Chương 1
"""The message from my mother arrived while the cemetery workers were waiting for me to step away from my daughter's grave.
Sorry, honey.
Flights are expensive, and this just isn't important enough to ruin your brother's vacation.
I read it twice because the first time my brain refused to accept the arrangement of the words.
Beside me, my husband's sister, Claire, held my elbow with both hands as though I might come apart if she loosened her grip.
Twenty feet away, two men in dark work jackets stood beside the lowering equipment, looking anywhere but at me.
Johnny's coffin was already in the ground.
Gemma's small white coffin still hovered above the open earth.
Seven years old, and the box was so short that I could see both ends without moving my head.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was a photograph.
My mother, my father, and my brother Jared stood beneath a striped beach umbrella with pink drinks in their hands.
Jared wore sunglasses and the linen shirt I had bought him for his thirty-fifth birthday.
My mother had typed a caption under the picture.
Family is everything.
A sound came out of Claire.
Not a sob.
Something harsher.
"Naomi, give me the phone."
I handed it to her because I had forgotten what phones were for.
She stared at the screen, then turned it facedown against her coat.
"Don't answer."
"I wasn't going to."
"Good."
"I don't think I can."
Claire looked at me then, really looked at me, and the anger left her face because there wasn't enough room for anger in mine.
There was barely enough room for anything.
The minister waited a few paces away with his Bible closed against his chest.
He had already said the final words once for Johnny and again for Gemma.
I had heard almost none of them.
I remembered Gemma complaining that church shoes pinched her toes.
I remembered Johnny making grilled cheese too dark because he always insisted the pan needed to be hotter than it did.
I remembered arguing with him about a utility bill four nights before the accident.
That last part kept returning with humiliating persistence.
Not our anniversary.
Not the first time he held Gemma.
Not some perfect sentence he had whispered before death.
A stupid electric bill.
"You said you'd call them."
"I said I'd call Friday."
"You always say Friday."
"Because Friday eventually comes, Naomi."
It had.
Just not for him.
Claire touched my shoulder.
"They're ready."
I nodded.
One of the cemetery workers moved toward the controls.
The straps tightened.
Gemma's coffin began to descend.
My knees gave slightly.
Claire caught me.
I stared until the white disappeared below the rim of the grave.
A mother was not supposed to recognize the moment her child became physically unreachable.
There should have been some mechanism in the body that stopped it.
There wasn't.
Afterward, people gathered around me and said things they believed were useful.
They said Johnny had been a wonderful man.
They said Gemma had been sunshine.
They said they were praying.
They said to call anytime.
They said I was strong.
The last one made me want to scream.
Instead, I thanked them because apparently manners survived things people didn't.
At the reception in Claire's house, someone put a plate of lasagna in front of me.
I moved a square of it around with a fork until the cheese became a cold orange rope.
Claire's teenage son, Owen, came into the kitchen carrying Gemma's pink backpack.
He stopped when he saw me.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?"
"I found it in Uncle Johnny's car stuff."
The police had released the personal belongings that morning.
I had not been able to open the plastic evidence bags.
Owen held out the backpack.
One glittery cat ear was bent.
Gemma had insisted on that backpack because she said normal backpacks were "emotionally boring."
Johnny had laughed for ten minutes when she said it.
I took the bag.
"Thank you."
Owen nodded and escaped before either of us had to do more.
Inside were two crayons, a folded reading worksheet, a granola bar crushed into crumbs, and a purple plastic keychain shaped like a dolphin.
Nothing important.
Everything important.
I closed the zipper.
Claire set a glass of water beside me.
"Your parents didn't call, did they?"
"No."
"Did Jared?"
"No."
She leaned against the counter.
For years, Claire had maintained a careful politeness toward my family because Johnny asked her to.
He said open war only gave my mother something to enjoy.
Now Johnny was dead, and Claire seemed to have reconsidered the treaty.
"I don't know what kind of people miss their granddaughter's funeral for a resort."
"They booked it six months ago."
Claire stared at me.
I almost laughed.
Instead, I rubbed my thumb over the dolphin keychain.
"That's what Mom said when I told her the funeral date."
"As if funerals have a flexible cancellation policy."
"They offered to send flowers."
"Did they?"
"No."
That earned a short, ugly laugh from Claire.
She covered her mouth immediately.
"Sorry."
"It's okay."
"No, it isn't."
"Nothing is."
We stood there while the refrigerator motor clicked on.
In the dining room, someone was telling a story about Johnny getting locked out of a hotel room in Denver wearing only socks and a towel.
People laughed.
For half a second, I expected his laugh to rise above theirs.
It always did.
Johnny laughed with his whole body, shoulders first.
The silence where his laugh should have been hurt worse than the story.
I left Claire's house before sunset.
She offered to come home with me.
I said no.
She argued.
I said no again.
Finally she put both hands on my face and said, "Then text me one word when you get inside."
"What word?"
"I don't care."
"That's demanding."
"Yes."
May you like
I drove home with Gemma's backpack buckled into the passenger seat.
At a red light, I noticed I had fastened the seat belt across it.
