The wake that night for Jake Dawson takes up the largest parlor in the McSweeney funeral home. The parking lot is overflowing with classmates and friends waiting their turn to pay respects. His extended family takes up all the seats in the room. It will be a long night for them.
Ken understands from the note I left him why dinner was microwaveable leftovers. When he joins me in his best and only suit, we process in a long line, room to room. Flowers of every imaginable color and fragrance form an arch around the closed casket. Between us, we know almost everyone in attendance. The music is soft, the drapery luxurious. The period furniture is from the time after the Civil War when this mansion was built. The grand structure sits a few blocks from the town center. The property does not show the tired expression of a town that has seen its better days. Death is a steady business. The large oak tree in the center of the front lawn may be the oldest in all of Milford, and purple azaleas and crimson hydrangeas flank either side of the columned portico.
I kneel before the closed casket, and Ken does the same. I see a recent picture of Jake with a dress shirt and tie. He is smiling the smile I remember from the first day of school when told him that everything would be all right. He was the youngest of the Dawson family, and I told him his brothers and sisters had sat in the same chair he was sitting in that day. Of course, I wasn’t sure if it was the exact wooden chair, but telling the youngest child that older siblings survived kindergarten always worked.
Kneeling there brings back memories of Jake as if it was yesterday. He was calmer and quieter than most of his class. The girls that year were more rambunctious than the boys. Maybe it had to do with sibling order or some other nurture versus nature argument, but the girls were a handful, as I recall. Jake was always willing to help me with handing out glue sticks, crayons, and blunt scissors. He was taught manners at home, and the other kids learned about “please” and “thank you” from him and a few others.
Ken nudges my elbow to bring me back to the present. We stand and make our way to Mabel and Warren, parents burying their youngest.
“I am so sorry, Mabel,” I tell her.
“Oh, Mrs. Strong, it seems like just yesterday that I sent him off to kindergarten.”
We hold each other close.
“I remember Jake’s first day of school,” I say. “He was so happy.”
“He was always happy, Mrs. Strong. We had been with him at the rehearsal dinner, and he was so excited about getting married, and now he is dead. I don’t understand.”
“We both watched him grow up. I was speechless when I found out,” I tell her.
“We’ll know more after we get the results of the autopsy,” Warren says over her shoulder.
Ken reaches for his hand. “My condolences, Warren. If there is anything I can do, just give me a holler.”
“Had to be drugs,” Warren says resolutely. “He never would have done it in his right mind.”
We remain silent for a moment, contemplating that possibility. Drugs were the X factor that explained a Jekyll and Hyde change in so many people around town. Unlike with alcohol, the changes were often swift and dramatic.
“He drank only a little Friday night, as he was getting married the next day. He didn’t want to be hungover on his wedding day,” Mabel tells me. “None of this makes sense.”
“I’ll come by in a couple days,” I promise her. “If you need anything.” I nod to her, and she nods back as Ken and I move down the line.
We know Jake’s brothers and sisters and are introduced to their partners. We repeat our condolences. I flash back to each brother and sister’s time in my classroom. Each relationship is unique, as each one of them is different. They were vulnerable then and are shaken to the core now, and they look to me for strength and steadiness as their worlds fill with deep sadness and shock. Everyone repeats that Jake had everything to live for. I have a little training in grief counseling and promise each one that I am there for them. If they want to talk, I am available. No job to go to in the morning or for the foreseeable future makes my promises real.
Next, we talk to aunts, uncles, and cousins, the locals we know and the out-of-towners we are introduced to. The Dawson family tree fills out. Either Ken has done work for them, or I taught them in school. A small town has a way of magnifying relationships. A funeral, more than a wedding, cements that feeling of interconnectedness, as the dead don’t have a guest list. Anybody can mourn.
“Go ahead, Ken, I’ll catch up with you outside in a few,” I say as I spot Jake’s fiancée.
Sharon McGrath is sitting by herself on a sofa. She is utterly alone in her thoughts. She spots me and stands. She is as tall as I, five-foot-ten and much thinner than my 135 pounds. My soft Afro and darker skin contrasts with her tied-back blonde hair falling limply to mid-back and her mourning pallor. A simple black dress hangs on her frame.
