The Episcopal church was a large gothic structure, its stone walls blackened by time and weather and a thickening overcast. Inside it was dark and vast, with a high vaulted ceiling. Along both walls intricate stained-glass windows portrayed the life of Jesus in bright, jagged sections. A blood-red carpet declined between pews overflowing with mourners to a marble altar with an ornate silver cross. Toward the right front, my partners grouped in white shirts and gray suits, trying hard to look what they were. We joined them.

Muffled sounds came from the rear of the church. Five relatives and Cade bore Lydia’s casket, covered by a white pall and resting on a low metal platform with wheels. A blonde acolyte with the processional cross and two clergy with prayer books preceded it. At the rear, Henry Cantwell stood with his sister.

We all rose. The pallbearers began rolling the casket noiselessly toward the altar. A grim-faced Cade held one handle. I couldn’t find Jason. The clergy read in hollow voices:

“‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live …

I saw Rayfield standing by the rear door. The voices moved nearer:

“‘I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God …’”

Henry’s eyes fixed emptily on the acolyte’s cross. He passed Etta Parsons, face rigid as if fighting tears, then Dalton Mooring, head averted, his blonde wife next to him looking wretchedly hungover. The clergy continued:

“‘We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away …’”

—“Deserter,” my mother had shrieked until they pulled her from the coffin and dragged her upstairs.

My father lay in the front hall. “A fine-looking man, Kieron Shaw,” they kept saying, and him dead and waxy and looking like someone else. Brian babbled the Rosary by the head of the coffin—

The foot of Lydia’s casket was placed toward the altar. One of the clergy read over her: “‘For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I go hence, and be no more seen. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost …’”

—“In nomine Patri, et Filii et Spiritu Sancti …” The old priest chanted over my father amidst the smell of incense. Three candles had lined each side of the closed black coffin. My mother wore black, the priest black vestments. Brian, nine years old, watched him—