She heard snippets of the minister reading passages from the Bible. She wondered why when no one in their family were churchgoers, or indeed even believed in God. She hadn’t organized the service – Maggie and Billy had done that, done everything. She was in no condition to do anything but stare at Wren’s photo and cry, disconnected from reality.

She lost time. Vanessa had been sitting in the front pew staring at a photo of her Wren. He was smiling and happy, two things he hadn’t been when he died. It had seemed like the whole town had tried to pack into the church. She had actually seen people lining up. Lining up to get into a funeral. How disgusting. Who did that? She wanted to slap each one of them, not thinking that they were there for Wren; no, just to be ghouls, she suspected.

Then she was at the gravesite with no clear memory of how she got there. She remembered Billy’s arm around her shoulders and the desire to shake the heavy cloak that was his presence off her.

There was a man handing out colored roses to everyone that came near the coffin. People were taking them with thanks and a small smile. Didn’t they know that Wren’s favorite flower was the sunflower, just like hers? He’d loved them ever since he was a boy and had grown his first one in a pot. She remembered fondly a young Wren with his oversized watering can, sprinkling the budding flowers with water. She also remembered his tears when one day Mark had ripped the heads off them all and kicked the pots over, dirt and sunflower stems spilling out onto the ground. She wondered if Mark had dared to show his face here today.

She had wanted to see Wren one last time before the funeral, even though it was a closed-coffin service, but Billy had put his foot down, saying it wasn’t good for him to be remembered that way. She needed to remember him as he was in that photo: smiling and happy.

Billy handed her a rose that should have been a sunflower. She looked at it, unsure what she should be doing with it. As they lowered Wren into the ground, she began to sob, feeling arms slide around her again. Billy. As he descended, music played. ‘Stairway to Heaven’. It played softly in the background, the sound of collective crying almost drowning it out. As she listened to the haunting music, she watched as people walked forward and threw their roses into the hole where her baby now lay.

She wanted to throw herself in after him. Her husband, as if reading her thoughts, grasped her arm firmly. ‘Ness,’ he whispered close to her ear. ‘Put your rose in, honey – people are staring.’

Let them fucking stare.