I looked at the headstone once more, letting the image of my daughter’s name and possible—likely—date of death burn into my brain, before giving the leash another tug.
“Come on, Frosty,” I said. “We’ve got someplace to go.”
Chapter Two
Buster came to the memorial service late.
I’d assumed he wasn’t coming at all. He liked to promise to do something—come hell or high water—and then not follow through. His appearance surprised me, but not his tardiness.
As I stood in the back of the church, feeling constrained by my coat and tie, a whirl of emotions stewed within me. Every person who passed by, every hand I shook or hug I received, brought me closer to tears and bitterness. I associated a memory, a fleeting glimpse of Caitlin, in so many of the faces I saw. A girl who’d gone to school with Caitlin, for example, looked grown-up and every one of her sixteen years. Did Caitlin reach that age somewhere in the world away from us? Did she ever become a young woman? When I saw a former neighbor, an elderly woman who used to babysit for us when Caitlin was a child, I wondered: Why was she allowed to live, approaching eighty, while Caitlin might be dead?
My throat felt full of cotton, and I choked back against the crying and the anger until my jaw ached. I did this not because I didn’t feel the tears or anger were heartfelt, but because I feared that giving in to them would validate the entire ceremony, making real what I still refused to accept.
By the time Buster came in—late and apologizing—my feelings toward him shifted a little, and I welcomed the distraction his appearance provided. Most everyone else was seated, and all that remained was for us—the funeral party—to walk down the aisle.
“I’m sorry,” Buster said. “My car. And then the traffic . . .”
To his credit, he wore a suit. It looked like he’d borrowed it from a midget, but still, it was a suit. The pant legs rode up above the tops of his shoes, revealing white socks, and I doubt he could have buttoned the jacket. He wore a pair of cheap sunglasses that hung loose on his face and kept sliding down the bridge of his nose. He pushed them up with the knuckle of his right index finger every few seconds.
No one said anything for a long moment. We—Abby, Buster, Pastor Chris, and I—stood in an awkward little circle, waiting for someone to speak.
Finally, Pastor Chris smiled and said, “We’re glad you’re here.”
Abby remembered her manners before I did. “This is Tom’s stepbrother—”
“Half brother,” Buster said.
“Half brother, William,” Abby said.
Buster shook hands with Pastor Chris, then leaned in and gave Abby an awkward peck on the cheek. She averted her eyes like a child receiving an inoculation. She’d never liked Buster, which is why I was so surprised that she’d gone to the trouble of inviting him. She’d meant it as a gesture of goodwill, something she was willing to sacrifice for me, I’m sure. So I clung to whatever faint hope remained for us—between Frosty’s departure and the memorial service, she and I might be able to dig our way back toward common ground. I never imagined Caitlin’s homecoming without imagining the three of us reuniting as a family. I couldn’t think of it any other way, even though I knew there had been cracks in our marriage even before Caitlin disappeared.
“Quite a church,” Buster said.
And it was. A former warehouse purchased by Christ’s Church eight years earlier and converted. It sat two thousand people and included a workout center and coffee bar in the back. Plans were in the works to buy a large video projection system so that Pastor Chris could be seen up close and personal by everyone. More than once, Abby mentioned donating money toward that cause.
“We should begin,” Pastor Chris said, looking at his watch and then the settling crowd. “Is that okay with all of you?”
Abby nodded silently, and so did I. She reached out and took my hand. The gesture surprised me. Her hand felt unfamiliar in mine, the hand of a stranger, but the good kind of strangeness that comes when two people have just met and are beginning to get to know each other. My heart sped up a little; I squeezed her hand in mine and she squeezed back. Like two scared children, we followed Pastor Chris down the aisle to the front of the church with Buster trailing behind.