Chapter 28: Read It Aloud

The church on Water Street held two hundred people, and by ten to eleven there were more standing along the walls.

Half of Westbrook had come, and it was not for my mother.

Most of them had never met her.

They had come because they had heard something at a donor coffee, or from someone who had, and they wanted to see what a shop teacher would do.

I sat in the front pew in the black dress I had bought at the mall on Wednesday.

Lydia sat at the end of the row in a borrowed wheelchair, with Maggie's hand on her shoulder.

Miles sat on my other side.

He had taken my hand when we came in, in front of every person who had ever known his name, and he had not let go.

I turned my head once.

Mr. Ashworth sat on the aisle in the fourth pew, alone, in the grey overcoat.

He looked straight ahead.

He had not been able to stay away.

A man who has lived beside a family for twenty-four years does not skip the funeral.

If he did, the town would know why.

The minister said what ministers say.

Then my father got up.

He walked to the pulpit in his only suit, with a folded paper in his hand.

He put his big hands on either side of the lectern and looked at us for a while.

"Barbara Doyle was my wife," he said. "She left me when our daughter was four."

A rustle went through the pews.

"I never said a bad word about her to Clara. I thought that was the least I owed a child."

"I have since learned that I owed her a good deal more than silence, and so did the woman in that box."

His voice did not shake.

"Barbara asked me to read one thing at her funeral. I said I would. I'm a man who does what he says."

He unfolded the paper.

I felt Miles's hand tighten.

"This is a sworn statement," my father said.

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