of her hat shadowed her face so they could not see her eyes as she followed their conversation and nibbled at the crust. When they seemed to have decided on the cemetery, she dabbed her lips with the corner of her napkin and stood.
"We are going to the church." No one questioned her. Augusta hurried off to find the pair of black kid gloves and soft, black leather clutch bag she intended to loan her. When she returned, she hugged her warmly and told her to remember how much she was loved. "I will," Trissa answered. Cole and the doctor fell in behind her as they filed out the back door into the mellow April sunshine.
The church was heady with the fragrance of old incense and the funeral flowers that banked the altar, lilies, freesia, and gladioli. Trissa led the trio to a rear corner pew on the Blessed Virgin's side. She knelt for a moment then slid back on the smooth wooden bench.
When she looked up, she met the eyes of Detective Chancellor who occupied the identical pew as theirs but on St. Joseph's side. She acknowledged his unreadable gaze with a sedate nod then nestled back between the carved side of the pew and Cole's warm shoulder where she felt very safe and sheltered.
Clusters of mourners entered the church, parishioners she remembered, old friends of her mother, and strangers she knew she'd never seen before. From the choir, the organ sounded sonorously as the organist tested her chords. Two men in black suits walked briskly up the aisles bearing more floral arrangements to place at Mary and Joseph's altars and at the foot of the main altar.
Outside, Trissa heard the muffled slamming of car doors and the low murmur of voices. Her backbone tensed as she braced herself for her ordeal. Beside her, Cole gently coaxed her clenched fingers open and took her hand in his. When Father Donner and four servers emerged to begin their slow walk from the sacristy to greet the mourners and the casket, she knew she would not have been able to stand were it not for his firm support.
Trissa concentrated on the beads of holy water that speckled the bronze casket as it rolled past her. She could not think that that metal box contained her father, loved, hated, and now lost to her forever. She tried to block from her mind the cold sneer on his face when he had threatened her and Nicholas, the last time she saw him alive. She tried to erase the swath his scar made across it then, and to remember instead how he had smiled at her and held her hand walking proudly with his daughter down this same aisle.
So long ago now and never again. She tried to forget how she had wished him dead. So many times. The last time. She tried not to think why, after all her years and years of futile prayers, hopeless dreams, and wasted wishes, this last, horrible and desperate one had come true.
She shuddered and the tears she had told Dr. Fitapaldi she would never shed for her father, trailed down her cheeks. Calmly, like an anchor in a storm, Cole let go of her hand and put his arm around her trembling shoulders.
Her mother never acknowledged her. Though Trissa watched, unblinking, fearful of missing any tiny gesture of forgiveness, she passed her by without a glance, supported by her Aunt Ellen and followed by Trissa's cousins and second cousins. They were funeral relatives, drawn by the magnetic power of grief, to shake their heads and moan their sorrow, then disappear without a trace until the next family tragedy. She could not tell whether they did not see her, did not recognize her, or deliberately snubbed her as they passed, wringing their handkerchiefs in their hands.
*****
"Are you sure you want to go to the cemetery?" Fitapaldi stood by his car after the Requiem Mass. The hearse and limousines were lining up for the procession that would wind past Trissa's house before making its way to the graveside.
"Yes. I have to go. If my mother needs me, I have to be there."
"Trissa, why torture yourself? That women seems a stone to me," said Cole.
"I have to go."
Fitapaldi took his place behind the wheel. Cole shook his head, disappointed with the doctor's quick surrender. Cole had done his best to protect Trissa from the rude remarks of some biddies gossiping in the vestibule. Runaway daughter, conniving little bitch, and