The McFadden Funeral Home is the only house left in River Bend older than the DeWitt home. It sits across the street from the park, as if to bookend the journey: from childhood to the grave. At present, the north-facing wall of the funeral home is torn away and tarped for renovations. All the windows are open, a box fan droning in each. The day is hot for mid-May, and the fans manage only to blow the hot air around. The marquee in front announces today’s service in memory of Ernest DeWitt. Beth had a terrible time scheduling the funeral because her mother, Gretchen, insisted she come, but couldn’t make it to River Bend any sooner than today.
Beth holds herself perfectly still in the front row, head bowed so that her neck seems to melt into her bosom. Her eyes are heavy, with dark circles exaggerated by her makeup, which has smeared from the heat. She looks tired enough to sleep for a week. Her hair, normally pressed sleek, has gone nappy and gray at the roots. It’s so hot and humid, the summer just starting up, that Beth figures what’s the point anymore? Why torture her hair straight, when it’ll just go frizzy the second she leaves the house? If the weather would just break. It hasn’t rained since last month’s flood.
Linda has lost so much weight since Ernest’s death that if you didn’t know her, you might not even realize she’d just given birth. She wears a drab dress that sags off of her, revealing the top of her bra’s satin cups. She holds hands with Derek Williams. Next to Derek, Skyla sits wearing a black skirt that’s far too short for a funeral. She keeps leaning forward, her knees not quite together, and making a show of not looking across the aisle at Dan Hansen. At the end of the row, Paige bounces Linda’s baby, making the most ridiculous faces at him, even though his eyes are too new to really focus. Paige has been staying with Linda and Derek—to help with the baby, she says, though, really, she needs some time to get back on her feet after splitting with Diane.
Up front, the pastor rambles on. It’s hard to hear him over the drone of the box fans. There’s a laziness to this day, a kind of comfortable tranquility that isn’t wholly unpleasant. Beth feels as if she could stay in this folding chair forever, as if her rear, which went numb ages ago, is now a part of it. Her family surrounds her, Dan restless, shifting in his seat regularly, Jeanette still and quiet in her eerie way. Between Beth and Jeanette, Beth’s mother, Gretchen, sits with her head on Beth’s shoulder. She’s crying loud enough to be heard over the fans. Divorced over three decades and weeping like a new widow. Meanwhile, her teal pantsuit and the matching satin headscarf look celebratory. Still, Beth’s whole family is here—what’s left of them at any rate—and for the moment, she almost feels okay.
When the service is over, Beth and Linda both stay seated. Beth studies the enlarged picture of her father at the front of the room, printed on poster board and leaning against an easel. In the picture, Ernest is not smiling. They’d been unable to find an in-focus picture where he was, as if his happiness were a covert thing.
After hesitating, Linda rises from her seat and takes her baby back from Paige. Linda jiggles the baby a little as she makes her way over to Beth. “Want to meet your brother?”
Beth looks surprised, then alarmed. And then her face relaxes. She even smiles, sort of.
“What’s his name again?” She reaches for the baby and runs a finger along his soft baby toes, which curl and kick at her touch.
“Derek Ernest Williams.”
Derek steps up next to Linda, resting one hand on the small of her back. He kisses the top of Derek Jr.’s head. Jeanette slides in next to Beth, wrapping her sweaty arm around her mother and letting it hang there limply. Dan soon joins them, if for no other reason than to avoid Skyla.
This is what Ernest DeWitt has left behind: bits and pieces that almost resemble a family.
After the funeral, the town shows up at the DeWitt house bearing casserole dishes, flowers, ice cream, ham sandwiches on white bread. Beth has not invited anyone for refreshments, but they’ve come anyway. Someone, Linda maybe, opens all the windows in the house. Paige sets out paper plates, napkins, utensils. Beth finds herself in her own backyard—for it is hers now—under the shade of her own mulberry tree, eating Frito pie with people she always thought hated her.
“Your father was a good man,” Derek Williams says, setting out lawn chairs. He takes a seat next to her. “Don’t give me that look. I mean it. He was a truly decent person. I can’t tell you how many times he came out to fix our tractor when Dad couldn’t get it running. He was more than happy to let us pay him in corn, too, come fall.”
“He kept my car going,” Linda says. “At least until the engine crapped out.”
“He helped with the fall harvest, too,” Skyla says. “The year Grandma was sick.”
Beth feels her face pinching up. She can’t help it. What’s their game here?
“Point is, you can listen to the gossip from people who didn’t know Ernest,” Linda says, “but they only saw his faults.”
