Chapter 6: The Memorial

My mother's memorial fell on the Sunday after the dinner, and the whole family came to the cemetery.

Aunts, cousins, two of my father's board members and a priest stood in a half circle around the stone.

Simon's man waited by the gate in a grey coat.

I put white tulips on the grave, the kind she had grown behind the house.

Someone had already left a bunch of them there.

They were fresh, with the stems cut clean.

"They're lovely," Cecily said, appearing at my elbow in a black dress. "Did you bring those?"

"No."

"Strange," she said, and tucked her arm through mine.

The priest spoke for five minutes about my mother's generosity.

Hugh's chair stood at the back, with Leland behind it.

Leland kept looking at me.

I kept looking at the stone.

When the priest finished, my father stepped forward and laid a hand on the marble.

"She would have wanted her girls together," he said. "She'd have wanted this family whole."

A few of the aunts nodded.

Cecily squeezed my arm and let go.

She walked to the center of the half circle, where everyone could see her, and wiped her cheek with the back of her wrist.

"There's something I wanted to say to Mom today," she said. "And to my sister."

My father's face softened.

"I've started a company," Cecily said. "A small one. A foundation that funds scholarships, in Mom's name. I've been building it quietly for a year."

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