Page 78 of We Are All Guilty Here

“That’s a good idea, honey. This should help you make a start.” He offered her a sheet of paper. “It’s a standard form I give folks to help them write the obituary.”

Emmy took the paper, but her eyes were too blurry to read the words. She could only tell that some of it was typed, some of it filled in with a pen.

“I’ve made some suggestions on the wording. You would say that Gerald’s survived by you, Tommy and Myrna. For Henry and Martha, the standard language is to say that he was preceded in death by two of his children, then you list their names and ages. Henry was seventeen. I believe Martha was eighteen when she passed.”

Emmy couldn’t stop staring at the form. Everything else in the room was swirling around her.

“Anyway.” Milo took back the paper. Her fingers had left sweat marks on the corner. “I’ll give this to Tommy. Maybe you kids want Celia to do it? She’s the one with the fancy English degrees.”

“Dad—” Emmy’s throat strangled the word. “He wrote something out already. Last month. Not the obituary, but he wroteout what he wanted for his funeral. The arrangements and music and how much to spend. He didn’t want to burden us with having to do it. Not for him and not for Mom. He wrote down all the instruction for her funeral, too.”

“Oh, okay.”

“He didn’t want people to know, but maybe you figured out—” Emmy’s mouth had gone spitless. She could barely form words. “That’s why he’d lost so much weight. It started in his lungs—the tumors. We found out last year. He was getting treatment, but then six weeks ago, he got a biopsy and he was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer, and there was nothing else that could be done. I mean, there were things that could be done, but he didn’t want to do them. Didn’t want to spend what time he had left going back and forth to the hospital. Not when Mom still needed him. So … that’s when he wrote everything out.”

Milo looked as grieved as Emmy had felt when she’d first heard about the cancer. This was why Gerald had been talking to her about taking over his job as sheriff, and why he’d arranged for Myrna to be moved into a care facility. He’d sat Emmy and Tommy down last month and told them both that he’d decided to let the cancer run its course.

You kids just keep your heads down and do your jobs. You’ve got your lives to live. Your mother won’t know I’m gone.

Milo put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey. I knew he wasn’t well, but he was a private man. We only talked about college football and our kids. He was so proud of you and Tommy. You were the light of his life.”

Emmy wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “The doctors wouldn’t pin down how long we had. They said it could take three, six, maybe twelve months, but you know, there was still a seven percent chance that he could survive. If he’d gotten treatment. I mean, he didn’t want it. He made that clear when … But I had hoped he would … you know he was a fighter. He always beat the odds.”

“He did.” Milo was nodding, but she could see the sadness in his eyes.

She wiped her nose again, tried to straighten up. Maybe the cancer was the reason that Emmy wasn’t on her knees right now.She’d had a month and a half to get used to her father dying. They’d sat around in his office for hours talking it out. She’d learned more about Gerald Clifton in the last six weeks than she had in all the days that had come before.

“Anyway, the cancer. I don’t know if they have to do anything different during the—” Emmy couldn’t bring herself to say the wordautopsy. “I thought you should let the medical examiner know. In case there are precautions.”

Milo nodded, but he probably thought she’d lost her mind. Cancer wasn’t contagious. You couldn’t catch it like the flu. He asked, “Do you want a moment with him?”

Emmy didn’t trust herself to speak. She could only nod.

“I’m here if you kids need me.” Milo gave her arm a squeeze before letting go. “Always, Emmy Lou. Until I draw my last breath.”

Emmy nodded again. Then it was time. Milo opened the door to the embalming room.

She took in another shaky breath. The door silently clicked closed behind her.

Gerald was lying on a table in the center of the floor. A white sheet was draped over his body, tucked under his chin. Emmy knew that Milo had done this for her benefit. She’d never seen him cover a victim like that before.

Victim.

Emmy shook her head, telling herself that she was wrong. Her father was not a victim. He’d been an innocent bystander. The gun had been pointed at Emmy’s chest. For the last twelve years, Paul had glared at her, sneered at her, mumbled nasty words in her direction.

And then he’d brought a revolver to Elsinore Meadows to try to kill her.

The compressor on the walk-in freezer switched off. The room went so quiet that she could hear her own heartbeat. Emmy willed her legs to move as she walked toward her father. Gerald’s face was slack. Eyes closed. Lips almost completely black. The blood had been cleaned from his mouth. The tiny scrape that Myrna’s fingernail had left yesterday morning looked more like a stray mark she’d made with one of her grading pens.

“Dad.” Emmy let out a long breath as she stood over the body.

She had never before understood what it meant to say that the life had gone out of somebody. Now, she got it. There was no life left in her father. Just a cancer-ravaged body, an arthritic spine, knees that were so worn down his legs had bowed. She reached under the sheet. Held onto his cold hand. Waited to feel something, anything, that told her this was their final moment alone. It felt nothing like what she’d read about in books and seen in movies. The sense of closure. The feeling that his spirit had stuck around long enough to say goodbye. That he would still watch over her. Listen to her. Hold her in his gaze.

She closed her eyes, tried to summon the sound of his voice.

Emmy Lou? What are we missing?

“You,” she whispered into the silence. “I’m missing you.”

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