I can’t hear what they’re whispering, but I know. And the longer this goes on, the harder it is to pretend I don’t care what they’re saying. What they’re thinking.

White trash. Teen pregnancy. Addict. Crooked cop.

It doesn’t matter. I know it doesn’t matter.

Fact-Check Rating: False.

It matters, no matter how badly I want it not to.

Amira appears just as the hearse finally opens, and she gives me a small smile as she squeezes in on Jake’s other side.

Cameron Mitchell and Matt Umbridge pull out the little white coffin Sophia and I picked out. It’s small enough that one person could have carried it. But there are two handles.

Jake and I should be the ones carrying that casket. We should have volunteered.

People sniffle as Cameron and Matt carry the small casket from the hearse toward the covered plot. Brother Bill shows them where to set it down, then they step back into the crowd with their girlfriends, who each carry small pink teddy bears.

Penn catches my eye, approaching from the opposite direction with Daniela. He must have had to park way off. They blend into the crowd on the opposite end of the coffin, just as Brother Bill begins to speak, and the whispers fade into a formal, uncomfortable silence.

“Thank you all so much for coming. I think it speaks volumes about this community that we’ve come out in such numbers to rally around one of our own. One whom none of us ever got to know. Or even to meet. But though we did not know Lullaby Doe in life, we all know her in death. We are all here to say goodbye, to usher her on from this world, though none of us could be there to welcome her when she came into it.”

Sniffles echo all around me. Women clutch at teddy bears held close to their hearts. Even the men look red-eyed. And just as my mother said they would, the media is keeping a respectful distance. But the crowd of mourners continues to grow, people quietly crossing the cemetery to join the assembly as Brother Bill talks about the value of life and the responsibility of a community.

When he’s finished, he steps back, and the pastor from First Baptist begins a formal funeral service.

I don’t pay attention to much of what he says, but I recognize enough of it to know that it’s basically the same thing he said at my father’s funeral. The words are kind. They are somber but hopeful, and full of platitudes about how long Lullaby Doe’s afterlife will be, though her life here on earth was so very short.