It’s November again. Everything is dead or sleeping. I feel like it’s always November here. There’s never enough warmth or light or any of the things a person really needs. I poke at the leaves with a stick and think about who my parents weren’t until the cold seeps in through my skirt and I start to worry it might not be good for Max. My jacket won’t close over my belly anymore. I wonder if he can get cold in there.

— Chapter 65 —

I get to the church early. It’s this stone building with stained-glass windows and steps that look like they were designed just for wedding pictures. It’s probably the fanciest building in Little River. I’ve never been inside the chapel, just the basement for rummage sales. It’s weird to think about my dad walking through that arched doorway with Irene on Sundays. He didn’t even believe in God until she made him. And it’s not the kind of church that’s like, Jesus was nice so you should be too and feeds homeless people and all that stuff. It’s more like Here’s a bunch of ways you can judge people and feel better about yourself for it—the kind of church that would tell Ethan he was going to hell.

I sit in my car. I’m waiting to sneak in right before the service starts, so I can sit at the back without having to deal with all the people walking past me. But while I’m sitting there watching everyone go in, I start getting mad. The whole town shows up: Mrs. Hunter, Ida Winton, Molly Walker, Gary and his whore of a girlfriend, the Spencers. None of these people even liked my father. And all of them knew about me. They knew where I lived. They knew that he left me. They left me too. Instead of thinking that maybe a kid who lives in a motorhome in the woods might want to come over for cookies and milk after school, they told their kids not to play with me. They looked at me like I should be ashamed for existing, because my parents were divorced and my shoes were ratty and my hair was stringy and I always had dirt under my fingernails. I was something they could catch if they got too close, like my shame would rub off on them. They were happy to forget me, same as my dad. And now they’re all here in their Sunday best like they’re going to get God points for showing up to mourn a man who wasn’t even worth it.

I don’t go in.

The crowd from the parking lot slows to a trickle. Someone closes the doors and there’s nothing to see. I watch anyway. Like maybe my dad will sneak out the back. Like maybe it was all a big sick joke.