They Called My Death a Tantrum, So I Stayed Dead novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: A Form Isn't a Funeral
Ewan's POV
Cadence held the service anyway.
She held it on the third day, at noon, under the picnic pavilion at the river park where I used to eat lunch.
There was no casket and no minister.
There was a folding table with my photo on it and a coffee can of gas-station roses.
I had not known that many people would come.
Forty or fifty of them stood in the heat in work clothes and church shoes.
Two coworkers from the freight office had driven in from Columbus.
My old landlady had brought a pie.
A boy I used to tutor in the back stairwell of the library stood by the water with his father, wearing a tie that was too big for him.
I stood beside the photo and looked at them.
"They came because of the video," Ada said.
"They came for me."
"They came for both."
She was right.
Cadence stood in front of the table in a plain black dress.
She did not speak at first.
A phone camera held up in the second row recorded her anyway.
"Ewan Fairbank was the most reliable person I ever knew," she said finally. "He called when he said he would. He remembered everyone's birthday. He fixed things nobody asked him to fix."
A woman near the front wiped her eyes.
"He told his family he was dying. They said it was a tantrum."
Nobody in the crowd looked surprised.
I had not known that, either.
They had been waiting a long time for somebody to say it out loud.
A black sedan pulled into the gravel lot at twelve-fifteen.
Alden and Lorna got out of it.
They were dressed for a funeral.
They walked toward the pavilion together, and the crowd turned to look at them.
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