Sunday blooms bright and beautiful, one of those perfect spring days for which Atlanta is famous. Blue skies. Warm sunshine. A crisp breeze carrying whiffs of grass and honeysuckle. The kind of day Will and I loved to spend lazing in Piedmont Park or exploring the Atlanta BeltLine. The kind of day that’s too bright and sunny for a funeral.
Liberty Airlines has secured the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for the memorial service, and as I lumber through it in dark clothes and darker glasses, I grudgingly admit the choice is pretty brilliant. With its swooping bridges and reflecting pools and Technicolor Chihuly sculptures everywhere, the park is pretty spectacular. Even better, no journalists are allowed through the gate, and there isn’t a zoom lens on the planet that can reach us through the leafy cover. I picture Ann Margaret at the employee meeting, nodding enthusiastically when it was suggested. Who can be bereft when the tulips are in full bloom?
Mom winds her arm through mine, presses her temple to my shoulder. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay.”
Thankfully, it’s not a lie. As soon as we pulled into the garden’s parking deck, everything inside me went completely numb, like someone shot me full of Novocain. My body going into survival mode, I guess, and I’m grateful for the reprieve. It sure as hell beats sobbing or throwing up, both of which I spent all day yesterday doing, after Dad handed a solemn-faced Liberty Air representative the items he’d collected from Will’s side of the bathroom—his toothbrush, a forgotten fingernail clipping, a few stray hairs. Closure—that’s what genetics is supposed to provide for Liberty Air families. But I don’t want closure. To hell with closure. I want someone to tell me they couldn’t find one piece, not one teeny tiny speck, of my husband on that Missouri cornfield.
Uniformed park employees herd us down bricked pathways into the Rose Garden, a large grassy field set against a backdrop of the Midtown Atlanta skyline. We file into a middle row and take a seat on padded folding chairs, my gaze picking out a few familiar faces from the Family Assistance Center. The Indian woman in another sari, this time white. The black teenager minus the studs, his face streaked with unchecked tears. The sun reflects off their wet faces like a beacon, making me glad for my sunglasses. Especially when I spot Ann Margaret, watching from the sidelines. Her look of obvious longing transports me back to the halls of Lake Forrest, to the pimply-faced girls desperate to be part of the popular crowd. We are “her” family, and we’re excluding her. I give her my best mean-girl cold shoulder and turn away.
The service is an hour and a half of infuriating, excruciating torture filled with cheesy songs and a long procession of speakers, people I’ve never met before and will probably never see again. They package their condolences into ridiculous platitudes, things like Let your love be stronger than your desperation and sorrow and Let us concentrate on filling the holes with love and hope. Hope for what? I hold my breath and grit my teeth so I don’t scream the words. Hope for fucking what? Thanks to Liberty Air, I don’t have the slightest clue.
Liberty Airlines. Two words I can’t utter without shaking with fury. I hate them for their sloppy mechanics, their faux concern, their incompetent disaster planners and clumsy crew. If that pilot didn’t die in the crash, I’d want to kill him myself.
And where is the pilot’s family? Are they here? I study the profiles of the folks weeping all around me, trying to find his wife or husband, their 2.5 loving children. Would they dare to come? Would they be able to face the 178 other families, knowing their loved one made the mistake that brought down the plane?
After the service, we gather for refreshments by a rose arbor better suited to a wedding than a funeral. The flowers won’t bloom for weeks, their tight buds only barely there nubs, but the climbing vines with their pale green shoots mock me with their optimism. Alive, alive, alive, they scream, while my Will is not.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Dad asks, gesturing to the edge of the crowd, where a uniformed server stands with a tray of icy drinks.
“A Coke,” I tell him, even though I’m not thirsty. I figure at least if I’m holding a glass, I can’t slug somebody in the gut. But as soon as Dad has slipped into the crowd, I reconsider. “Actually, can we just leave? I really want to go home.”
Mom and Dave exchange a look. “Maybe you want to talk to some of the other families?” Mom says.
“No. I really, really don’t.” As a psychologist, I am a big believer in group therapy, in finding solace with others who have been through a similar tragedy. But doing so with these people here means resigning myself to Will being on that plane, and until DNA tells me otherwise, I’m hanging on to my denial with both hands.
My boss, Ted Rawlings, steps up in front of me. Though I didn’t expect to see him here, I’m not surprised. He treats everyone at Lake Forrest, staff and students alike, like one big extended family. Of course he’d be at one of our funerals.
He reaches for my hand, wraps it between both of his. “On behalf of everyone at Lake Forrest Academy, I offer you my deepest, most sincere condolences. I’m so very sorry for your loss. If there’s anything I can do, that any of us can do, please, please let me know.”
Tears spring to my eyes, not at his words but mostly at his tie—a solemn, staid black so unlike the colorful ones he wears to school. A funeral tie if I’ve ever seen one. I bet he bought it for the occasion, and the thought makes me unbelievably, inexplicably sad. “Thank you, Ted. That means a lot.”
“Take as much time as you need, okay? We’ll see you back at school whenever you’re ready.” He squeezes my hand, then moves on to my mother, becoming the first in an impromptu receiving line. More colleagues and their spouses, a man I belatedly recognize as Will’s boss, a few of his coworkers. They file by, repeating much of what Ted just said. The entire Lake Forrest lacrosse team is next, solemn-faced and saying all the right things, but an itchy rash spreads across my skin with each hand I shake. I don’t want their sympathy. I don’t want their kind words. I only want my husband back.
“Oh, Iris,” a familiar voice says, and I’m surrounded by my three best girlfriends, their eyes puffy and bloodshot. Elizabeth, Lisa and Christy huddle around, wrapping me in a hug that smells like flowers and honey and tears.
“He wasn’t supposed to be on that plane,” I say, pressing my forehead to theirs. “He’s supposed to be in Orlando.”
There’s nothing they can say, no hope they can offer, so instead they scoot in tighter and say nothing at all. The idea that they know me well enough not to plug the silence with platitudes fills me with love at the same time it wrings my heart with a fresh round of grief.
“Thanks for coming,” I whisper, right before Mom swoops in. She did this at her and Dad’s fortieth anniversary celebration last year, too, moving the line along when someone lingered too long. Now she takes a couple of hands in hers and tugs, her smile so genuine and the move so smooth, nobody but me is the wiser.