When I do find a seat, it’s alarmingly near the people who are clearly relatives and dear friends. I sit down and watch a tall, commanding woman whom I assume is the Deborah from the newspaper article. She is quietly greeting guests, accepting their condolences with such assurance! Such poise! She is obviously a force to be reckoned with. Even if she weren’t the widow, she would have been the focus of our attention.
I’d nursed a faint hope that perhaps a mistake had been made. Perhaps John had once been married to this woman, but long divorced, and she was attempting some sort of con upon his death. But when I observe her straight square shoulders, her perfect silver hair—almost shellacked, it is so shiny and perfect, every strand in place—her placid coolness, and her clothes that just scream money and privilege, I despair. This is not a woman who would allow herself to be left behind, certainly not the type who would need to pull any such shenanigans. She is a keeper, of husbands, of power. You can tell from the way she greets each of the priests (four of them!) personally, and from all the men and women eager to approach her, shake her hand, or give her quick hugs (they are all quick, none lingering or overly intimate). Mostly the former. She’s like that, then. Someone who largely inspires handshakes even from other women.
She stands in front of the coffin, elegant and self-possessed in a way I can never hope to be. I look down at my yellow skirt, the most expensive and colorful item in my wardrobe—John loved it—and cringe. I stand out in the sea of black like a canary in a cave. I feel like a trapped canary, about to asphyxiate from the lack of oxygen. She would never be inappropriately dressed. Rather, how she dressed would determine what was appropriate in others. I think of the parking lot full of late model Mercedes and Lexus and BMW cars, and despair even more. She could squash me like a bug.
Yet do I envy her? Not particularly. I prefer the sloppy embraces of my ragtag friends to the brisk handshakes she is getting from even those people who seem to know her well. And I don’t believe that John preferred her to me. I have that smidgen of confidence. After all, he married me after he married her. So I trumped her, in some oddly satisfying way.
I have to admit, she did organize everything splendidly in just three days. The prominent obituaries published in the Mercury News, the Chronicle, the Daily News. The huge displays of flowers carpeting the front of the church and overflowing down both side aisles of the packed church. And musicians—in addition to the organist, a cellist, a flute player, a singer with a heartbreakingly lovely contralto voice. It is all done in the most exquisite taste.
I think of what a sorry showing I would have made if the funeral arrangements had been left to me. We—John and I—didn’t even belong to a church. What do you do in such cases? Rent one? I would have invited our little group of friends (my friends, I realize now, John had never introduced me to any of his) over for sandwiches and tea in our garden. Our garden! John had loved it so much! He would have objected to all the cut flowers here, sliced down in their prime. He loved growing things, things rooted in the earth. He was a natural healer.
He was often up at 5 AM to water the garden in the pale dawn light; then he was off to the hospital, where he would grab a shower and breakfast before making his rounds. But no, I have to stop when I find myself thinking like this. So he had told me. So he had told me. And now I understand that nothing he’d said can be trusted. With this thought, I collapse against the hard back of the pew even as the rest of the congregation stands up. The priests are at the altar and the service is beginning. I somehow haul myself up to my feet. How reassuring this hard, cool surface beneath me is. Nothing else is safe, nothing solid anymore.
As I compose myself I catch the woman I’ve guessed is Deborah looking over her shoulder at me. I try to read her expression. Hostile, I decide. Who are you? Interloper. Gate-crasher. Imposter. I turn my head to evade her glance, only to find myself staring at the casket, which I have been avoiding. Hard to believe John’s body is in there, inert and rigid. He’d come into our bedroom to kiss me goodbye Thursday morning as usual, smelling of damp and earth. His hands were cool as he placed them on my shoulders and gently shook me. He didn’t like to wake me up at such an early hour, but I always insisted. I needed to feel his lips against mine before losing him for the day, the pressure of his shoulder on my chest as he leaned in. I needed him to be real, that’s how blessed I’d felt every day of our six years together.
Being practical? Who am I fooling? I am suffocating under the weight of grief and rage.