“Your father stopped by earlier this week to talk to Ivy.” I needed a subject change, and that did the trick. Adam’s jaw ticked slightly. An instant later, he wiped all trace of emotion from his face: not a hint of a smile, not a hint of a frown.
“You didn’t know,” I realized. I’d assumed that Ivy would have told him.
“Did you and my father meet?” Adam almost managed to keep his voice level, but I caught the tension underneath. He wanted me to tell him that the answer was no. He wanted me kept away from his father. I turned that over in my mind and thought of Bodie catching sight of William Keyes and ordering me to stay in the car.
“No,” I told Adam, noting the relief that flickered briefly across his face. “We didn’t.”
CHAPTER 18
The next morning, I put on a faded black dress and went downstairs to wait for Ivy.
“Going somewhere?” Bodie asked me.
I didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Justice Marquette has a grandson who goes to Hardwicke.” As far as excuses went, that was a flimsy one. “He’s a friend of a friend.”
That was stretching the truth, given that I didn’t have much in the way of friends at Hardwicke.
Bodie raised an eyebrow at me. “So you’re going to the funeral.”
“Yes.”
“For the grandfather of a friend of a friend,” Bodie reiterated.
I shrugged and headed for the car. “It feels like the right thing to do.” I wasn’t talking about my tenuous connection to Henry Marquette, and we both knew it.
Maybe Adam was right. Maybe Ivy needed me. Or maybe she didn’t. But no one should have to go to a funeral alone.
“Theodore Marquette served this country long and well.” President Peter Nolan stood at the podium. He had a weighty presence and a powerful speaking voice. As he eulogized, Ivy’s hand found its way into mine. She didn’t keep hold of it for long. But even that fleeting moment of physical contact told me that I’d been right to come.
I knew in my gut that she was thinking about our parents’ funeral. My own memories of it were fuzzy.
I remember it was summer. My dress was blue. A pale baby blue that stuck out among a sea of black. I remembered being passed from arm to arm. I remembered eating food. I remembered being sick all over the floor. I remember Ivy carrying me upstairs. I remember my head against her chest.
“Most of us go through the day unaware of the impact we have on each other, the mark we leave on this world—but not Theo. He felt that responsibility, on the bench and in his daily life, to leave this world a better place than he’d found it. It sounds pat to say that he was a good man, a wise man, a fair man.” The president paused for a moment. “I’m going to say it anyway. He was a good man.” The president’s voice reached every corner of the chapel. “He was a wise man. He was a fair man.”
Stained glass cast colored light onto the casket, which had been wrapped in an American flag, like the flags that flew at half-mast throughout the country in Justice Marquette’s honor.
“Theodore Marquette was a husband who’d buried his wife.” The president’s voice rolled over me. Even giving a eulogy, its tone said trust me, listen to me, follow me. “A father who’d buried his son. He was a fighter who never gave in to grief, to opposition, to the days and the nights and the months and the years when life was hard. He played a mean game of pool. I know from experience that the only way the man could sing ‘Happy Birthday’ was at the top of his lungs.”
There was a scattering of chuckles.
“Theo was a proud grandfather, a devoted civil servant.” The president paused and lowered his head. “He left this world a better place than he’d found it.”
There were other speakers, hymns, prayers.
I remember it was summer. My dress was blue.
The pallbearers came forward: five men, a woman, a boy. I recognized the woman and realized that she and the men were Justice Marquette’s colleagues, justices who’d sat beside him on the bench. It didn’t matter whether they’d found themselves siding with or against him in court; there was grief etched into their faces as they walked in perfect step to carry the casket down the aisle.
The last pallbearer was my age. He was biracial, with strong features made stronger by the terse set of his jaw. The justice’s grandson. It had to be. I watched him, his stare locked straight ahead as he and six Supreme Court justices carried his grandfather’s casket out into the sun.
“Come on, Tess,” Ivy said softly as the funeral goers began to push out of the chapel. We made our way to the end of the pew. As Ivy stepped into the aisle, someone took her arm.
Adam’s father.
I froze, but as the crowd pushed gently forward, I snapped out of it and stepped into the aisle behind them.
“William,” Ivy greeted him coolly. She didn’t attempt to pull away from his hold. As they walked side by side, I found myself wondering who was leading whom.