Page 40 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

“I think the Sitwells will too,” Sera said as they walked up the steps and into the church.

As soon as she entered, she noticed the open coffin in the center of the altar and she started to cry. She reached for the holy water font and blessed herself, genuflecting as she looked up at the cross. It might have been almost fifteen years since she’d been in a church, but that much she remembered.

This church was different from the one that had been on the same property as the Catholic elementary school she’d attended, but there was a familiarity in the stations of the cross on the wall and the faint smell of incense.

Wes glanced back as they entered and gave her a faint smile. She heard Poppy teasing Liberty about still being in one piece as they walked up the aisle. She’d gone to the viewing the night before and had slipped a little thank-you note into Ford’s coffin. Just telling him how much his friendship had meant to her and wishing him peace in his afterlife.

Today as she and her friends filed into a pew opposite the Sitwell men, she couldn’t seem to stop the flow of memories of conversations she’d had with Ford. She shrugged out of her coat and heard a gasp from Mr. Sitwell—Wes’s dad—as Liberty did. Sera glanced at her friend and noticed she was full on grinning.

Sera elbowed her.

“What? It’s not like the blouse isn’t covering me from neck to wrist,” Liberty said.

“You don’t have to let them see how much you enjoy their discomfort,” Poppy pointed out.

“Theyweredicks to Sera and let her find out Ford had passed through a douchey letter,” Liberty said.

“Point taken,” Sera said.

The Mass went by in a blur. She was calm during parts and cried during others. When the priest invited Hamish up to speak and the older man talked about losing his last friend, Sera suspected there wasn’t a dry eye in the church. Even Liberty and Poppy were quietly crying.

Sera decided she’d try to meet up with Hamish once in a while, if he wanted to. But the truth was she didn’t know the other man well. Just saw another soul who’d lost a friend.

Wes’s father got up and talked about Ford, and it was striking because the cadence in Benjamin’s voice was the same as Wes’s. When he spoke, he talked about the lessons he’d learned from his father. How he’d continue to use them to carry on.

Then it was time for Poppy to go up and read Sera’s words. She suddenly felt unsure. Were her emotions okay? Was what she felt the right thing to feel? She was so used to keeping everything quietly inside that this was hard. But she wanted the people who knew Ford to see him through her eyes.

She listened to Poppy’s crisp British accent, creating a filter between what she’d written and what she heard. It made the words seem not so raw. She cried and ached at never seeing her friend again and then smiled at the end when Poppy read the last lines she’d written.

Life was richer for having known Ford, reading and discussing books with him and spending afternoons laughing over coffee. She’d carry that with her for the rest of her life. Coffee and books had always been special to her and had brought her family.

She sat back against the pew as Mass ended and the pallbearers carried the coffin down the aisle and out of the church. Ford would be buried in Birch Lake Cemetery near the center of town. It was one of the oldest cemeteries in the US and the Sitwell family had several plots there. She knew Ford was being buried next to his late wife. He’d often spoken of her, and Sera took comfort from the fact that the two of them were together.

His dad was silent as Wes drove behind the hearse following Grandpa’s coffin. He heard Oz’s fingers tapping on his phone, sending a message. His brother and father didn’t have the same relationship he did with Grandpa. Unfortunately, he had become more like them, distant and harsh, at the worst time.

“I don’t want us to be like this,” Wes said.

He always kept his thoughts in. Why had he blurted that out?

“Like how?” his father asked. “In one car?”

“No, Dad. Like we were with Grandpa. Hamish and Sera really knew him. I don’t want to find out stuff about you both when you’re dead,” Wes said.

“You know me,” Oz said.

“I sometimes do. But only what you’ll willingly reveal. And I don’t know you at all, Dad.”

His dad closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat rest. “What do you want to know?”

The first thing that popped in his head was why his dad had married his mom. But if he led with that, he’d never learn anything. His dad avoided all mentions of their mom, and whenever Wes or Oz had brought her up, he’d shut them down with an icy stare and then walk away.

“Do you play chess?” he asked. “I don’t. Oz, I don’t think you do either.”

His father turned and looked over at him. “I do. Dad taught me when I was young and I was in chess club in high school. I play online in a league.”

“Are you good?” Oz asked, leaning forward from the back seat and putting his phone away.

Wes kept an eye on the road, but for the first time he could remember he had learned something about his father that wasn’t related to how to get something from him.

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