Beth takes a bite of Frito pie. In the shade like this, with a breeze blowing, if she sits perfectly still, she’s almost comfortable. She figures it won’t last, this closeness, this kinship. As soon as the day is over and they go their separate ways, she’ll likely never speak to these people again. Her mother drove back home as soon as the funeral was over. A three-hour drive, she said—even though it was only an hour, tops—and she might as well get going. She’d made her appearance, her show of grief. She was done. Beth has no doubt Linda and Derek will leave soon, too, and will be done with her. But then again, they might surprise her. Sometimes people do.
Beth wanders into her house in the afternoon to put away leftovers. Gatherings like this, people tend to leave food out in the sun—sandwiches and salads laden with mayonnaise—ripening and covered in flies. Nobody will be getting salmonella on Beth’s watch.
As she’s rearranging items in the fridge, she hears the toilet flush. Someone clomps down the hall in work boots. She’d thought herself alone in the house, and now her instinct is to freeze, to slip into the space between the fridge and the wall, but she fights the urge. Instead, she peeks her head out of the kitchen to see Mikey making his way back to the door.
“Hey there,” he says, and in the daylight it occurs to Beth that his voice is too deep for a man his size: He’s scarcely taller than Beth. He sounds like a man who has put years of practice into speaking. He stops in the kitchen doorway.
“I wanted to tell you how sorry I am at Ernest’s passing.” His thick eyebrows knit together. He looks truly sorry, his hand raised slightly as if he’s considering taking her hand.
Beth hesitates. She isn’t sure whether she wants to ruin Mikey’s opinion of her father, on the day of his funeral of all days, but on the other hand, Ernest is gone, and there’s no need to protect him anymore. And her needs matter.
“You know my father was friends with him?”
Mikey’s eyebrows knit even closer, almost joining each other.
“Gilmer Thurber,” she adds.
“I didn’t know that. I didn’t know Gilmer Thurber had any friends.”
“Yes, well. My father believed in giving all men a chance.”
“That was right decent of your father,” Mikey says, “but it must have been very hard for you.”
“He invited him into this house. He was here, many times.”
“Beth—”
“One time, my father saw Gilmer coming out of the bathroom with me. My father had knocked on the door, and Gilmer zipped up so fast he pinched himself. He pulled my pants up—didn’t even bother pulling up my underwear—and walked out of the bathroom with me. We were both walking funny, Gilmer because he’d zipped himself, me because my underwear was all bunched in my pants. He told my father I’d needed help in the bathroom, and my father didn’t even question it, didn’t question this grown man ‘helping’ his six-year-old daughter go to the bathroom.”
“Beth, your father must have—”
“All day, everyone has been reminiscing about how great my father was, but Ernest DeWitt was a child, incapable of facing anything the slightest bit uncomfortable.”
“I’m sure he did the best he could,” Mikey mutters.
“You know that’s shit,” Beth says. “You of all people know how that should have gone down. There should have been police cars screaming to a halt in their driveway the first time it happened. Or the day the school talked to my parents. Or any number of times he should have seen the warning signs. How many more children were hurt because my father did nothing?”
Mikey backs away from her now, retreating to the door. Beth thought he would be on her side, but he’s just like her father. With his hand on the doorknob, he turns back to her. “You know he wanted to testify, right?”
“Bullshit,” Beth says.
“No, he did. He was on the list, but by the time it went to trial, he was already—” Mikey waves his hand here, looking for a way to say it delicately.
“An invalid?” Beth offers.
“He meant well, Beth.”
“Why didn’t he go to the police when it was happening?”
Mikey shakes his head. “We’ll never know why. But he wanted to.”
“Yes, well.” She doesn’t even know what to say. Ernest wanting to help her isn’t the same as him actually helping her, but maybe it’s a start. Maybe. She feels the fight draining from her.
“My point is, he was sorry he hadn’t been able to protect you. And he held on to that guilt his whole life.”
Beth hears footsteps behind her. She crosses her arms over her chest. She won’t cry in front of these people.
Mikey shakes his head. “Take care, Beth. If you need anything, I’m here.” He lets himself out into her shady backyard. Through the screen door, she watches him retreat down the alley.
“It was that guy on TV, right?” Jeanette says behind her. This time, Beth thinks she might really buy her a bell.
“The guy who did it? He was the one on the news last fall.”
Beth turns slowly to find Jeanette standing just behind her, close enough to be her own shadow. She puts a hand over her eyes to keep from seeing Jeanette, so strong and lovely in the pink sundress she put on after the funeral. Beth can’t find the words to explain what happened here, in this house, decades ago. But then, she doesn’t have to, because Jeanette’s eyes grow round, and she says, “Oh.”