Page 37 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

I hold up the curvy bottle of juice. “I thought of it because of pomegranate.”

He stands up straight, waiting for me to continue, a habit we’ve picked up—me saying the first thing that comes to mind and him anticipating an elaboration.

“So, okay, long story short, Persephone’s the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of fertility and agriculture. Persephone’s all beautiful and delicate, and she’s picking flowers one day when Hades sees her, and you know Hades? Of course you know Hades. You are Hades, god of the Underworld.”

Vince shakes his head in amusement, biting back a smile, but I power through.

“Hades sees her, instantly falls in love, and carries her down to the Underworld in his chariot. But Demeter’s so upset for her lost daughter, she’s wandering around the earth, searching for her, crying because she can’t find her, and causes a draught. The earth changes, vegetation starts dying, people are starving, all because she’s so depressed. And she creates a new season—winter.”

Vince nods along.

“Finally, it gets so bad, Zeus is convinced he’s got to do something and sends Hermes down to the Underworld to bring Persephone back. He finds her, but before she leaves, she eats a pomegranate seed.”

I hold up the juice once again as if it should all make sense. Vince stares blandly at me.

“It was the pomegranate that sealed her fate. Anyone who eats anything in the Underworld has to stay there. To keep everybody calm, Zeus decided Persephone would spend some time on Earth with her mother, and then go back to the Underworld to spend time with Hades, essentially creating the seasons. Summer with her mother and winter with her husband.”

Vince considers me for a moment. “You learn that at college?”

I nod. “Knowledge of Greek mythology is evidently not a great skill for a résumé.”

He finishes up placing the programs on the chairs and meets me in the back row, reaching for my juice as he sits next to me. He takes a sip of it, no longer uncommon for us to share food and drinks. “A seed made her stay?”

“Uh-huh.”

“She didn’t ever love him?”

I take the juice back, our fingers skimming in the exchange. “I don’t know. There are a lot of versions of the story, but he kidnapped her. I can’t imagine she would love him.”

“She ate the seed, though,” he reasons. “She had to have known it would force her to stay.”

“Stockholm syndrome,” I suggest.

He raises a shoulder, and the movement causes friction between our arms. “Or maybe she loved him.”

I try not to lean into him and glare at him instead. The idea of loving the Underworld is absurd. “No one would actually want to stay there with him.”

“Not no one. Her.”

I don’t argue with him since some of the stories do claim Persephone learned to love Hades. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The gods and goddesses were all wild. I mean, somebody had sex with a bull and gave birth to the minotaur, so take kidnapping women and falling in love with a grain of salt, I suppose.”

He doesn’t object and glances down at his grandfather’s wristwatch. It’s another old-fashioned piece that I’ve come to learn makes up this old-fashioned guy. I wish I could say there was something about him that extinguished the flame of attraction that began so long ago, but there isn’t, and I bury my feelings underneath the reality of my world.

“The family will be arriving soon. Are you staying or leaving?”

I check the time on my phone. I’m closing shift tonight at work, so I have a couple of hours to kill. “I’ll stay,” I say, and when we both stand, he casually drapes his arm across my back, his hand skating up to my neck, his thumb gently pressing the side of my throat.

I’m not sure if he knows what he’s doing by holding on to me like this, but he’s holding me together, and I tuck into his side as we walk back to his office, where Gracie is waiting for us. I set myself up at his desk and open the bottom drawer to nab one of the snack bars he stores there, saying, “Have fun,” as he dashes back out of the office with a folder in his hands.

I’m in the middle of making a new post about Persephone and Hades, drawing parallels between the seasons created by Demeter and the stages of grief—I’m a goddamn genius and quite proud of myself—when I receive an email. It’s a long message, starting with a reintroduction. Mr. Alvarado is the principal at the middle school where Ray taught and says we met at the funeral. I’m sure we did, but I don’t remember. He talks about how the school and Ray’s classes are working to keep his memory alive. He has pictures attached of artwork the students have made, along with one of the faculty wearing jeans and Bruce Springsteen T-shirts. Tears cloud my eyes, and I have to pause to blink a few times before continuing to read what Mr. Alvarado has written.

Knowing how RJ felt about teaching and coaching, I wonder if something can be done to fulfill his work. I’m sure you have often thought about this, and I want to let you know some of RJ’s colleagues and I would be more than willing to help put a benefit of some kind together, maybe a race or a baseball game to raise money for a charity. I think it would be a wonderful way to honor his memory and keep his spirit alive.

Keep his spirit alive? I haven’t thought about it at all. I didn’t know I was supposed to. I’d heard of scholarships in the name of someone or charity golf games or something, but I’d never considered I should or needed to do one. Were people expecting me to?

Obviously, Mr. Alvarado was. Rubbing at the pressure in my chest, I read the whole letter again as panic sets in. I assumed my duties with my brother were finished. Raymond is long since buried, and I have my hands full with Mom and Dad. But now they want more of him? More from me?

“Hey.”

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