AS THE GUARD said, you can’t miss the cemetery, and that’s mainly because of the gate—a huge, imposing wrought-iron thing that looks foreboding even when it’s open.
The gate was donated thirty years ago by the class of 1990. Before that, there was just a simple wooden fence marking Brayburn College Cemetery, which houses the graves of a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and a Nobel Laureate, as well as some of the oldest and largest maple trees in the Hudson Valley. I learned all of this last night, researching the cemetery online, though I’m not sure why I need to know all or, for that matter, any of that. Knowledge breeds confidence. I guess that’s what I was thinking.
My plan is to fade into the scenery throughout the ceremony. Once the crowd starts to disperse, though, I will step forward and remove my dark glasses. I want Lisette to see my face, but more important, I want to see hers. I want to see if she’s changed, as I have.
I follow the couple until I catch sight of the funeral, then move in behind the group of mourners—again, much smaller than I expected. From where I’m standing, I catch a glimpse of Lisette and Tom Blanchard in the first of just three rows. I watch their blond heads as they face the grave, and even from the back they look different. Smaller.
“。 . . lay his body to rest,” the priest says in a honeyed voice, “and see his soul off to its eternal home.”
As he launches into Psalm 23, I hear footsteps behind me, more people settling in. I keep my eyes on the group of young men standing next to the Blanchards, their heads bowed. I recognize one of them—a dark-haired, square-jawed, broad-shouldered boy with a profile that looks as though it were carved from granite. It’s the fraternity president—the one who claimed he saw Emily heading into the woods with a bearded stranger. His first name is Braddock, and I remember him so well from five years ago, not so much for his testimony as for the way he’d acted outside the courthouse, after Harris was found not guilty. A big athletic slab with pink cheeks and a tiny Pilgrim’s nose, he had pulled Harris into a hug, clapping him on the back as though he’d just scored the winning touchdown.
What is wrong with you? I had shouted, Matt leading me away, ducking my head and protecting me from the cameras, both arms around me as he whisked me back to my car, and I felt myself sinking, drowning. . . .
The priest says, “‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,’” and Braddock surveys the crowd, almost as though he expects an objection. I take a step back, but his gaze moves past me, through me. I’m glad for the dyed hair and sunglasses, though most likely, he wouldn’t remember me anyway. For some of us, life moves on with ease.
But then he stops, stares. He puts a hand on Tom Blanchard’s shoulder, and Blanchard turns, too, his jaw clenched.
Do they see me?
Tom Blanchard slowly turns back and wraps an arm around his wife, but the fraternity president keeps staring, his eyes hard, the color gone from his cheeks. He’s not seeing me, though, but past me, and when I turn in the direction of his gaze, I see a group of girls standing in a line about twenty feet back from the rest of the mourners. They look like college students and could have easily come from the quad, but they stand stock-still, their arms locked. The one in the middle holds a homemade sign. Red block letters:
RAPIST
Tom Blanchard says something to Braddock. I expect a scene, and brace myself, but the two of them just turn back around. The girls remain motionless. The ceremony continues as though they aren’t even there, Lisette Blanchard leaning against her husband, weeping silently into his coat.
NEITHER TOM NOR Lisette speaks at the funeral, which isn’t surprising. It’s hard, if not impossible, to make a speech at the burial of your child. Matt did make an attempt at Emily’s, but he only got through a sentence or two. We did have a lot of people wanting to speak, though—teachers and neighbors and family friends—and we accommodated all of them. A few girls from her class performed Joni Mitchell’s “River,” one of them on acoustic guitar, and I still can’t hear the song without tearing up. This was before the trial, of course. It was when Emily’s death was just a death—the simple tragedy of a young girl taken from the world too soon. Her funeral was crowded, and it lasted a long time.