The cars, when they started, all had their lights on, to indicate that this was a funeral. It was by state law an offense punishable by fine to cross the line of the procession, lest Dr. Kenneth’s feelings be hurt.

Then the coffin was swaying up the steps into the Sylvan Park Baptist Church, and Dr. Shelley Buncer, in Geneva gown, was waiting as though he had never played rummy, but always in shadowy cloisters had meditated upon the resurrection. His sermon was consoling, and he promised all of them that they would soon see their friend again, but he did not seem excited about it.

Neil wondered again at the strangers who had come to mourn his father. Who were they all? Patients? Perhaps some of them knew his father better than he did now. He felt lonely, and suddenly Vestal’s intelligent hand was reassuring him.

He realized how many were staring at him rather than at the pastor; he remembered that to half of them he was a masquerading black man who had been caught and was going to be driven out of town. Then he noticed two unexpected guests whose eyes, as they sat in the back row, tried to tell him their enduring friendship—Evan Brewster, and Dr. Emerson Woolcape, a fellow-dentist to whom Dr. Kenneth had never spoken.

* * * * *

It was cold at the grave, out at Forest Lawn Cemetery on Ottawa Heights, and over the shivering few who had stayed, Dr. Buncer’s brave words seemed to hang and tremble like gray snowflakes.

Then they all turned away and left his father there alone.

* * * * *

When they were home, the Vestal who had been so patient became sharp.

“Oh, quit being sentimental about your father. There’s nothing you can do for him now. But it occurs to me that there’s a lot of things you can do for me and our child. Do you ever stop and think that she is very much your child, too, and so like you in her thoughtlessness? Now that your notorious love of truth and justice has inspired you to turn us into Negroes, just what are your plans for us outcasts? I wasn’t consulted about your public exhibit of yourself, and now I’m waiting to be told what to do!”

“Why, Ves, when you were so wonderful at the funeral–-”

“Maybe I’ve been too wonderful. Just what do you intend to do, if that old horsehair sofa, Prutt, turns you out of the bank?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you think you better begin to know?”

He nodded.

Chapter 41

They were alone in the evening, sadly reading. At the door-bell’s sound, Vestal speculated, “After ten—what gives? It’s probably Brother Robert, come over to enjoy a little knitting and worry. I better go. I’ll tell him we’re just off to bed.”