4.

The funeral was painful in every sense. Painful in how little money I had to spend for a woman who deserved everything. Painful for those who had to listen to me stumble through my excuse for a eulogy. Painful for me to hear all the people say how sorry they were for my loss and how great a woman she was. How come I never saw you around then? I thought. ‘Thank you,’ I replied.

I walked behind the coffin as she was carried on the shoulders of husbands of friends and acquaintances. I thought it just our luck that when she was finally walked down the aisle, it was in the wrong direction. She’d have laughed at that, which made me smile for the first time in days. By my request, the church played ‘Throw Your Arms Around Me’ by Hunters & Collectors. When I was sixteen, I’d returned from school one day to find it filling the house, my mother dancing in the living room after what must’ve been an especially deep dive into a gin bottle. ‘Isn’t this song wonderful? I want this to play at my funeral,’ she said, spinning her dressing gown, making me sick at the thought. Libraries could’ve been filled with those throwaway utterances she thought I never heard, not knowing the size of the mountains and valleys they carved in me.

I took leave from work. They said, ‘Take all the time you need,’ which I interpreted to mean a week or two. Friends I’d left drift out of my life sent their regards, but our reunions were short-lived and superficial in ways that didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me, however, was Claire and her daily check-ins. How much of her fondness was legitimate and how much was an innate need to nurture broken things, I wasn’t sure, but I took what I could get, deciding along the way that men did not deserve women.

I revoked the lease on my apartment and moved back into my mother’s empty house, visiting the bank to see what kind of outstanding mortgage I’d inherited along with the place.

‘We received a notice of discharge for this loan back in … August ninety-four,’ the branch manager said, sliding glasses down his nose and leaning into his screen.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow.’

‘We were removed from the property’s title almost three years ago. The mortgage was paid in full.’

‘How is that possible? She never kept a job for more than a few months.’

‘Well, I’d say she must have been very good with a budget. I mean, there wasn’t a single late payment for the entire duration of the loan.’