father, not to grieve for him, to make up with him or, God forbid, cry over his cold body.
I sighed and rose. I buttoned my blazer and pulled down the cuffs of my crisp white shirt. I tucked my hair behind my ears, turned around and walked away, praying with every step that Sophie would feign another headache tomorrow, so I could escape Lynchfield without seeing her.
three
nora
God ignored my prayers.
Sophie’s was the first face I saw when we walked into the First United Methodist Church, Lynchfield. She stood at the end of her pew, half in, half out, as if making sure I would see her for my entire trek down the red-carpeted aisle. Sophie Russell was still the most beautiful woman in the room, damn her. She, Charlie and Logan sat in the pew directly behind the family and, by some freak of coincidence, or spectacular planning on Sophie’s part, she was directly behind me when I sat down.
I heard nothing of the service. There was music, I suppose. “Amazing Grace,” most likely. A eulogy where someone stood up and talked about what a great man my father was. The twenty-third Psalm. “In the Garden.” I’d buried enough friends to know without having to pay attention. I stared at my pop’s closed casket, but my mind’s eye was on Sophie Russell, sitting right behind me. I felt her eyes boring into the back of my head. I even heard her breathing. I smelled her perfume. Remembering Sophie as I’d last seen her eighteen years ago, eyes downcast, cheeks wet from crying, apologizing over and over. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
I tried to square the Sophie of my past with the woman sitting behind me. Try as we might, none of us could stop the march of time and, though everyone in Lynchfield assured me of the contrary, I knew I was no different. Sophie was still striking but, the closer I got to her when walking down the aisle, I saw that the years showed on her more than I expected. Her face had the hollow look of someone who’d lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time. Was she sick at the idea of seeing me, or was her illness genuine? Maybe the headache excuse hadn’t been a ruse, after all.
Someone behind me sniffed. I turned my head to the side and listened. Sophie sniffed again, louder this time. Either Sophie was mourning my father more than any other person in the church or seeing me had been too much for her. I smiled and faced the front. Good.
Bored, I automatically reached for the Bible in the holder on the back of the pew and opened it up to the Book of Ruth, the closest story to a romance you will get in the Bible. The only book that seemed to have a happy ending. I’d read this book dozens of times during boring sermons. Sophie was partial to Esther, because she was a queen.
One particularly boring Sunday she wrote a note on the back of the service’s program: It doesn’t mention God at all.
?
Esther. The book. It doesn’t mention God at all.
I’d shrugged.
What does it say that my favorite book doesn’t mention God?
You’re definitely going to hell.
She rolled her eyes and scrubbed the line out with the little pencil. Then she thought better of it and wrote: I want to go to hell for something a lot more fun that reading Esther.
We’d both started giggling, which had earned us a stern look from the minister. How he could pinpoint us as the culprits when we sat so far back, I never knew. But, he always did. Maybe because we were the only two in the whole sanctuary who were having fun.
With twenty years of hindsight, my choice of Ruth, and Sophie’s choice of Esther, fit our personalities, and our relationship, pretty well: I, the motherless child, wanted to love and be loved; Sophie, the only child, wanted to be worshiped and revered. That sounds crueler to Sophie than I mean it to. Whatever her faults, and I’d chronicled many over the years, Sophie had always been kind and never made fun of anyone, especially not the kids who didn’t necessarily fit in Lynchfield. It was one of the reasons she’d been my best friend.
The service ended, and the family was paraded back up the aisle after the casket like show ponies. I pointedly kept my eyes on old man Mardell, who held the