The service was held at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist, a white wooden church with a high steeple that was on the Old Post Road. Harry, Alice, and Paul arrived early, and Harry and Alice spoke to the minister, a grey-haired woman over six feet tall, who went over what she planned on saying. Harry knew most of it already. It was going to be a short service; two hymns, a eulogy, a reading by Carl Ridley, Bill’s cousin from Sanford. Alice had already met with the minister to go over some of the details of Bill’s life, and the minister briefly recounted them now. Harry was glad that there was significant mention of his mother, and how devoted Bill had been to her. It was his only concern, worried that Alice had only seen Bill’s life as beginning when she had come into it. But the words the minister planned on saying comprised all of Bill’s life, including both his marriages, his son, his lifelong affair with books, even his infamous cooking. As Harry, Alice, and the minister talked, a few early-arriving guests filtered slowly into the church. Harry wondered how many there’d be, and how many he would know. The interior of the church was cool, but Harry’s palms were sweating, and he could feel a trickle of sweat along his rib cage. He’d only ever been to two funerals in his life. His mother’s, and now his father’s. He’d never known his grandparents on his father’s side, since they’d both died before Harry was born. His maternal grandparents were both alive, but they hadn’t left their retirement community in Florida in many years.

“And how about you, Harry?” The minister was speaking to him, and he wasn’t sure what she was asking.

“I’m sorry,” he said, aware he was blinking his eyes rapidly.

“Did you want the opportunity to say a few words?”

“Oh . . . Oh, no. Alice already asked me. Thank you, though.”

“Why don’t you two take a seat, up here in front.”

It was a relief to sit, to hear the murmur of people behind him, and know that he didn’t have to acknowledge them, at least not yet. He felt guilty that he wasn’t saying anything at his father’s funeral, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t trust himself to speak in public, worried that he’d be overtaken by either anger or grief, or a combination of both. He even still worried about his lisp, long eradicated except in his mind, where he often heard the echoes of how he used to speak. There’d be a receiving line after the service, and he’d have to speak then, of course, but just to people one-on-one. Still, the thought of it made his skin feel prickly, and his breathing shallow.