Unable are the loved to die, for love is mortality.
“Emily Dickinson,” Luci said, offering this enlightenment with a satisfied sigh.
Vanessa thought about the sentiment for as long as she could stand to — about seven seconds, Luci judged — and then distractedly fanned herself with the card.
“I just don’t know … What do you say to a mother whose son has just committed suicide? ‘So sorry you weren’t paying attention?’ Oh, that’s awful of me … never mind.” Vanessa pressed the card back into Luci’s hands and exited the store in a rush very similar to how she entered.
Luci carefully replaced the card in the rack, then straightened a few others before she returned to the desk and her note.
Her phone, neatly, but unobtrusively tucked beside the cash register, vibrated. Luci ignored it. She carefully rerolled the note, which was now as long as her arm, back into its tight tube and tucked it beside the phone. As she did so, she glanced down at the screen and noted that she’d now missed ten calls and had twenty texts waiting.
The thing was, she knew exactly why everyone wanted to check in with her all of a sudden, but she wasn’t much interested in actually talking to anyone. She wasn’t interested in the confirmation. And she certainly wasn’t interested in the daunting task ahead of her now. A task that was too much to ask of anyone, even her. Not that he’d actually asked.
He had — obviously and always — left her a note.
Luci wasn’t going to get away with ignoring everyone and their condolences for very long. She was lucky that Vanessa hadn’t seemed to recognize her. Though it was part of a much larger metropolitan sprawl, West Vancouver was ultimately a small — even incestuous — municipality. There was only one high school worth going to at all.
She had a feeling someone would be picking her up from work. Someone else would be making sure she got to school and through the day okay tomorrow. Actually, someone was probably going to suggest she skip Friday’s classes all together.
But she knew better. She knew what was really going on — or at least what he’d hoped was going to happen. And she had her own plan. Or at least the beginning of one.
*
Luci hadn’t spent a lot of time in church before this. In fact, this might be the longest she’d ever sat in a pew. But she’d at least known what to expect from movies and TV, so she’d worn her black dress and nylons even though she didn’t like them. She also wore the pink flower bracelet that Colby had given her for her birthday, balancing it with a pink rhinestone clip in her hair and a light pink lip gloss. She opted to sit with her friends, not her family, who were behind her and to the right. She figured her friends needed her more right now.
There had been some talk of not having a funeral under the circumstances, but Luci was glad they’d chosen to go ahead so that everyone had a traditional time and space to mourn. She was also glad to have the extra preparation time for herself … before she had to say a final goodbye.
A massive gold cross loomed over the open coffin at the front of the church sanctuary. Luci tried to pay attention to the minister rather than the edge of the white waxy profile she could see just above the side of the coffin.
The church was really full. Luci doubted that many of the people there had even known this church existed before today. Vanessa — who Luci recognized from the card shop, of course — sat right behind Colby’s parents, Candace and Abram, who along with their daughter Cicely occupied the front row. Every now and then, depending on what the minister was saying and whether or not Colby’s mother was slumped over her handkerchief, Vanessa placed her hand on Candace’s shoulder and squeezed. It appeared that Vanessa had figured out what to say and do even without the bereavement card.
From her vantage point two rows behind, Luci couldn’t see the faces of Colby’s father, mother, and sister unless they turned toward the coffin, but she could read their body language. Candace dabbed her eyes regularly with a black lace handkerchief, which Luci was sure her grandmother would proclaim gauche. Abram looked disconnected and maybe a little bored. Cicely wasn’t currently crying, but by her crazy puffy eyes fixed on the coffin, it was obvious she had been.
All of Luci’s friends had come, of course, and they hadn’t even bugged her about what to wear. She was glad to see they’d managed to dress well without her supervision. It was a respectful gesture, even though not one of them felt Colby deserved that respect — even before he was dead. At least half the school was in the church, though none of them had been close to Colby. Luci wondered where the other half were.
“John, a close friend of Colby’s, will now read a favorite poem,” the minister said, finally voicing the words Luci had been waiting to hear. “Friends and family are invited to visit and say their good byes.”
The minister beckoned to John, who was sitting on Luci’s right. John, his suit too tight across his shoulders, nervously pulled the cheat sheet Luci had typed up for him from his pocket. John was one of Luci’s oldest friends, and he hadn’t been even remotely close to Colby. But, reading a poem was the correct thing to do, and though she could pick it, it wasn’t for her to stand up and read.
John glanced at her — she saw him in her peripheral vision — and she nodded slightly without meeting his gaze. He lumbered to his feet, only doing so because she asked it of him.
As John pushed through to the aisle to approach the podium, other mourners glanced around, not knowing what to do.