TODD’S FUNERAL WAS ON THE coldest winter day anyone in attendance could remember. It was so cold no one could stop talking about how cold it was. Like the cold took over everything, and it was all everyone could think about.
Almost everyone.
It was so cold the dogs that had shit all over the park where Todd died refused to leave their houses, that morning. They whined at the door but wouldn’t put their tender paws on the cold stone on the other side of the threshold.
The sky was blue, and the trees chattered with icicles. The roads were turned ink, as black ice made them slick as oil and the cars driving into the church parking lot wibbled and wobbled like drunks making a graceful exit at the end of a long night. All Todd’s aunts arrived in their mother’s furs, rolling out of their huge cars like big burly bears with brightly colored hats. Todd’s mother wore her mother’s gray fox, a relic that Todd used to sneak into the closet and push his face against when he was little, like it was a very old, very still family pet.
That week, Todd’s mother had packed up his things with his aunts. They put some of his things in boxes, carefully packed, things that Todd didn’t care about, books he didn’t even really like they treated like china. Labeled TODD. They put his clothes in a bag his Aunt Lucy drove to the charity box. His Aunt Laura took his knitting needles home. His mother stacked the boxes in the living room, where they were sitting when Greevy and Daniels arrived.
“Can’t do the basement yet,” his mother said, touching the side of the cardboard, tracing his name.
“It takes time,” Daniels said.
Todd’s ghost was fading. It started when his mother started taping up the boxes. It felt like the world was getting smaller or harder to see.
Greevy and Daniels had stopped talking about him. They’d wiped his name off the whiteboard and replaced it with Jed Hollings, the name of a forty-two-year-old man who was found floating in a frozen pool in the suburbs by the babysitter.
Maybe Todd wasn’t fading, maybe he was shrinking to a particle size of consciousness. Or maybe he was expanding, blending into the horizon, looking down on the last moments he would ever know. The end of his afterlife.
At the front of the church, Todd’s mother had a giant photo of Todd from a trip to his grandmother’s house in Newark. It was a cropped photo, the edge of his Aunt Lucy’s hand in the bottom left corner. Todd’s mother thought it was his favorite picture. Actually, in Todd’s favorite photo of himself, he is six, at some theme park, wearing a purple knitted vest and a pair of orange pants. In that picture, little Todd is smiling and holding his arms out to display the glory of his outfit for the person taking the photo. The smile in this picture is not the fake smile of the photo Greevy and Daniels had. It is a real smile.
That purple vest was the best. It had pockets on the outside and on the inside. Todd used to think of it as his magic vest.
Still, the picture of him at his grandmother’s house (the grandmother he liked) was nice. It was a house that always smelled like baked cheese, which isn’t a terrible thing. It was a house with an attic where he could go to read. A house where he felt safe.
People filled the first pews, shuffling in with the film of cold still stuck to their coats. Talking about how cold it was. Most of them were Todd’s mother’s friends from church and the dental office where she worked. People who had already sent the cards that lined her fireplace, all the same pastel washes and warm sympathies.
Principal Spot and his wife came. His wife was covered in dog hair, and Spot was sweaty as soon as he stepped out of the cold and into the church. After the service, they both shook his mother’s hand.
“Todd will always be a cherished memory at Albright,” he said.
“I hope so,” his mother said.
Despite the fact that the service was on a Saturday, no other Albright boys or teachers attended the funeral, which was not surprising to Todd, but his aunts were furious.
“It was on the news,” his Aunt Lucy hissed.
“Hush,” his Aunt Laura chided, pulling her fur closer.
Todd knew, because Greevy and Daniels had discussed it, that McVeeter was out on bail. He also knew that, on day of the funeral, McVeeter issued a statement in conjunction with an LGBTQ legal-rights group that had taken his case.
“My relationship with Todd Mayer was only ever professional. Todd was a brilliant student and also subject to bullying in school. While this has been swept under the rug, my identity as a homosexual man has clearly colored investigators’ view of my connection with Todd. This is prejudice, and myself and my legal team will fight this in a court of law. I did not kill Todd Mayer. His killer is still at large. I hope Todd’s killer is brought to justice, and I wish peace for his family. More than that, I hope Todd will be remembered for more than his death. He was bright and funny. He had a world ahead of him before it was taken away.”
McVeeter did not attend the funeral. But he sent a wreath of pink roses, delicate and sweet, to the funeral home. His mother chose it, and a wreath of holly and ivy from his aunts, to place front and center along with Todd’s picture. Not knowing who sent it, of course. She just liked the roses.
Todd knew the roses were from McVeeter because McVeeter was the only person he’d ever told about pink. About how he secretly liked pink.
It was on the night he took McVeeter’s notebook from the apartment. And for most of the hour he was there, he was nervously searching the room with his eyes. But eventually, sitting on the couch, drinking cocoa, he just got to talking. The liking pink thing just slipped out, like his goofy school photo smile, and he instantly regretted saying it.
“Or whatever,” he said. “I’m just saying. Like some pinks … aesthetically are fine.”
“Fine?” McVeeter had raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with pink?”
“Obviously, there are certain associations,” Todd said. “It’s a stereotype.”
McVeeter gave out a belly laugh. “Listen to you, ‘certain associations’ and ‘stereotypes.’ Just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean you can’t like it.”
“It’s just not exactly what I need right now,” Todd clarified.
“I think someday you’re going to wear lots and lots of pink,” McVeeter said, putting on his apron, which was lime green. “Someday you’re going to be in a place where you can wear pink all you want. And you won’t give a fuck. And no one else will either.”
“I’ll live with all the pink people,” Todd snarked, spotting McVeeter’s desk and the piles of papers. “The happy pink people.”
“You will,” McVeeter said, taking a note from Todd’s tone and turning suddenly serious. “You will, Todd. Life is not high school. You’ll see.”
Todd wondered, the way ghosts can wonder, if McVeeter thought he was going to jail.
The last thing Todd said to McVeeter was that he was sorry. Possibly this was the moment he left his big fat thumbprint, as he leaned in the doorway.
“I am sorry,” he said.
It was late. The latest he’d ever been to McVeeter’s. He was so cold that night, because he’d been walking around the block. McVeeter sat on his couch, looking tired.
McVeeter dropped his head. Todd wanted him to be mad. Maybe Todd wanted McVeeter to be mad at him. To yell at him. But he didn’t. He just looked resigned.
Now his little roses leaned up against the white marble shelf where they put his ashes. It looked a lot like a school locker. Except everyone walked by and touched it with their fingers. Did the sign of the cross. Including the girl who stayed behind when everyone else was gone.