sins he committed through human weakness, and in your goodness grant him everlasting peace . . .”
Peace, Jordan thought. Peace. What good was that to her dad when she didn’t have it, when Ruth and Anneliese didn’t have it? He was the hub of the family, the one who brought peace. They were still standing grouped together around the place where he should have stood: Anneliese a step away as though standing on his right arm, a slender column in black, a swathe of netting descending over her face from the brim of her black hat; Ruth trembling on what should have been his left side, hand in Jordan’s. “It’s almost over, cricket,” she managed to whisper, as the priest intoned, “We ask this through Christ our Lord” and a ripple of Amens echoed. Followed by a ripple of another kind as the coffin was lowered down into the earth.
I lied, Ruth, Jordan thought of telling her sister. It’s never going to be over. This day is going to last forever. After this would be the graveside condolences, then the somber drive back to the house where cake and casseroles, whiskey and coffee would be served. More condolences and reminiscences and dabbing of handkerchiefs, everyone wanting to know what happened, everyone wanting the details, such a tragedy. How many times today were Jordan and Anneliese between them going to say it? A hunting accident. No, no one’s fault. His shotgun exploded . . .
“Did your father look after his own weapon, miss?” the policeman had asked Jordan that day in the hospital corridor—Anneliese had been too upset for questions, frozen beside her husband’s bed, listening to the rasp of his breath.
“Yes.” As long as she’d gone to the lake with him, Jordan could remember him wiping down his shotgun, cleaning it carefully before hanging it back on the wall. “It was my grandfather’s. He treasured it—he never let it go back on the wall in less than pristine condition. How did it—”
“The problem wasn’t the shotgun, miss, it was the ammunition. It looks like he bought smokeless powder shells—with an old LC Smith twelve-gauge like he had, Damascus barrels, that soft old steel shreds apart if you use the newer ammunition. There are plenty who don’t know that, I’m afraid. The rounds look alike, and people just don’t realize. Did he buy his ammunition himself?”
“Always.” Jordan fiddled with a crooked hook and eye at her waist. She’d torn herself out of that ivory bridal gown at the boutique and back into her summer dress so quickly, all the fastenings were crooked. “I don’t shoot, and Anna doesn’t either.”
“Then he either bought the wrong variety or didn’t realize the newer kind wouldn’t suit his shotgun. I’ve certainly seen it happen before.” A sympathetic glance. “I’m very sorry, miss.”
Everyone was very sorry.
“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,” Father Harris finished at last. Jordan joined the unison reply. “May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”
Amen.
“SUCH A TRAGEDY, Jordan dear. In the prime of his life too!”
“Yes.” Jordan maintained her polite expression, her grip tight on the plate of German chocolate cake she hadn’t touched. The woman was some distant cousin of her dad’s; funerals always brought cousins out in hordes.
“How exactly did it happen, dear?”
“A hunting accident, no one’s fault,” Jordan recited. “His shotgun exploded when he was out at the lake hunting turkey. He was using the wrong ammunition.”
“I’ve told my husband once if I’ve told him a hundred times, always check your ammunition. Do they listen, these menfolk of ours?”
The parlor at the house was jammed with people in black: helping themselves to casserole and cookies from the groaning table, sipping glasses of sherry or tumblers of whiskey. Anneliese stood by the mantel, about as lifelike as a waxwork. Jordan was never going to forget the sound that had come out of her when she saw her husband in the hospital bed—it was before bandages hid the full extent of his injuries, the missing fingers on his right hand, the wound to his neck, the horror that was the right side of his face. Anneliese had let out a choked whimper at the sight, like an animal in a trap. If Jordan had had even the remotest suspicion that Anneliese didn’t love her father, that would have put paid to any doubts right there. She’d seen the tears overflowing Anneliese’s eyes as the doctor went on and on