He took a seat right on the edge of a pew not far from my own. I was astonished at how good Ben cleaned up when he made an effort. In a charcoal-gray suit and a white shirt, he looked real prosperous. He might as well give up trying to slick down those curls, though—several had already worked their way out of whatever spray or gel he was using to confine them.
He didn’t go up front to pay his respects, and he didn’t slide across his pew to sit nearer a couple who were over by the center aisle. Instead, he propped his arms on the pew in front of him and lay down his head. He looked like he was praying, but he could have been resting or even crying. I was embarrassed to look too closely, because our denomination takes Jesus’s instruction to pray privately so much to heart, we’d almost rather somebody caught us naked than praying.
Walker and Cindy also came down the side aisle, and they slid into the pew beside me. I thought he looked real handsome in a dark blue suit, but I’d never say that out loud. Walker looks so much like me, I’ve never known if he’s good-looking or if I’m prejudiced.
Cindy, now, anybody would have voted her “exquisite” in that suit of fine black wool with a gray silk shell. A chunky necklace and earrings of jet, granite, and amber saved her from looking like the chief mourner, but just sitting beside her made my navy suit and white blouse—which had looked both respectable and smart in my dresser mirror—curl at the hem and retire from the best-dressed list. Even Cindy’s shoes were gorgeous—sleek black pumps that probably cost about what I paid for my whole outfit. If we kept getting chummy, I might ask where she shopped and whether I could go with her sometime. My wardrobe could use some sprucing up.
“You look awful,” Walker greeted me. “You want to go down front?”
“I’ve been.”
Cindy declined, as well, so he climbed over us both and strolled down the aisle. I wondered if he was remembering, as I was, how he used to process down it with the choir every Sunday. I was feeling real sad again until Cindy took my hand and gave it a squeeze. Then she held it. I was surprised how much comfort that gave me.
I turned around at a rustle in the narthex, and saw the crowd parting for Marilee Muller. Marilee looked as chic as Cindy, but she wore a white silk suit. It seemed a little dressy for a funeral, but who was I to criticize somebody else’s clothes?
I sure could describe her face, though. The word ravaged immediately came to mind. She didn’t look thin, she looked gaunt, with red eyes and a very pink nose. Yet she held her head high and her chin up as she marched down the aisle. Her hair had that fluffy look that proclaimed she’d just left the beauty parlor, and she wore such high heels that she stumbled as she walked. If Walker, on his way back, hadn’t caught her elbow, she might have fallen on her face.
When she reached the casket, she stood looking down at Skye for such a long time that the woman behind her touched her elbow. People were backing up behind her.
Marilee shrugged her off and bent forward. Was she touching him? I couldn’t see. When she turned away, she was trembling so hard she weaved her way back up the aisle. But she wasn’t crying. As she came back toward us, I saw that her eyes were stormy and she was pinching her lips together so hard, all you could see was a narrow rim of lipstick where her mouth was. I don’t think I’d ever seen anybody look that angry at a funeral.
Marilee was heading for the back pew across from mine until she noticed Charlie. She stopped short and turned in a few rows ahead. She sank into the red cushion and froze. The only time she moved until the service started was to raise one knuckle to her lips and put it all the way into her mouth. Walker leaned across Cindy and nodded toward Marilee. “She used to do that in school when she got mad or upset,” he whispered. “Sometimes she’d bite herself so hard she’d bleed.”
Having shared that tidbit about our local celebrity, he reached for a hymnbook and perused it while the organ continued to play. I watched wistfully, remembering what a good voice he had and how much our choir needed baritones. Not to mention how much Walker and Cindy needed God in their lives. I sure wished they’d get themselves and their children into a church.
Afraid he’d read all that in my face, I watched Marilee some more. She merited watching. What had Skye MacDonald done to make her stare at his casket with so much fury? They’d been friendly enough Friday afternoon. Seemed to me she’d been clutching his arm like she thought she had a claim to it, but in the restaurant later she’d been annoyed. Now, she leaned forward in her pew as if an invisible rubber band drew her toward that gray box up front, gnawing her knuckle. Would anybody get that mad about losing a good car deal? Maybe she was just being overly-dramatic. She was, after all, a television personality.
