CHAPTER 9

Maura Keene’s funeral was the next morning. Outside, the crusted snow sparkled like diamonds in the morning rays of the sun. Inside, the church dampened the senses with sullen mosaics of suffering saints and bleeding hearts. Mourners sat with heads bent, hands clasped respectfully, and shoulders trembling with emotion. I’d come in late. Gran and Meg were a few pews ahead of me. The woman next to me smelled of jasmine perfume and cigarettes and a tangy undercut of lasagna. Early-morning baking. Comfort and nourishment for the bereaved. How thoughtful.

The procession commenced as bagpipes emanated haunting tones of “Danny Boy” as the family followed behind the pall-draped casket. Ona and Eddie were first behind the coffin. She wore a clingy black chiffon dress stretched tight over her breasts and hips, perhaps pulled from the back of the closet, or borrowed from a thinner friend. The rosary beads, twined between the fingers of her left hand, clinked as she walked, keeping time with the sound of her heeled footsteps, her right hand grasped under Eddie’s arm for support; not for herself, but for him. His lips trembled, his unpatched eye blinked tears that landed in wet, puckered stains against his polyester suit. Midaisle he swayed, Ona stopping to grasp him quickly with both hands. A collective gasp echoed throughout the sanctuary. “His twin,” the lady next to me whispered, and then nodded, as if that said it all.

Opening prayers mumbled through the sanctuary, a reading and another, all probably poignant and meaningful, had I been able to focus. My thoughts wandered in and out, my eyes taking in every mourner as a possible suspect. The church was segregated: Travellers and settled, two easily distinguishable groups. Pavee men in black suits, hair slicked back, gold crucifixes on thick chains, and arms protectively around their women, who sat pretty in their hats over teased hair and garishly applied makeup. They needed to look their best as if, by association, this tribute elevated Maura’s status as she approached the Pearly Gates, seeking entry. A sharp contrast to the monotone, conservatively groomed group of settled mourners tightly huddled in the back pew: the principal from McCreary High, a few teachers, Maura’s boss from the diner, and a couple others, too. The rest were kids—classmates, I assumed. They sat with their heads hung in sadness, or was it shame? How many had actually been nice to the weird girl? A gypsy freak from Bone Gap.

I sat in my jeans and a sweater, neither somber nor garish, the perpetual observer, never an insider to either front.

As we rustled to stand once more for another offered prayer, two pews up, Riana Meath turned and waggled her fingers my way.

All this time, since my return to Bone Gap, we’d been avoiding each other. Lately she’d acted like we were best friends again. Maybe she’d changed. Tragedy often did that to people. Nothing changed a person like death and mortality slapping you in the face.

“Today the world feels dark.” I peeled my eyes from Riana and focused on Colm as he began his homily. “A brightness, a true light in our lives, has been extinguished. We face unbearable grief, but yet we do not weep alone. . . .”

Wrong. I glanced to the front. Ona wept alone.

Drawn into a tight bundle of sadness, she sat at the edge of the pew, shaking off Eddie’s, or anyone’s, attempts to comfort her. Chin down, she bore her anguish with periods of whimpers broken by short pauses of shallow, desperate recovery breaths, before breaking into more wrenching sobs. I’d seen this before. Ona had just begun walking the path of grief, a journey burdened by the heavy load of denial, anger, bitter loss, and all the raw wounds of a mother who’d loved and lost.

She wept alone, she’d walk alone, and in the end, she would mourn alone. There was no avoiding it.

Without his mother to comfort, Eddie wavered: Which way to go, what to do? He fidgeted uncomfortably, turning around in the pew several times, his one good eye darting about like a loose pinball, blinking angry tears as he searched the crowd. For whom? I wondered.

He turned back around as Colm wrapped up the homily with one final platitude. “Our faith offers us hope. For as devastating as this loss is, we can take comfort in the fact that in the end, love conquers death.”

The woman next to me sighed and dabbed her eyes.

I bit my lip. “Love conquers death ”? Really? Just how’s that working for Ona? Love might sweeten life. But only justice avenges death.

On the way out, I got caught up in a black clump of perfume-infused mourners and emerged into the stark daylight breathless and a bit dizzy. A small number of press dotted the sidewalk, for a change keeping a respectful distance. Few in number now, but still an unwelcomed sight. IRISH GYPSY GIRL MUTILATED BY DEMON WORSHIPERS was too good of a story to let stand. Bloody occult killings made for titillating, juicy stuff. The Bone Gap gypsies had sizzled hot in the headlines for days, finally eclipsed by an even riper story: a familicide in a tiny rural town south of Nashville. The father blew the brains out of his wife and three kids before mouthing the barrel himself.

I cringed at reveling in another family’s misery, but such a horrific story would dominate the next edition of the papers and hopefully push us to the back page. Or at least someplace midcopy. We could use the reprieve.

* * *

They put Maura Keene’s casket in a grave next to her father’s. Our culture and faith taught that the body corrupts, but the soul is immortal, never ceasing to exist. Our loved ones are but resting, waiting for us, until we’re reunited again. Death does not mark the end.

The sun peaked in the midday sky as the first handfuls of dirt were thrown and condolences uttered. The shadow of her father’s tombstone crept over Maura’s open grave—the Shadow of Death.

It all seemed very final to me.