My Fiancé Chose My Best Friend-At My Dad’s Funeral novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Laugh
Braden and Lenora laugh aloud during the hymn at Tilda's father's funeral, and she takes off her ring in front of everyone; her father's key ring holds a key stamped with her workplace's address.
The laugh came in the middle of the second hymn.
It was a big one, a courtroom laugh, and it rolled across the whole funeral home chapel.
Every head in the chapel turned around.
I didn't need to turn. I had heard that laugh every working day for three years.
Braden sat one row behind me with his head tipped toward Lenora.
She had her hand over her mouth and her shoulders were shaking.
"Estoppel," she whispered.
"Stop it, Nora," Braden whispered back, and his own shoulders started to shake.
They both lost it again.
I had no idea what was funny.
I never did.
My father's photograph stood on an easel six feet from me. He was in his work jacket, squinting into the sun, with a smear of grease on his thumb.
Behind us, a chair scraped.
I looked back once.
The managing partner of our firm sat alone in the last row. He was the only partner who had come.
He was staring at Braden, and he didn't get up.
I turned around and kept my eyes on my father.
For three years I had laughed a half second late at everything those two said, so they wouldn't feel alone in their joke.
I didn't laugh now.
The hymn ended. The minister read my father's name and Braden finally went quiet.
An hour earlier, in the restroom, Lenora had fixed my mascara with her thumb. She'd promised to stay at the house with me all week.
Afterward everyone gathered in the hall for coffee.
Braden found me by the guest book. He had my father's folder of papers under his arm, the one he'd taken out of my bag in the car.
"I'll carry it for you, Til," he said. "Has the estate lawyer called yet?"
It was the second time he'd asked since morning.
"She left a voicemail," I said. "I haven't called back."
"Don't push her today, G," Lenora said, sliding in beside him. "Banksville Road, Thursday. We'll go with her."
She squeezed my arm, warm and certain.
"And about that laugh," Braden said, lowering his voice. "We were decompressing. You know how we get when something hurts. It's how we cope. It's nothing."
"It's nothing," Lenora said. "Honey, you know that."
Their eyes met over my head.
They smiled at each other.
Not at me. At each other.
I had seen that smile at every firm party and every dinner, and every time I had told myself it meant they worked well together.
Braden picked up the pen beside the guest book and signed my father's page.
Then he handed the pen to Lenora and said something in her ear, and she snorted.
She was laughing at my father's guest book.
I looked at the ring on my left hand. The diamond was small and sharp, and he had chosen it in a quiet shop in March.
I thought about the seven months since.
Then I took it off.
It wasn't easy. My knuckle was swollen from three days of crying.
Braden saw it and went still. "Tilda."
I set the ring on the open guest book, right between their two signatures.
Every person in that hall stopped talking.
Alexander Rhodes, the managing partner, set his coffee cup down by the urn.
"Please leave," I said. "This is my father's funeral."
"You're in grief," Braden said, low and patient. "You can't make decisions this week. Take the ring back and we'll talk tomorrow."
"I'm making one."
"Tilda, honey." Lenora reached for my hand. "Don't do this in front of people."
I stepped back so she couldn't touch me.
"You can laugh in the parking lot," I said.
Then I reached out and took the folder out from under Braden's arm.
He let go. He had to. Everyone was watching.
So I took the ring off, and I didn't put it back on.
I walked to the front of the hall with the folder against my chest.
The funeral director met me at the door with a brown envelope. "Emmett Harlan's effects, Ms. Harlan. His wallet, his watch, his keys."
I opened it in the stairwell, where nobody could see.
The wallet was the same cracked leather I had known all my life. The watch still had his initials scratched on the back.
The key ring held his truck key, the key to our house in Dormont, and one more.
It was brass and old and heavy, with a paper tag on a string.
The tag was written in my father's square handwriting.
It was the address of the building where I worked.
I had typed that address on envelopes every day for three years.
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