I follow the processional out of the parking lot, and there are six or seven cars behind me. By the time we get to the cemetery, there are at least twenty. I don’t know when they joined us.

The road in front of the cemetery is lined with even more cars, but a police officer waves us through the gate and directs us to pull all the way to Lullaby’s plot, where a tent has been set up with three rows of chairs beneath it. The coffin hasn’t even arrived, but the second and third rows of chairs are full.

The first row has been roped off. It was Sophia’s idea that the empty chairs be reserved for Lullaby Doe’s family, even though no one came forward to claim her. What I didn’t realize, when I agreed to that, was that we were the family that never came forward to claim her.

But we aren’t the only ones. That poor baby had a mother too.

There are at least two hundred people gathered around the square of green material that covers the open grave and the small pile of dirt that came out of it. More cars are still pouring into the cemetery. More people are coming from every direction, stepping carefully around other headstones in long dark coats. The women walk on their toes to keep their heels from sinking into the grass. Most of them carry flowers or little teddy bears.

I wish I’d thought of that.

On the perimeter, several reporters have set up cameras and are filming the crowd. Taking photos of the arrangements of flowers, and the tent, and the hearse, and the people.

Brother Bill stands in front of the tent, speaking quietly with the preacher from First Baptist, where Sophia and Jake go to church. Their pastor agreed to perform the service. He performed my father’s funeral too, but I can’t remember his name.

I don’t remember much about that service, actually, beyond flashes of memory. The scent of the flowers. The buzz of a bee around my head. That fake green material that is supposed to look like grass but isn’t fooling anyone.

I remember the flag. And the honor guard from my dad’s reserve battalion. And the six men in uniform who carried his coffin. Afterward, they folded the flag into a formal triangle and gave it to my mother. But I don’t know where she put it.

As Jake, Landry, and I take a place on the left edge of the crowd, I can feel gazes on us. I can hear the whispers. I’m recognizable from my interview with Audrey Taylor, and anyone who took the Crimson Cryer’s link to my Twitter profile would have seen the pictures I’ve uploaded. Everyone knows who I am, and the locals recognize Jake as well.