After they graduated from high school, Roberta moved to Milwaukee to work at the Wooden Nickel store selling jeans in Southridge Mall, while Sherri spent the next year taking care of her mom. She was touched that her friend had returned home to pay respects at Sherri’s mother’s funeral. Roberta genuinely cared for Mrs. Taylor, who had taught her how to play the piano. Sherri’s mom had known that Roberta’s father got rough with them sometimes, and even though Muriel could be bossy and adamant with Sherri, she was always available to offer Roberta quiet support without interfering.

After the service, Sherri stepped out of the receiving line, shattered. Roberta, her eyes red from crying, gave her a big hug. “Sorry, Sher. This must be hard.”

“It was a long time coming,” Sherri said, exhausted from trying to say the right thing to the funeral attendees, as if she were comforting them instead of the other way around. She didn’t want people to feel sorry for her, or to worry. She did her best to appear poised and appropriate. Sherri thought she’d done well; she had a gift for remembering her parents’ friends’ names and the connections between the family’s few and distant relatives. Her father had been an only child from neighboring Burlington. She’d met a few of his aunts, uncles, and cousins over the years, but Sherri didn’t know them very well. They were farmers, and her father, the black sheep, preferred to stick his head in a book. He had no interest in animal husbandry or big tractors. He didn’t like to get his hands dirty—he couldn’t even stand to get Jismaa oil on his fingers when he repaired a watch. Her mother had been a loner for different reasons. At thirty, she’d left her parents behind in Albany, New York, when she’d heard about the church organist job in East Troy. When Muriel was in her teens, her parents converted from Catholicism to Christian Scientist, and had refused medical treatment for her beloved brother when he came down with TB. She’d never forgiven them for rejecting her entreaties to seek medical attention as he grew sicker. Just call the doctor! Muriel often noted the irony that in the last years of her life she’d seen one doctor after another, and they’d all been useless.

Sherri held each attendee’s hands and looked them in the eyes when they spoke to her, her smile caring and authentic. “Honestly, we were just waiting for her to pass so she’d be relieved of her pain.” She used “we” to make herself feel less alone, although it only made her more aware of her new status as an orphan. She repeated what she’d said a hundred times that day to Roberta, this time with sarcasm.

“Still.” Roberta could see through Sherri’s act. She knew there was more to it.