I look for Sylvie, even though I don’t expect to see her. My instincts tell me that Sylvie won’t come to this event, that she’s saving her mental strength for the funeral.
I look around for Alexis and wonder if she felt her duty was done by holding her own wake, if she’s at home hosting another morbid party. Maybe she’s with Sylvie? I haven’t heard from her.
Someone whose voice is unfamiliar to me is talking about how Finn told him it would be his job to keep a lid on the locker room talk next year during track season and how cool that was and how inspired he felt by that. I can’t see his face, but he sounds young. It sort of sounds like something Finn would say but also not. I’m not sure what to make of it.
A funeral home employee approaches us, her golden name tag glinting in the warm light.
“Are you Jack Murphy?”
“Yeah?” I’m weirdly frightened.
“Are these your parents? Please come with me.” She motions us out of the line. “The family asked for you.”
We’re clearly expected to follow her. It’s strange, like being tapped to go backstage. My parents flank me in a way that feels formal. My dad puts his hand briefly on my shoulder as we walk.
The woman says, “I’ve worked kids’ funerals before. I’ve never seen a line like this.”
She means this to be comforting, but I don’t know what to say in reply. Thank you? How many kids have died this year?
Then we are at the doors to the other room, and there it is. There he is.
And there he isn’t, because Finn is gone, and the coffin is closed.
The employee points to Angelina standing by the coffin.
She stands by his picture, his senior portrait, taken in celebration. By his familiar face and flop of blond hair. His smile.
“They’re expecting you,” she says.
There’s an odd aura around us as we approach. I feel so young, like I’m being escorted into kindergarten, and I’m resentful and grateful all over again. My parents shoulder themselves on either side of me, and I can tell all their focus is on me. They don’t speak, but it’s strange: the closer we get to the horrible box, to the grinning photograph of my friend that sits on top, it’s like I can feel my parents saying to me, See, Jack? This is death.
I feel so small. I’m too young for this to be happening. My best friend can’t be dead.
“Jack,” Angelina says and hugs me.
I’m confused before I know why I’m confused. It isn’t until she holds me away from her to look at me, as if it’s been years since she’s seen me, that I register she’s smiling.
“How are you?”
“Fine,” I say, even though it’s not true.
Angelina doesn’t look fine either. Though she doesn’t look how I expected. There’re tears shining in her eyes, yet her eyes are bright in a different, happier way. Her mouth twitches.
“He made a mark on a lot of people,” she says with such certainty while looking at me for confirmation.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Parents and kids have been telling me stories, things I’d never heard before.” Her face crumples, but then it’s like she pulls herself up over the edge of the cliff after hanging by her fingernails. She smiles at me. “He really was a good kid.” She hugs me again, and over her shoulder, Finn is inside a gray and silver box, dead.
I cry, and his mother holds me.
Electricity ran through Finn’s body, stopping his heart and burning him from the inside out, and I cannot unknow these things. I cannot stop from imagining his face.
I feel it again, the collision with that brick wall of “this must not be.”
His mother lets go of me, and I realize I’ve stopped crying.
It feels like our mourning is all she has left of Finn. Our grief is proof of his life.
“I don’t think I’ll ever have a friend like him again,” I tell her.
Angelina shakes her head a little. “You’ll have another friendship like that, Jack, and you should.” She pats my shoulder. “Just promise me that you’ll never forget him.”
“I couldn’t.”
And there it is again, the pained joy on her face. She turns to my parents and thanks us for coming. I am a child once more letting myself be led back to the car and driven home, sitting in the silence of the back seat.
For the first time, I wonder if I can do it tomorrow.
Carry his coffin.
Carry his body.
Place it over a hole where it—he—Finn, will stay forever.