, and sounded to Bennie like he actually meant it.
“S’nice you took the time to come,” Hattie said, a hoarse lilt to her voice. She grew up in Georgia and like Grady, had an accent that surfaced when she was tired or upset. This evening she was both. “I know you didn’t know Missus Rosato. She wasn’t a well woman. She couldn’t get out to church.”
“That’s all right. I’m not here to judge her. God won’t judge her. He’ll welcome her.”
“I know he will, Father,” Hattie said, her voice sonorous. “Jesus loves all of us.”
Bennie looked away. She never had much use for religion and wasn’t about to start with the thought of her mother’s death being welcome to anyone, even God. Her gaze fell on the front of the room and she realized that she hadn’t once looked at the bier where her mother lay. It had been hard enough to see her, back at the hospital. Bennie made herself look at the front of the room and try to absorb it. An act of will, almost against her will.
It was easier to look first around the casket, rather than at the casket itself. White wrought iron sconces flanked her mother’s coffin, their light insignificant. Tacky flower arrangements ringed the front: pink-sprayed chrysanthemums and paint-covered daisies wrenched into the shape of hearts, banners, and, improbably, a horseshoe. Bennie had ordered dozens of long-stemmed white roses, but elegance and simplicity were apparently unheard of at a South Philly funeral. White satin sashes spanned the flower hearts, one reading
She made herself look at the coffin and the vision wrenched her heart. A rose-colored light had been mounted inside the satin upholstery of the casket, bathing her mother’s face in a pink glow. Brownish foundation had been sponged onto her mother’s skin and her lips sealed in a matching pink lipstick. That bothered Bennie more than anything, the unnatural closing to her mother’s lips, and she wondered uneasily how it had been accomplished. She swallowed hard and bit back her tears. Her gaze traveled down her mother’s side. In one rigid hand had been placed a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses. Bennie had no idea how the mortician had gotten the glasses; she’d forgotten that her mother had even worn glasses. Her mother had been so ill the past few months, she hadn’t been able to read.
“Excuse me,” said the funeral director, returning and leaning down to Bennie. His moussed hair was by now familiar, though he smelled tonight of lemon-lime Barbasol. “Should we begin, or wait for the other mourners?” he asked.
“Begin, please,” Bennie answered, testy. She had explained it to the man twice.
“But there was another mourner. What happened to him?”
“What mourner?”
“A gentleman,” he said, raising a hand, and Bennie turned around. There was nothing there but the trophies, their fake gold angels elevating bowling balls like Communion wafers.
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask. He was here early, before you came. Before the reporters.”
“What did he look like?”
“An older gentlemen, with a tweed coat, I think.”
Bennie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was Connolly’s description of Winslow. “What did he want? Did he say anything?”
“I gathered he wished to pay his respects. I suggested to him that the service wasn’t for several hours, but he said he knew that. He left flowers.”
“What flowers?” she asked, a lump in her throat, and the funeral director pointed toward the sprayed white carnations.
“I set them behind that last arrangement. They’re… different.”
“I want to see them,” Bennie said, rising. She went to the last arrangement and pushed it aside, then knelt down. In back of the stiff crysanthemum concoction sat a clear glass vase and from it sprung a fresh bouquet of leggy pink cosmos, white daisies, blush roses, and black-eyed Susans. At the fringe were pink snapdragons and foxglove with velvety purple pockets. She recognized the flowers. They were from Winslow’s garden. She bent down and cupped the blossoms in her hands.
“Bennie?” Grady said, appearing behind her, but she was breathing in the fresh perfume of the flowers. Her father had been here. He had brought her mother flowers. He had cared. He was real.
“Bennie?” Grady said again, but she was rising to her feet, without thinking. Her heart was pounding. Maybe he was still here. Maybe he hadn’t gone. She got up and hustled down the aisle of folding chairs to the back of the room and hurried out to the entrance hall. She didn’t know why, he was probably long gone, but she looked for him anyway.
It was dark, but reporters mobbed the sidewalk. One spotted her and pointed for his cameraman. Flashes popped in Bennie’s eyes; two, then a dozen. They seared like lasers into her brain and still she couldn’t stop searching, even though it was so hard to see. Maybe he was behind the crowd. Bennie stood there, her hands to the glass in the dark, and didn’t leave until Grady came to take her back inside,
After the wake, Bennie stopped at the office to pick up some papers, then walked home to clear her head while Grady dropped Hattie at her house. She had a defense to prepare and almost wanted to get to work. Let it occupy her thoughts and chase her emotions away.
Once home, she changed into jeans and a workshirt, padded into her home office, and got to work with her ritual props at her side: fresh coffee and a crinkly bag of M amp;M’s. Though her comfort foods were in place, she had little luck with her first task, drafting her opening argument. Her head hurt. She ached at the core. Still, she sat at the computer and willed herself to peck out the first sentence.
Each keystroke sounded in the empty room. The night was quiet, its stillness broken by intermittent police sirens. Bennie sipped coffee, curiously tasteless.
No.
Suddenly Bennie heard the front door open and close downstairs, then the heavy clunk of shopping bags hitting the floor. It would be Grady, home from picking up some groceries. Bear leapt to alertness and skittered downstairs, toenails sliding on the bare floors, but Bennie didn’t feel quite as welcoming. She’d wanted the house to herself.
“Honey?” Grady called upstairs. “Ya home?”
“In my office,” she called back, but he had already reached the top of the stairs with the dog. He wore the clothes from the wake, but his print tie was loosened into a crooked V and his oxford shirt wrinkled.
