When the final hymn was sung and the closing prayer spoken, Harry finally turned around to see a sizable crowd, much larger than he’d thought. In the receiving line, many of the people who shook his hand and muttered their sympathies were strangers, but some were cousins and second cousins whom he barely remembered. No one knew what to say, so everyone said how sorry they were, and Harry nodded and thanked them.

While speaking to a man who referred to himself as Ackerson’s Books’ best customer, Harry noticed a dark-haired woman, probably in her twenties, who had remained seated in her pew, toward the back of the church. Harry thought she was staring at him but couldn’t be sure; maybe she was staring at the reception line in general, wondering whether she should join in. She was vaguely familiar to Harry, and he wondered what her connection was to his father. Was she the daughter of a friend? As though she felt Harry’s eyes on her, she suddenly tilted her head away, revealing a strong jawline and an upturned nose, and Harry remembered where he’d seen her before. She’d been walking along the road near his father’s house on the first night that Harry stayed there. She’d been wearing a headband and had been looking at the house, as though she knew what had happened there.

“Are you also interested in books?” said the man still speaking with Harry.

He was standing too close, his breath sharp with the bitter smell of coffee. Harry willed himself to not lean backward, said: “Not the way my father was, no. But I do like books.”

“Not obsessed, eh?”

“No. Not obsessed.”

The man moved along, and so did the line. When Harry looked for the dark-haired woman again, he couldn’t spot her anywhere.

Alice’s best friend, Chrissie Herrick, had skipped the service in order to set up food and drinks at Grey Lady for a small memorial gathering. There’d been talk back and forth on whether it should be at her house or a restaurant, but Chrissie had talked Alice into the house option, saying she would take care of every detail.

When Harry, Paul, and Alice got home, some guests had already arrived and were milling silently around the spread of cold cuts and salads on the dining room table. Chrissie had purchased a guest book for people to sign and had put together a slideshow of pictures of Bill on a laptop. “At least there’s beer,” Paul said, and pulled two bottles of Shipyard from a cooler filled with ice. Harry told himself that he should talk to his cousins, most of whom he hadn’t seen for two years. But before he could approach them, John Richards cornered him and asked if Alice had broached the subject of him helping out at the store this summer.

“She did,” Harry said.