“Mrs. Strong,” she says, “thank you for coming.”
There is more to that greeting, like she is the little girl who trusted me with her feelings all those years ago. “Sharon, I am so sorry for you.”
“He wouldn’t do this to himself, and he didn’t do it to me.”
Jilting a bride on her wedding day is terrible; a groom killing himself to avoid getting married is almost unheard of. “You’re right, Sharon. It doesn’t make sense.”
She pulls me in close and whispers, “My parents didn’t come. They have some weird thoughts about suicide and blame Jake for robbing them of a wedding.” She fixes me with a trembling gaze that tells me everything. She isn’t officially Mrs. Dawson, and Jake’s death the night before they were to get married raises all kinds of questions. I could tell she feels like a leper on the day when she should have been a bride in wedded bliss on her honeymoon.
The school district had some arcane rules about hugging children when they were in pain, but nothing prohibits me from hugging her closely today. She sobs as I hold her. I don’t care that the Dawson clan looks on or that townsfolk who came to pay their respects watch me comfort her. It is the right thing to do at exactly the right time. Sharon held it all inside until somebody she trusted came in, and that person is me, her kindergarten teacher.
We slowly make our way to the bathrooms and kick out a couple of bored teenagers on their cellphones.
“Thank you, Mrs. Strong, for saving me. I thought I was about to explode.”
“I can’t imagine what you are going through. I don’t know the words to comfort you.”
“You being here is enough. You were the only one to ask me how I was doing.” She blows her nose and stares in the mirror. “Look at me, I’m a mess.”
“It’s okay.”
Sharon blasts the cold water and scoops handfuls onto her face over the sink. Staring into the basin she says, “My dad told me that the photographer and DJ refused to give them back the deposits. Like I friggin’ care.” She places both hands on the marble sink as her face drips.
I hand her a paper towel. She blots her face, then lifts her head and composes herself with a couple of breaths. “We were best friends in grade school, and he took me to both my proms. We wanted to get started on our careers before we got married. He didn’t get cold feet, Mrs. Strong.”
My thoughts drift back to when they played together at recess. My students were on the playground when the other grades were outside, and I watched years of my students growing up before my eyes. Conversations with other teachers filled in why some kids were misbehaving. Jake and Sharon were never mentioned.
“Jake and his best man Brian were inseparable at the Vo-Tech. They wanted to bang on fenders for the rest of their lives. They had a good business,” Sharon adds after blowing her nose again loudly. “They had a great future and talked about building another bay. Does that sound like somebody wishing he were dead?”
I hand her another paper towel. I knew that the boys own an auto body shop and were making a go of it. I say, “They fixed my father’s car after his last oops before we convinced him to stop driving.”
Her voice is stronger now. “We said good night after the rehearsal dinner. I wanted to get a good night’s sleep. His groomsmen wanted to have one last drink with him back at the cabin. He kissed me and told me he loved me and wished we were already married. Does that sound like somebody who would blow his head off?”
“It doesn’t,” I tell her. “Mr. Dawson was wondering about drugs.”
“No way, Mrs. Strong. I would have known if he was doing drugs. I could drink more than him, and whatever we did in high school was years behind us. Brian handled the paint booth, as Jake would get nauseous around it if they didn’t ventilate well enough.”
She reapplies her makeup. Dark mascara over reddened eyes doesn’t make for a good look, but she is composed. “I sat there for two hours until you came in, Mrs. Strong. I made my presence known to the family. Now I will grieve by myself.”
“You don’t have to grieve by yourself. You’re not alone, Sharon. I am here for you.”
“I know, Mrs. Strong. You’ve always been there for us.”
We hug again, then walk out of the bathroom. A line of thin-lipped women has formed in the hallway.
I find Ken outside in the parking lot talking with some other fellows and tug on his arm.
“Do you think Dairy Queen is still open?” I whisper to him. “It’s been a heck of a day.”