The Last September: A Novel

I let my eyes roam up each aisle. I saw family friends and friends of mine from grad school; even a couple of professors had made the trip. But I didn’t see Ladd. Daniel Williams was there—he nodded at me as my eyes fell upon him—and so were Ladd’s parents. Why wasn’t Ladd sitting with them? When I had told him to leave me alone, I certainly hadn’t meant that he shouldn’t come to the funeral. He must have realized that. After all. He and Charlie had grown up together, summers here in Saturday Cove. They were practically cousins. Ladd lived just down the road from this church, close enough to ride his bicycle or even walk. Of course he shouldn’t be banging on my door, wanting to see me alone. But if he didn’t come to Charlie’s funeral, everyone would know the only possible reason: he had been with me the day before, the two of us betraying Charlie with only hours left of his life. Before the funeral even began, everyone would know.

And then my eyes stopped cold on a familiar figure in the second row, precisely behind the spot they’d saved for me. Deirdre Bennet, sandwiched between the Saturday Cove librarian and Charlie’s aunt Marian—not as she should have been (if she had to come at all) with the rest of the crew from the Sun Also Rises, who were sitting in the back. My feet halted, and I stared at her, and she stared back with her pale, watery eyes, as if she’d been crying nonstop for days. Her dress was yellow, too cheerful, with long sleeves. The color and weight were wrong for the day; she should have been sweating. Around her neck she wore an owl pendant. At first I thought it was on a leather string, and I pictured her, spattered with blood, leaning over Charlie, removing it from his neck and tying it onto hers. After a second, I realized it wasn’t leather but a slim black ribbon. The way she brought her fingers to her neck, just short of touching it, made me wonder if it had been a gift from Charlie. Or maybe it was just because of the way I was staring.

“Come on,” Maxine said gently. She still didn’t touch my arm. “Let’s sit.”

The two of us sidled down the row, squeezing into the one spot reserved for me next to Bob. I could feel Deirdre’s eyes, intent on the back of my head, and I sat still as possible, not wanting to give her even the slightest movement. As the service began, I found myself wishing again for Eli. In fact as the minutes ticked by I became more and more convinced that he would show up. Because how could he miss it? His own brother’s funeral?

I barely listened to the verses that were read or the people who spoke. Charlie never cared about things like that, about ceremonies. About poems. But he would have wanted his brother to be there. The past few days I had cowered in Maxine’s house when what I should have been doing was searching for Eli. Not so he could face any kind of justice. But so he could be here, with us, attending Charlie’s funeral as he had not been able to attend their mother’s. As I sat in the front pew, what I saw in my mind was not the pastor—a stranger—but Eli rushing down the aisle in a coat and tie, late for the seat we should have saved for him.

I could hear the sound of people trying to muffle their crying. I could hear Deirdre, behind me, and Maxine, next to me. But Bob and I, neither of us cried, we just sat there, carved from stone, waiting for the service to end. Which it finally did. People stood, began shuffling out. I stood. The back of the pew separated Deirdre and me. She reached forward and I flinched, but she was only returning the hymnal.

Outside, afternoon sun had shifted to its widest, most unflattering filter; it sifted into the church even through the stained glass, and I could see the places in Deirdre’s translucent skin where small veins had broken and pores had muddied. I thought of our twin griefs—having been left by Charlie once when he rejected us. And now. How could he be gone? Standing there between Bob Moss and Maxine, staring rudely and unstoppingly at Deirdre while she refused to look back at me, I could feel the realization like something hovering, a hand raised to hit me full force, as it had not yet, not even when I’d knelt beside his body and tried to lift it. Charlie dead. Gone. Never coming back.

I sat back down in the pew. Was it possible that once upon a time, Deirdre’s face represented the most pain I had ever experienced? Was it possible to feel the weight of this loss and ever stand again? A hand came down on top of my head, its palm flat. Thinking that it was Deirdre, I jerked away, then looked up to see Bob, staring down.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice gnarled as the scrub oaks that lined his property. He nodded and then turned away. I looked up to where Deirdre had been standing. The row was empty.