Page 35 of The Cost of Forgetting You

Does he know what a body feels like when the life goes out of it? How that person takes a piece of you with them, rips out a section of your soul and drags it from your flesh when they go.

Because I do. I do, and I wish so badly I didn’t.

“But David has gone on to Glory and is resting in Heaven alongside Jesus. He is in no pain. He is laughing and rejoicing with those he loves, and you will see him again someday.”

“I want to see him now,” she wails. It echoes around the sanctuary. Reverberates in my ears. For as long as I live, I’ll never forget it. The specific note of losing the love of your life. The saddest song ever written.

A member of the choir, Odette, steps through the door by the stage, hands folded at her waist. Her hair frames her face in a shock of curls, the darkest shade of velvet. She approaches us slowly, steps light on the green carpet, like we’re animals she might spook with any sudden movement. She’s a bit younger than my parents, but she and my mother have always bonded over a shared love of pearl jewelry and the dessert table at any church potluck.

“Loretta, do you wanna come with me for a bit? I’m sure the funeral plans can wait.”

Mom glances between myself and the pastor. Her features are twisted around the agony she feels inside. I feel it, too, along with a roiling ocean of rage and disbelief and absolute helplessness. But for my mother, I push that all away. Lock it up in a corner of my heart to come back to later, alone in my room where she cannot see. My mother, who has always wanted to fix things for me, cannot fix this. But I can make the burden easier, and so I will.

“Go, Mom.” I pat her shoulder. “I can handle this.”

Her face crumples as another sob ripples through her. Her palm, clammy and trembling, cups my cheek. “You’re just a child, Henry. You shouldn’t have to handle this.”

I let the words roll off me. If I dwell on the unfairness of it all for too long, I’ll find myself in a pit I can’t dig myself out of. Later, I reason. When I’m alone.

I force a smile onto my face. It’s a lopsided, incomplete thing. But it’s the best I’ve got. I’m not sure if my mother is blinded by grief or simply desperate, but she takes the expression at surface value. She rises from her seat, nods to Pastor Timothy, and then shimmies her way around my knees and out of the pew. Taking Odette’s outstretched hand, she allows herself to be escorted away. Even after they retreat through the door Odette first appeared from, I swear I can hear the echo of my mother’s cry. That impossibly somber melody.

“Now, son.”

I turn to Pastor Timothy, truly focusing on him for the first time this morning. The whole world feels like it’s held at a distance, though it’s not me who’s holding it up anymore. Not even God. Something else. Something that doesn’t care if two good people like my parents love each other enough to grow old together. Doesn’t give a rip that now a son will miss out on a lifetime of knowing his father. Making him proud. Giving him grandchildren. Caring for him in his old age.

The pastor’s gaze is hard and pointed. It pierces through that fog and grounds me, though the motion is nausea-inducing.

“I know you are going through it right now, but don’t think we’re gonna gloss over the fact that you snuck my daughter out. Gave her alcohol. Don’t lie to me, either, because I smelled it on her breath.” A wrinkle forms between his thick brows as he narrows his eyes. “You’re lucky Joe Langston talked me out of pressing charges in light of the circumstances, because I most certainly would’ve.”

I shake my head, though not at him in particular. At this situation. At my life. Losing my father, the magnitude of my mother’s grief, putting Lucy in such an impossible position… It’s all too much. And I’m only one person.

One task. I can focus on exactly one task, and then another. Step by step until I make it through. It’s the only way.

My eyes drift closed, head tilted back. A sigh escapes my lips, releasing some of the tightness in my chest. When I inhale again, my lungs are full of pins and needles, but I drink down the oxygen as a lifeline.

“Everyone has to wear jerseys.”

“Excuse me?”

I open my eyes. The chandeliers sway in the flow of air from the heating vents. Back and forth, their golden light shimmering.

“We’ll need a few days for my grandparents to get here. They live in South Florida. He wouldn’t care about flowers, but Mom likes lilies, so we’ll do those.” The thousands of times I sat beside my dad in Sunday service, watching these very lights cast an angelic glow around Lucy’s head, flit through my mind. “And magnolia blooms, from the tree on our street.”

Never mind that they aren’t in season and likely won’t bloom for months. I’m mostly musing aloud at this point. None of this is Pastor Timothy’s concern anyway, but I continue as if it is.

“You can tell the choir to sing whatever they like. Write the sermon however you please.”

None of it matters. All of it does. Somehow, both these things are true.

“But everyone has to wear jerseys. Even if they’re an Auburn fan.” At this, a tear streaks down my face. I ignore it. Along with the expression of barely contained contempt on the pastor’s face. “It’s what Dad would have wanted. He hated wearing suits. I won’t make him wear one forever.”

I rise from the pew. Pastor Timothy echoes the movement, meeting me in the aisle when I step out. He buttons his suit jacket over his protruding stomach and smiles. A look only meant to placate, never to convey any real joy.

He offers his hand, and I take it. His other claps against my forearm, pinning my hand in his iron grasp. “You take good care of your mama, Henry.” An eyebrow lifts. “And remember, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.”

That fog is taking over my brain. I shake my head, hoping the words will shift into some kind of sense, but no luck. “What?”

My question falls on deaf ears. Instead of explaining, he uses my arm to yank me closer, until his spearmint- and tobacco-scented breath wafts over my face. “If you let that temptation bring you near my daughter again, I will not be so forgiving.”

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