Unforgivable by Amy Reed

Author:Amy Reed
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-02-25T05:00:00+00:00

there.

PEOPLE COME TO DAVID’S FUNERAL WHO NEVER MET HIM—Dad’s colleagues, people who want to be Dad’s colleagues. It is a networking event, and he is the perfect politician. He never breaks character, neither smiles nor cries. He accepts the long line of condolences with serious grace. He is a man beyond suffering.

I mostly sleep through the service. A priest I’ve never even met describes a made-up version of my brother, someone I don’t know, someone who had become a stranger, someone I hadn’t seen for a long time. The David he talks about, the one everyone wants to remember and the only one we’re acknowledging today, is the David that was long gone, way before he died, the one I have already gotten used to missing.

I wake to an organ blaring weird syrupy music, just in time to follow my dad out of the chapel and into the lobby. I am stoned out of my mind and barely able to stand beside him as people take turns shaking our hands. I am glad for the hugs because in those small moments, I can rely on someone else to keep me upright.

I say “thank you” more times than I can count. Nodding my head takes on its own kind of surreal rhythm. I am finding a kind of peace in the waves of sympathy, but then there’s a rustle in the fabric of the day, some kind of disturbance in the corner of my view, voices raised, people moving, an added electricity in the air.

“Jesus Christ,” I hear Dad say under his breath. “Fucking hell.”

And then I see her. Mom. Weaving through the crowd of people, her sister Katy following behind her with arms outstretched, as if she is trying to catch a wandering child. “Renae,” I hear Aunt Katy scold above the din of whispers announcing Mom’s arrival. “This wasn’t a good idea. We should go.”

“I’m not going,” Mom slurs. “This is my son’s funeral. I have a right to go to my son’s funeral.”

“Renae, honey,” Mrs. Alsace says, our neighbor from down the street. “The funeral is over. It already happened.” She is speaking gently, in low tones, trying to preserve some kind of dignity for my mom.

“No,” Mom says, then nearly trips on a bench against the wall. “Who put that there?”

“Renae,” Dad says in his lowest register. He strides over to where she is standing. The crowd has made a circle of space around her, as if getting too close will contaminate them somehow. My aunt has her hand on Mom’s arm, steadying her.

“I’m so sorry, Bill,” Aunt Katy says. “She insisted on coming. I thought it would be good for her. We flew down from Seattle early this morning.” Katy looks at my mom, at her disheveled hair and wrinkled blouse, at her empty gaze at her feet. “She had a few drinks on the plane,” she says softly, but there’s no use trying to be discreet. Everyone is silent, still, listening.

Mom’s not moving. She won’t look up from her feet.

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