Charlie Muggins watched her with slitted eyes. But he was also watching Ben. And me.
My attention jumped to the front of the church when Gwen Ellen, Laura, and Skell came in with Skye’s parents and his brother, Jack, Jack’s wife, and their children. I held my breath, but Charlie Muggins didn’t move. Just watched Skell with the unblinking eyes of a lizard.
Marilee continued to bite her knuckle while the family walked with dignity to the casket and grouped themselves around it. Like me, none of them wore black. Those who knew and loved Skye best had dressed not for the end of his life, but to celebrate his graduation from one stage to another. The men all wore dark suits. Skye’s mother wore a soft gray-blue dress with a large white collar. His sister-in-law had on a brown suit, and her little girl wore a pink dress. Gwen Ellen had chosen to wear a dark green jacket dress that was one of Skye’s favorites. Laura had on a suit of peacock blue that had to be new. With her new haircut, she was stunning. I noticed several people staring and turning to whisper to one another.
One by one the women placed something in the casket. At the last minute, Gwen Ellen reached back in before she turned away. I saw her shove her hand in her jacket pocket as she took her place on the end of the family pew.
I was real proud of her. She walked in quiet dignity, her eyes and mouth composed. She might scream and throw things in private, but she would not disgrace Skye now.
Ben was also watching the family, but since I couldn’t see his face, I had no clue to what he was thinking. I wished somebody would comfort Laura. Her shoulders shook, and she kept lifting a wad of tissues to dab her eyes and nose. Several times I saw her hand creep to the side of her neck, and knew she was reaching for a strand of hair that was no longer there. Gwen Ellen didn’t seem to notice, but her grandfather put his arm around her and held her close.
At five minutes past ten, after the ushers had already closed the swinging narthex doors and just as the funeral director was moving in from the side to close the casket, Nicole opened the sanctuary door.
She was dressed in a short black dress and black stockings, but she paused at the door like a bride. A woman in a black skirt and sweater stood behind her, half a head shorter than Nicole and twenty years older, with her slight plumpness distributed in all the right places. Her strawberry-blond hair was as curly as Nicole’s. I’d have been willing to bet neither had ever needed a perm in their lives. Nicole’s lashes were thick with mascara that had run from crying, but the older woman wore nothing but powder over a sprinkling of freckles that gave her the look of an impish child. She had a friendly mouth, a pert little nose, and grave blue eyes, more worried than sad.
Nicole seemed unconscious that hundreds of people were watching as she took the woman’s arm and led her down the aisle straight toward the casket. The funeral director hovered, uncertain whether to shoo them back or let them come. Neither woman noticed him. Nicole’s attention was all on Skye, the woman’s on her. The director dithered and darted a couple of steps forward, a couple back. Miserable, he looked toward the family pew, but only Skye’s father noticed his dilemma. Mr. MacDonald turned to see what he was looking at, then waved for him to let the women alone.
They walked to the front of the church and stood looking down at Skye, as so many had before them. Then, instead of turning to walk away, Nicole burst into tears. She didn’t weep quietly, she boohooed. Loud heartbroken wails rose over the soft organ music. Her shoulders shook. At last she clutched her stomach, bent over, and sobbed like Gwen Ellen had been afraid
she
would do.
The older woman tugged her arm to draw her away. Nicole jerked free angrily. The woman spoke and pulled again. Nicole stood like she was a permanent part of the church decor, bawling.
Laura would have gotten up, but her grandfather restrained her. Gwen Ellen’s face was desperate and pale as she looked toward the funeral director, begging him to do something. He looked toward the preacher, begging him to do something. The preacher looked down at Joe Riddley on the pallbearers’ pew up front. Joe Riddley got up, took Nicole by the shoulders, and turned her around. From his expression, everybody knew he’d rather be anywhere than escorting a weeping woman up that long aisle. But between his arm around Nicole’s shoulders and the woman’s firm hand on her arm on the other side, they began to make headway.
Nicole continued to wail. Her blue eyes were wild, her mouth twisted in grief. She boohooed so loudly that the organist started playing “Amazing Grace” at the rousing volume and with the fervor usually reserved for “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Pretty soon we’d be keeping up with the Episcopalians.
