Page 5 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

What I did not imagine? That Adam Berg would be that particular brand of approachably handsome that compels you to lean in closer with his every blink and half smile. Or he would be if his ruggedly handsome features weren’t frozen in a scowl.

Still, there’s something undeniably gentle about his dark brown eyes, even now, when they’re as unfocused as Mrs.Lewis’s.

For a moment, I feel safe, until something in his face flickers and those seemingly harmless eyes skewer me with a look that sets me so off-balance, I nearly announce, I’m Sam’s current girlfriend, like the world’s worst undercover cop.

“No,” I finally respond. “We haven’t met. I’m Alison.” Grateful my brain’s produced the right words in the correct order, I extend my hand toward Adam.

He moves with a slight start, as if he nearly forgot what a handshake is. He takes my hand in his, and I finally understand why people compare hands to paws. His hands aren’t especially hairy, but they’re rough and big, at least twice the size of mine. When he gives me that same look of unease he did in the church, I brace myself.

“I’ve seen pictures of you with Sam,” he says simply, and I let out an inward sigh of relief. His tone reveals nothing aside from moderate embarrassment to have recognized me off of Instagram alone. Though a discomfort with social media would be in stark contrast to Sam—who once referred to making dinner together as a “collab”—I grab hold of this explanation like it’s a buoy in choppy waters.

Still, I can’t release the tight knot that formed at the base of my shoulders the moment he gave me that look in the church. That look. It told me that if anyone was going to see through this whole farce, it was Adam Berg.

“He told me so much about you when he was planning his visit for Oktoberfest,” I say, filling the pause when he doesn’t. I’m incapable of letting anyone twist in silent discomfort. I inherited my mother’s compulsion to make others feel at ease.

“I thought he did visit for Oktoberfest,” Mrs.Lewis interjects. Adam grips my palm tighter, examining me with a keen gaze.

I extract my hand. “Yes. Of course.”

Adam’s hard jaw ticks as they both wait for my explanation. Less than one hour after agreeing to play “the girlfriend,” I’ve already stepped into a conversational minefield.

Mara bursts through the door. “We need two more trays, and I’m covering for Taylor while she takes her fifteen.” She sees us and stops short.

“Got it.” A young server with floppy hair and ear gauges dutifully loops around her and grabs another tray of French toast.

“The service has been really great,” Adam tells Mara, handing her the second dish from the prep table.

Oh god. He thinks she works here, which isn’t an absurd presumption considering we’re hiding with the kitchen staff.

Mara pauses, no doubt deciding how to play this. “Thanks,” she replies. Her eyes question me, but at my subtle head shake, she traitorously escapes through the screeching door.

Adam’s and Mrs.Lewis’s eyes dart back to me. I clear my throat.

Why did I let Mara leave? I should’ve tied our ankles together with kitchen twine, ensuring her supportive cooperation with walking, talking, and other basic behaviors expected of a grief-stricken girlfriend until we could mount an escape.

Relief rattles up my ribs at another scrape of the metal door, but it’s only Sam’s father trudging purposefully across the tile floor, not Benedict Mara or even a well-timed rodent to clear the room.

“Walter says if we sell before January, we can avoid further tax complications,” Dr.Richard Lewis tells his wife, holding his lit phone in the palm of his hand.

“You were on the phone with Walter now? During our…” Mrs.Lewis abandons the sentence, the thought too painful to complete. Her voice is a lid on a boiling pot.

Undeterred, his left forefinger presses against the silvery hair at his temple as he continues, “One of Sam’s friends is a Realtor, and he was saying if we list it by December first, we might have everything settled before the Cookie Party.”

“The Cookie Party?” she repeats, sounding as if she’s never heard of either cookies or parties.

Her hands smooth her black dress. It looks expensive but not perfectly tailored. She probably bought it for this occasion. The image of her wandering the Ridgedale Center Nordstrom with a slow gait and vacant blue eyes slices my abdomen like a shard of glass.

She recovers and trills, “Richard, we’re not discussing this,” through a pasted-on smile.

“Judy, we have to discuss this. You won’t go in his apartment, and I can schedule the movers, but if we want to arrange for them to pack Sam’s belongings—”

“Strangers are not touching our son’s things.” Her voice is sharp. It seems to catch her husband off guard; he jumps the tiniest bit before pulling his round tortoiseshell glasses off his nose and wiping them with the bottom of his suit jacket.

His foggy eyes stare at his lenses. “I’m sorry, JuJu,” he says, and suddenly I’m back on their deck holding Sam’s hand while Dr.Lewis calls out to his wife from behind the grill. From the sad, sweet look in her eyes, I suspect Mrs.Lewis is there too. “I know you don’t want to, but…it’s something we need to deal with,” he says, but the word we sounds startlingly similar to I.

Adam stuffs his hands in his pockets as the image in front of us comes into sharp focus, kitchen noise clattering all around us. Neither parent can bear their son’s sudden death. While Mrs.Lewis is collapsing beneath its crushing weight, Dr.Lewis is hoping to outrun it, as if checking off lists and calling accountants from now until eternity will be enough to evade the grief chasing him down.

My gut twists imagining what it would feel like to suffer an unfathomable loss, only to be left with nothing besides the business of death—burials, estate sales, and everything else required to ease your son from the world.

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