Page 2 of See Me After Class

The tears were seconds away.

A gentle old hand curled like a claw around my elbow.

"Come, child," whispered Ms. Wainwright. "He would have wanted you to be strong."

I gulped and rose from my knees like a rickety old armchair. I raised my clenched fist over the gaping mouth of the grave.

I looked at the priest. Then, with a silent prayer of my own, I let go.

The clods of earth tumbled from my grasp, each granule a whisper of goodbyes, plummeting into the abyss with a soft, mournful patter.

It was done.

"He was a good man," Father Thomas murmured. "His legacy lives on in you."

What could he possibly know about my father's legacy? I stared blankly at Father Thomas, wishing I could scream, shout, hurl blame at someone, anyone.

The sparse gathering around the graveside included me, the lawyer, and old Ms. Wainwright, Oswald's assistant for the last three decades. Everyone else belonged to the domestic staff.

Ms. Wainwright followed me, and then the rest of the people gathered to pay their last respects. Solemn faces, each paler than the previous, filled the edges of my blurring vision. I kept my face deadpan and my head straight.

Just a few more minutes, and I could go home. A small and utterly ridiculous smile threatened to form on my lips. It took everything I had to resist it.

No one would understand why Oswald's daughter, the supposed light of his life, was smiling like a fool standing by her father's grave.

Not even if I told them this smile was a final, desperate attempt to make myself accept that home would never be the same, not without him.

With the last of the proceedings completed, I sighed and turned my focus on the lawyer and Ms. Wainwright. We walked back to my shabby old Ford V8, all quiet. The silence stretched back to my father's little cottage-style house, set on the outskirts of the Gardner Institute estate, one of the best medical establishments in the country.

Once I parked, I stepped down from the car, followed by the two other occupants.

What remained of the cortège followed in a pair of apt black Daimlers hired for the occasion. I stepped out of the Ford and stood still until the hearse trailed a curve on the opposite path winding out of the wooded area, from where it would take the main road to Stillingbrook.

Somehow, with everything over, I was relieved. I could not bear to think of his lifeless form, the way the light in his eyes refused to shine, or how cold his fingers were when I held them, my own icy in shock.

These were not memories I wanted.

"Shall I drive you home, Ms. Wainwright?"

I cast a sideways glance at Letitia Wainwright, who responded with an emphatic shake of her head. "No, child, don't bother. I could use a long walk and some quiet. I imagine you'll have much to discuss with Mr. Merriweather."

Ms. Wainwright was a creature of routine, and even if the very fabric of her life had been upturned this morning, that reality would never change.

For the last thirty-three years that she had lived in a small cottage near Oswald's own, she'd walked home after finishing the last of her day's chores.

It was a form of ritualistic healing for her, treading over crunchy leaves to her idyllic, honeysuckle-covered front door. I imagined it would give her a semblance of solidity this evening.

"Very well," I said with a gentleness I could not muster for anyone else but her. "Go safely. I will see you tomorrow."

She responded with a tight-lipped smile, her eyes blinking furiously. "Yes, dear." With a brief pat on my arm, she turned with surprising dexterity and vanished into the shadows of the tall trees.

I sighed as a hesitant cough punctuated the quiet air. "Miss Gardner, do you want to finish this?"

Dear old Uncle Cuthbert and his insistence on propriety. "You've known me since I was a snotty-nosed teenager, Uncle Cuthbert. We don't need the formalities, least of all today. Come, let's discuss everything inside."

Guiding him inside the quaint, inviting home, I felt the grip of nostalgia tighten.

Both Oswald's and Ms. Wainwright's residences were initially laborers' cottages adjoined to the grand manor now known as the Oswald F. Gardner Institute of Medical Research. While Ms. Wainwright reveled in meticulous maximalism, Oswald's taste veered toward the refined Queen Anne aesthetic, an echo of his Anglo-Saxon heritage.

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