Chapter 23: Stand Up, Stewart

Nobody moved on the cemetery grass.

I stopped at the front of the aisle, a few feet from my own stone.

Beth stood beside it with the white cloth in the grass at her feet.

"Geneva," she said into the microphone, and then she realized it was on and took a step back.

"Hello, Beth," I said.

My voice carried without any help.

"I'm sorry I'm late. I was getting a scan."

Someone in the second row began to cry.

Beth recovered fast.

She always did.

"Everyone, please," she said, in her gentle voice. "My sister has a fever. She isn't well. She shouldn't be here."

"I have a fever of a hundred and one," I said. "My mind is fine."

"She's confused."

"I'm a doctor," Giles said, from behind me. "She isn't."

Beth looked at him and said nothing.

I walked to the microphone, and she let me take it from her hand.

The pastor's wife sat in the front row, in a navy dress, with a program in her lap.

I looked straight at her.

"May I ask about the scholarship?" I said. "Where did the money come from?"

"Beth said her savings," the pastor's wife answered, puzzled. "She gave it to the church treasury last week."

"Beth," I said. "Whose savings?"

"Mine."

"No," Stewart said.

He had walked out of the side aisle with Junie in his arms.

He gave her to my mother, who held her against her coat.

Then he stood in front of the first row, facing the whole town.

"It's the Prescott house account," he said. "I never knew. I let my wife keep the bills."

"Stewart," Beth said sharply.

"For twelve months after the memorial, money left our account every month.

"It was marked Church fund. I thought it was a donation."

He looked at the pastor's wife.