He bent over the casket and wept with a profound, terrifying helplessness that I hadn’t seen since he was a little boy scraping his knee. Nobody in the chapel was whispering anymore. I stood frozen behind him, completely stunned. Whatever his strange outfit meant, I suddenly knew it wasn’t a childish mockery.
During the eulogies, Daniel sat just two seats away from me. I couldn’t stop glancing at the dress out of the corner of my eye. Something about it nagged at the back of my mind, bothering me far beyond its obvious inappropriateness.
The specific shade of pink. The delicate little fabric-covered buttons running down the bodice. A tiny, nearly invisible snag near the waistline. I knew that dress. But grief had turned my memories into loose papers blowing wildly in a storm. Every time I almost caught the thought, it fluttered away.
The Cardboard Box
After the service ended, the inevitable crowd surrounded me.
“I’m so deeply sorry, Tisha.”
“Richard was such a wonderful man.”
“Please, let us know if you need absolutely anything.”
I switched to autopilot. I warmly thanked everyone. I tracked down a guest’s missing trench coat. I instructed the caterer on the optimal placement for the coffee urns. I was carrying a heavy crystal vase toward the reception hall when Richard’s sister stopped me.
“Tisha?” she asked, holding out a large, empty cardboard box. “Where should we put all these sympathy cards?”
“Oh, just place them on the table right beside the guest book. No, wait—people will definitely spill coffee there. Give them to me; I’ll sort them.” I reached out and took the bulky box from her.
“Mom.”
Daniel had appeared quietly behind her.
“Just give me five minutes, Danny,” I said, already calculating where to put the cards.
His face immediately went blank. A heavy shutter closed over his expression. “What?”
“I just need to finish this first.”
He stared hard at the box weighing down my arms. Then, in a voice so quiet it barely carried over the crowd, he said, “That’s exactly what Dad said you’d do.”
My fingers tightened painfully around the rigid cardboard edges. “What did you just say?”
Daniel glanced nervously at the crowded room. “Can we please go somewhere private?”
“Danny, I have to—”
“Please, Mom.”
Something desperate and broken in his face stopped me dead in my tracks. I unceremoniously shoved the box back into his aunt’s hands. “Put them anywhere,” I told her. She blinked in surprise, but I no longer cared.
