Chapter 7: Nelly

St. Brendan's held the annual memorial for me on the third Sunday of March.

I learned that from the flyer taped inside the motel office window.

REMEMBERING GENEVA. 10 A.M. ALL WELCOME.

Somebody had drawn a small heart in the corner with a ballpoint pen.

I read it three times, then I got dressed.

I took the gray coat and my mother's old black scarf from the duffel bag, and I walked the mile to the church because I couldn't afford the cab.

Dr. Kemp had made me promise to sit down if the pain came back.

I slid into the last pew at five to ten and kept my head low.

The church was full.

There were maybe two hundred people, the whole town in its Sunday clothes.

At the front, on a stand under the cross, sat my senior portrait in a silver frame.

Beside it a white candle burned in a glass.

Under the portrait sat a small wooden box.

The urn.

My parents sat in the front pew.

My mother held a wadded tissue and my father sat very straight, with his eyes on the box.

Stewart sat beside them with Junie on his lap.

Beth was at the aisle end, in a black dress, with her hands folded.

The pastor said a few words about loss.

Then he said, "Beth, would you like to speak?"

She rose, and the church watched her.

She walked up to the pulpit and put one hand on the frame of my portrait.

"Thank you all for coming," Beth said. Her voice was soft and it carried. "Three years ago our family lost the brightest person we knew."