A pair of white-gloved attendants held the door for her and Grandy. Someone in the foyer took their coats and Grandy’s hat to the cloakroom. A beautifully rendered poster on an easel welcomed guests to the celebration.

Bryan Ferry’s voice crooning “Avalon” drifted from unseen speakers. Mom had loved Roxy Music. On a sleepless night a few days before, Natalie had put together a playlist from Blythe’s digital music library.

Natalie nearly stumbled as they passed the gallery of enlarged photos on display in the rotunda. The grief was like a punch to the gut. Breath-stealing agony made her want to crawl out of her skin. Her knees would have given out if not for her grandfather. Though he moved slowly and leaned on the cane, he was strong. With her careless father so notoriously absent, Grandy had been the key man in Natalie’s life, a fact she was grateful for every single day.

She, Grandy, and the staff and friends of the bookstore had collected pictures of her mother, raiding old albums and digital files and sending them to a gallery that specialized in large-scale renderings and displays. The result was a beautiful frieze of images that captured Blythe’s energy and beauty and spirit.

There she was, a girl in the seventies, picking berries on a farm somewhere. A young woman proudly posing in her cap and gown in Berkeley blue and California gold. An impossibly young mother, surrounded by gauzy light through a window, holding her infant daughter in her arms, her expression a mixture of pride and terror. A woman standing with her cat at the grand open doorway of the Lost and Found Bookshop, in all her glorious vivacity. A soft-eyed daughter sweetly hugging her aging father.

The final portrait was Natalie’s favorite picture of her mother. No one knew who had taken the photo of Blythe standing on the beach at Fort Funston at the southwest edge of the city, gazing off into the distance, her expression enigmatic. To Natalie, beneath the joyous spirit everyone had loved, Blythe had always seemed just a bit sad. Sometimes, growing up, Natalie had been struck by the thought that she didn’t really know her mother. And now it was too late.

Even more moving than the photo gallery was the size of the crowd. As Natalie accompanied her grandfather to their seats in the front, he said, “I always pictured walking my daughter down the aisle at her wedding, not her funeral.”

She nearly stumbled when she heard those words. Only her determination to support him kept her steady. The assemblage was packed to the walls already, and more people were still streaming in. A velvet rope hung across a section in the front, demarcating a few seats with a card that read Reserved for Family.