Joe Riddley marched up that aisle with sturdy determination, but when they reached my pew, he grabbed my arm so hard it hurt. Short of making a scene, I had no choice but to go with them.
As our awkward little recessional reached the narthex doors, Nicole turned and gave the casket a pitiful look. Then she uttered a piercing wail. “Oh, Daddy. Daddy!”
23
I shoved Nicole through the swinging doors. As the others followed, I turned to make sure the doors closed. That’s why I bumped smack into Chief Muggins, coming out with us.
The older woman gathered Nicole in her arms. “Hush,” she said in shocked tones. “Calm down, honey. This won’t do. It won’t do at all.”
When Nicole continued to sob, the woman shook her, hard. Nicole sniffed, hiccuped, and blinked several times. “I’m sorry, Mama. I just can’t stand to go off and leave him in there.” She opened her mouth to wail again.
Her mother covered her mouth with a freckled hand with short slim fingers. “Hush.” She apologized to Joe Riddley, Chief Muggins, and me over her shoulder. “I knew we shouldn’t have come, but Nicole insisted.”
Chief Muggins stepped up and flashed his badge. “I couldn’t help overhearing what the little lady said as she came out just now. Is she claiming that Mr. MacDonald was her father?”
“He is.” Nicole lifted her chin, and her wet eyes flashed.
“And I just knew him four months. Four months out of my whole life.”
“Hush,” said her mother again. She turned a faint pink under her freckles. “You are embarrassin’ me to death.”
“I need to get back in there,” Joe Riddley told me in a soft, urgent voice.
“Go on. You aren’t any use here. Can you take Chief Muggins with you?” It sounded more like “Cad ju take Jeef . . .” because my nose was so stuffy, but I’m not going to translate the rest. I hung back, clutching my wad of tissues and keeping my germs to myself—although for one wild minute I thought about grabbing Chief Muggins and breathing all over him.
Joe Riddley bent and spoke in the police chief’s ear. “Why don’t you wait and talk to her later, when she’s not so upset?”
Chief Muggins shrugged him away. “I want to make it real clear that we won’t tolerate folks slandering a good man in this town.”
Joe Riddley looked at me. I nodded toward the sanctuary door. With relief, he made his escape.
Chief Muggins pulled a notebook out of his pocket. “Your names, please?”
The woman’s voice was soft, but clear. “I’m Maisie Shandy. This is my daughter, Nicole. I’m sorry we caused a disturbance.” She held her head with dignity I had to respect.
Chief Muggins ignored her apology. “Residence?”
She gave an address in Augusta.
“And what is your relationship to the deceased?”
Maisie lifted her chin. “None, at the present. He was my daughter’s father.”
“Do you claim that you and Mr. MacDonald were ever married?”
Her voice was calm and firm. “No, we weren’t.”
He swung to Nicole. “How long have you been in Hopemore, and what was your reason for being here?”
“Four months. I worked for him,” Nicole said. She sniffed, and added proudly, “I was his secretary.”
“He know who you were?”
“Of course not,” her mother answered for her. “She told me she wanted to get to know him, so I told her she could take the job but not to tell him who she was.”
Chief Muggins shut his notebook and put it back in his pocket. “I don’t know who you all are, but I know your type. Find out that a rich man has died, then show up claiming to be his fancy family. You think if you make a lot of trouble, the real family will buy you off.” Ms. Shandy opened her mouth to protest, but Chief Muggins rolled on like a bulldozer. “We won’t stand for that around here. Go back where you came from, and don’t let me see either one of you again or there’ll be trouble. You understand me?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and marched back into the sanctuary, a general who had mopped up one particular battlefield.
“Don’t mind him. He’s an old windbag,” I told Ms. Shandy.
I could have used some wind myself. The stuffing had been knocked plumb out of me. Skye? And this woman? But now that I knew to look, I saw that Nicole had Skye’s coloring and the big nose that had been the bane of Laura’s childhood. She could, of course, be just another large-nosed tall blonde, but she also had Laura’s high forehead and “Skye blue” eyes.
Poor Gwen Ellen. Poor all of us.