had gotten a D in his civics class but had loved him anyway, offered to play at the service.
There were no balloons this time, no fire-eater, no fifth-grade jazz band.
But it was packed. People brought beach towels to sit on, I remember that—and there was not an open inch of sand anywhere.
It’s amazing how funerals even happen.
The party had taken so much work and planning and forward momentum, but the funeral just … happened.
I showed up. I read a poem that Babette gave me—one of Max’s favorites—but I couldn’t even tell you which one. It’s crumpled in my dresser drawer now along with the program because I couldn’t bear to throw either of them away.
I remember that the water in the Gulf—which is usually kind of brown on our stretch of beach from all the mud at the mouth of the Mississippi—was particularly blue that day. I remember seeing a pod of dolphins go by in the water, just past the line where the waves started. I remember sitting down next to Alice on her beach towel after I tried, and failed, to give Tina a hug.
“She really doesn’t like you,” Alice said, almost impressed.
“You’d think grief would make us all friends,” I said, dragging my soggy Kleenex across my cheeks again.
After the service, we watched Tina walk away, pulling little Clay behind her in his suit and clip-on tie, Kent Buckley nowhere to be found.
Once we were back at the reception in the courtyard at school, Alice kept busy helping the caterers. I’m not sure the caterers needed help, but Alice liked to be busy even on good days, so I just let her do her thing.
I was the opposite of Alice that day. I couldn’t focus my mind enough to do anything except stare at Babette in astonishment at how graciously she received every single hug from every single well-wisher who lined up to see her. She nodded, and smiled, and agreed with every kind thing anybody said.
He had been a wonderful man.
We would all miss him.
His memory would definitely, without question, be a blessing.
But how on earth was Babette doing it? Staying upright? Smiling? Facing the rest of her life without him?
Tina had her own receiving line, just as long, and Kent Buckley was supposed to be in charge of Clay … but Kent Buckley—I swear, this is true—was wearing his Bluetooth headset. And every time a call came in, he took it.
Little Clay, for his part, would watch his dad step off into a cloistered hallway, and then stand there, blinking around at the crowd, looking lost.
I got it.
I didn’t have a receiving line, of course. I was nobody in particular. Looking around, everybody was busy comforting everybody else. Which freed me up, actually. Right then, surveying the crowd, I had a what-would-Max-do moment.
What would Max do?
He would try to help Clay feel better.
I walked over. “Hi, Clay.”
Clay looked up. “Hi, Mrs. Casey.” They all called me “Mrs.”
He knew me well from the library. He was one of my big readers. “Tough day, huh?” I said.
Clay nodded.
I looked over at Kent Buckley, off by a cloister, doing his best to whisper-yell at his employees. “Wanna take a walk?” I asked Clay then.
Clay nodded, and when we started walking, he put his soft little hand in mine.
I took him to the library. Where else? My beautiful, magical, beloved library … home of a million other lives. Home of comfort, and distraction, and getting lost—in the very best way.
“Why don’t you show me your very favorite book in this whole library,” I said.
He thought about it for a second, and then he led me to a set of low shelves under a window that looked out over downtown, then over the seawall, and out to the Gulf. I could see the stretch of beach where we’d just held the service.
This was the nonfiction nature section. Book after book about animals, and sea life, and plants. Clay knelt down in front of the section on ocean life and pulled out a book, laid it out on the floor, and said, “This is it,” he said. “My favorite book.”
I sat next to him and leaned back against the bookshelf. “Cool,” I said. “Why this one?”
Clay nodded. “My dad’s going to take me scuba diving when I’m bigger.”
My instant reaction was to doubt that would ever happen. Maybe I’d just known too many guys like Kent Buckley. But I pretended otherwise. “How fun!”