Church of England high mass, censers, interminable droning about resurrection, the family concealed behind a curtain in an anteroom at the front of the church, and in the crowded pews the cultured world pays its respects. Jay has never seen so many designer iterations of black in one place. All she thought to bring was black levis and a 90s blazer with shoulder pads and torn lining. She speaks to no one, though a scruffy, probably uninvited, mourner who sits behind her at the back mutters, “Not done to give full rites to one that done violence to hersel’. Not done! Shame on ’em!”
Complete silence from the family enclosure. Grief, private. Sorrow and shame hidden from view. She has attended funerals that celebrate a life well lived, and also funerals that gaze bleary-eyed and uncomprehending at a life thrown away. Katie’s is certainly the latter.
Leaving the church, a glimpse of the girl’s mother? Of Leland’s current wife? All the women interchangeably sleek and beautiful. Leland expressionless, wan. Someone has cleaned him up at least, washed his hair, put him in a neat dark suit.
She stands on the church steps and watches the line of limos drive off.
She thinks about Katie’s image floating on a screen at the front of the church — a pretty girl, with Leland’s narrow face. Some likeness around the eyes too, but lacking his intense, interested directness and curiosity, the gaze already far away. The photo kindly evaded the jutting bones, the hollow cheeks, but that willful detachment from the real world, she knew it, had seen it in her own sister. The crushing logic of the anorexic, an absolute conviction that self-destruction is the only thing that makes sense. Then again, what woman on the threshold of facing all that womanhood requires could argue otherwise?