I’m sure he wanted to ask more about Miss Wise and her odd behavior, but I was thankful when he didn’t. I had no energy or desire to explain that woman, especially when I didn’t understand her myself.

The chapel finished emptying, leaving just the two of us. The quiet was sweeter than the cakes and pies lining the counters and any other free space found back at the house. The past three nights had been spent tending to the newborns with my other siblings camping out in my room to find some semblance of comfort, which had me running on very little sleep. Seemed there was always someone crying who needed me to hold them. Or someone thirsty and needing me to get them a glass of water. Or someone hungry and needing me to get them a plate of food.

As soon as Morty drove away from the house that night with Mama in the back of his funeral home van, Pa had checked out. And he’d yet to return. With no grandparents, I was on my own. Pa’s parents had passed away within months of each other when I was in kindergarten and Mama never knew hers because she was raised in a group home.

Some friend of Mama’s had come in from Nebraska to pay her respects and had volunteered to watch the newborns during the funeral, so my plan was to sit here alone for as long as I could get away with it. Vance made no move to leave, so my alone-time window was closing rapidly.

“Listen, Austin . . .” His warm hand pressed my knee briefly before retreating to the other side of the pew. “I . . . I never want to know how you feel right now.”

I had expected another regurgitated line of condolence, so his blunt words had my eyes snapping up to meet his. Green as a grassy meadow on a summer day, they weren’t looking at me but inside me, taking on a portion of the pain I was struggling to carry on my own.

“Vance, Son, we need to head out.” His mother spoke from behind me, breaking the moment and sending my head to lower once more.

“Yes, ma’am.” The pew creaked as Vance stood. He walked away.

It would be the last time we would exchange words for many years. It was only a handful of words, but they comforted me when it seemed nothing else would.

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I learned some hard truths during that terrible fall. One truth was that a person could be dead even with a pulse. The stench seeping from my parents’ bedroom was proof. I’d let it go on for a week after the funeral, but today there was no other choice but to put a stop to it.