Tuesday, August 2, 1960, the day Adam Mercer is buried, is glorious. “A funeral day,” says Cookie. “Haven’t you noticed? Funeral days either pour down rain or pour forth sunshine. Nothing in between.” I don’t know about that. But this morning is clear and warm and sweet, with a whisper of wind that shakes the leaves in the elm tree outside my window. It is a day that might have made Adam cry, “Happiness! Happiness!”
At ten-thirty I go to my room and quietly close the door behind me. I look for a long time at the yellow dress and my shoes, laid out for the day. After a while I slip the dress on, then the shoes. Nana will want me to wear gloves, but I don’t plan to.
Mom and Dad and I set off for the Episcopalian church just after eleven o’clock. Miss Hagerty and Mr. Penny and Cookie and even Mrs. Strowsky are going to go to Adam’s funeral, but they are going to leave a little later, so that my parents and I can walk there on our own.
When we arrive at the church we see that the parking lot is already nearly full.
“Wow,” I say softly.
When Hayden and Harriet Mercer give a funeral, everybody comes.
That is what I think until I see Nancy and Janet in the crowd. They are not here because of my grandparents. They are here purely out of curiosity. They want to see the freak’s family. They want to see what kind of funeral the freak will have. As if we are an attraction at Fred Carmel’s sideshow. I wonder if any of Nana and Papa’s friends feel the same way.
Dad sees me eyeing Nancy and Janet, sees them eyeing me back, sees their contained giggles. He takes me by the elbow. “Come on, Hattie.”
We make our way through the crowd and into the hushed church. Dad loops his arms through Mom’s and mine and we walk to the front, slide into the very first pew next to Nana and Papa and Uncle Hayden. We make a row, the six of us.
The church is hot, the church is full of shushings and loud quiet, the church is rustling and whispering and waiting, and after a while I don’t hear anything but Adam. “Oh, ho, ho, ho, Hattie Owen.”
I jump a little when the organ begins to play, jump again when, after the last note has wheezed out, the priest speaks. He talks and talks about Adam, and truthfully, he could be saying his words about practically any person in the room. Well, of course, I think. The priest has only been at this church for seven years. He probably never even met Adam.
When he has finished speaking he suggests that we bow our heads in prayer, and I whisper to Mom, “Let me move down to the end.”
Nana frowns at me. I ignore her.
I do not know whether Nana has told the priest that I want to say something about Adam. I am prepared to stand up on the pew and just start talking, if necessary. But when the prayer is over, the priest looks at me and nods. Then he leaves the microphone at the front of the church and sits off to the side.
My legs wobble, and my breath comes in shallow gasps as I slip out of the pew and climb the steps to the pulpit. I have not prepared what I am going to say, and now I think maybe that was a mistake.
The microphone is much too high for me, so I lower it and it squeals and I hear giggles. I have told myself to find Miss Hagerty in the crowd and talk directly to her, but the giggles help me locate Nancy and Janet, and I decide that I will talk to them instead.
“My name is Harriet Owen,” I begin. “I am Adam Mercer’s niece.”
I glance at Nana, and she looks as though she is holding her breath. I look away, back to Nancy and Janet. “I am Adam Mercer’s niece,” I say again. “And I want you to know that Adam was not a freak.”
I hear a sound, as if every person in the church has just sucked in his breath. I look only at Nancy and Janet, though, and I see them drop their eyes.
“But he was called a freak,” I say. “He was called lots of names. And that was one of the things that made it hard to be Adam.”
I talk about other things that upset Adam — confusion and too much noise and fears I don’t understand. I talk about Lucy Ricardo and dancing and receiving an invitation to my own birthday party. I think about mentioning Adam’s circus trick, but change my mind.
“Adam,” I say, “had good times and he had bad times.” I pause here and glance at Nana, see that she is crying silently, the way I cried at the duck pond in the park. I was going to say something more about the bad times — how Adam’s bad times were different from most people’s, and that I’ll never really understand them. But now that I see Nana’s tears, see her start to reach for Papa’s hand, then pull back and fold her hands in her lap again — now that I see Nana, I change my mind.
“I think we should remember that Adam was one of those people who lift the corners of our universe,” I say. I clear my throat. “Thank you.”
As I slide into our pew I realize I feel older. I think of Janet and Nancy and find that now I can brush them away. And I understand that Adam and I are not as alike as I had thought. I remember the tortured look on Adam’s face the night of the Ferris wheel and the look of happiness, happiness, and realize that Adam’s decision to take his life was not made easily. It took a certain kind of courage. Just not the kind of courage I choose.
I settle between Mom and Dad, and they take my hands and smile at me. No tears. I squeeze their hands.
There is a sort of party at Nana and Papa’s after the funeral. About a hundred people show up. They’ve come straight from the church and are still wearing their dark clothes. I am glowing in my yellow dress.
I walk around the house for a while, eating tiny hors d’oeuvres and drinking lemonade. If this were my house I’d retreat to the kitchen to help Cookie. But I don’t know Ermaline well enough to do that. Eventually I need to use the bathroom, but the powder room on the first floor is occupied. As I climb the stairs to the second floor, I realize I never saw Adam’s room.
I trail along the hallway. I pass a guest room, a bathroom, another guest room, and then I come to a room with a partly closed door. I push the door open a few inches. The first thing I notice is that the walls and even the ceiling are almost entirely covered with pages that have been torn from magazines. Most of them are pictures of the moon and sun and stars, surely from National Geographic. Some of them are pictures of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. I take a step into the room and let out a gasp.
Nana is sitting on the bed, legs crossed primly, fingering the contents of a wooden box that she has set on her knees. She looks up, as startled as I am.
“Hattie!” she says.
“Nana! I’m — I’m sorry.” I start to back into the hall. “I was on my way to the bathroom.”
“That’s all right.” Nana pats the bed. “Come in, Hattie.”
I’m intruding, I know, but Nana has issued an invitation. I perch beside her on Adam’s bed, eye the box.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“It’s Adam’s treasure box.”
Inside are small items — a rock, a blue feather, an Indian head nickel, and photos. Mostly photos.
“Your mother sent him something every week,” she says. “Every single week for all those years he was at school. Little presents, pictures he might like for his room, photos of you. And Adam kept everything she sent.”
“Did she write him letters?” I ask.
Nana nods. “Adam kept those too.”
I think of Mom’s mirror, the border of photos, hear her say, “Don’t you ever ask me that question again.”
I reach for Nana’s hand. She sets the box aside, and we sit in Adam’s room for a long time.
The day before Uncle Hayden leaves, my family decides to visit Adam’s grave. Charles the chauffeur drives us there. We glide silently along the lane through the cemetery until Papa tells Charles to stop. Even though there was no burial service, everyone except me has seen the grave already. It looks fresher than the other graves, all clean and tidy, the grass neatly clipped, the flowers only a little wilted.
I tell Adam I’m sorry I called him a big baby. “I’m not mad at you, you know,” I add. “I don’t like what you did, but I think I understand why you did it.”
I find that I can’t go any closer to Adam’s headstone, so I sit down in the grass a few yards away. Mom and Dad are holding hands. Uncle Hayden puts his arm across Mom’s shoulders. I see Papa reach for Nana. And I see Nana’s quiet tears for Adam.