Page 20 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

An angel of death.

I scream.

I scream so loud I hope those angels in heaven hear me.

I tear the stupid fucking rose up into pieces until the petals litter the ground around my feet.

And I scream again.

Someone—I don’t know who, but I know it’s not Vince, and I fleetingly and bizarrely wish it was—puts their hands on my shoulders, tugging me to a standing position. I cover my eyes, sobbing into my hands, not caring to pay attention to where I’m going. None of it matters.

I’m guided into the car, but I don’t want to face my family. Hunching over, I stay hidden, pulling my coat collar up around my neck. I want to disappear.

But I can’t, at least not yet.

We arrive at the Italian restaurant I’d booked for the reception to be held, and Mr. Mancini helps me out of the car. It seems like everyone who was at the funeral shows up. The place is packed. People apparently love free chicken parm and ziti.

I’m not hungry but get a small plate of food to push around as different bodies rotate like a merry-go-round next to me. Some offer stories about Ray, some slide me checks for Lara and Lucy to help with their needs, and yet others still act like dicks, especially the aptly named Uncle Dick.

He brushes his finger over his upper lip, a habit I’ve come to know over the years, and taps the table next to my elbow. “Good thing it’s been a mild winter so we can bury him today and not wait for the ground to thaw, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say, dropping my napkin on my plate. “Thank god for global warming.”

I stand up, shoving by him and others motioning for me. I’ve given everyone else everything I have this week—my heart, my mind, my attention. I don’t want to do it anymore. I want a bottle of wine, solely for me.

I shout it out loud when I get outside. “I just need some wine!”

“All right?”

I jump a little, startled by Vince lounging on a bench. “What’re you doing here?”

“Too hot,” he says, tipping his head to the restaurant. “Want to sit?”

“No.” Didn’t he hear me? “I don’t want to sit. I want to get wine. They tried to make me pay in there. I mean, can you believe that? My brother was put into the ground—” I wiggle my arms out. I still can’t believe it. “—and then we come here because I put this whole luncheon together, which they are profiting well off of, by the way, and they want me to pay for a glass of wine.”

Vince shakes his head with an amused smile.

“I’m serious,” I say. “Today, of all days. I can’t even get a goddamn glass of free wine.”

He stands and steps off the sidewalk, gesturing for me to follow him.

“Where are you going?”

He momentarily stops. “To get you wine. You coming?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Vince’s car is not a hearse or a big boat, but a rather bland sedan. I drop into the passenger seat, and on the way, we listen to a Golden Oldies channel on the radio, weirdly fitting for Vince with his dark suit coat and sideswept hair, save for the cowlick. The soft crooning is blessedly, pleasantly mind-numbing.

He drives me to the liquor store and tells me to pick out whatever I want. When I point to the Dom Perignon in the special gold package, he laughs and offers wine in a box instead. I settle for a cheap bottle of Zinfandel with a twist-off cap, and he doesn’t say anything when I immediately open it after we get back in the car.

As Elvis Presley sings one of his ballads, Vince drives to a park in the next town over with a manmade lake and walkways that would be decorated with blooming trees if it weren’t still winter. He tells me to stay put for a minute then gets out of the car to search for something in his trunk. A few moments later, he opens my door and plops a beanie on my head. Then he takes my hand in his and guides me to a bench by the water, where we sit close to each other, sharing body heat. He doesn’t say anything, merely sits next to me while I sip straight from the bottle of wine and watch as the sun sets on the saddest day of my life.

FEBRUARY 29

Leap years are stupid. They’re in the same category as time changes. Yeah, I know it’s science and based on our trips around the sun, but it still doesn’t make it any less dumb. Whether we count our days in revolutions in the atmosphere, in cups of coffee, or in inches or miles, we’re still counting all of the days. And because of the leap year, I’ve got an extra day without my brother.

We spent a whole week preparing to bury my brother and then a whole week after that preparing ourselves to go back out into the world. I thought it would be enough time, but it’s not. I’m not sure if there will ever be enough time to get over it or move on or whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing.

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