“I was here for…” Charlotte stopped and shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning to stay.” She put her hand on Analiese’s arm when the minister slid forward to rise. “You really are expecting a crowd, then?”
“That’s the guess.”
“She had that many friends?”
“SRO.” She saw Charlotte hadn’t understood the show-business term. “Standing room only,” she clarified.
“All those people…” Charlotte dropped her hand.
“A tribute to a life well lived.” Analiese got to her feet. She had delivered her message, and while she’d been unsurpassingly blunt, she thought she’d done Charlotte a favor. Grief had turned to anger for some of Minnie’s friends who blamed Minnie’s decline and death on Falconview and everyone connected with it. Charlotte would not be welcome here today, and Minnie’s friends would probably make certain she knew it.
“It was a complicated situation,” Charlotte said, still seated.
“I know. We specialize in those in this building.”
“Are they taking memorial donations?” Charlotte reached for her purse.
“Don’t.” Analiese spoke so sharply the word echoed off the stone walls and could not be retrieved.
Charlotte looked startled, then she tilted her head in question. “I just thought…maybe the animal shelter? I can write a check.”
“Minnie Marlborough never asked for a handout in life, so I doubt she’d want one in death. She was a woman with her hand outstretched to help, not to ask. That’s what people loved about her. That’s why they’re all coming today.”
“You’re giving a sermon, and I’m the only one here.”
Analiese knew Charlotte was right, but she couldn’t apologize. “A hazard of the profession.”
“How many people will be at your funeral, do you suppose?”
“I’m sorry?”
“When you die, how many people will come to say goodbye?”
Analiese had never asked herself the question. “Why do you ask?”
“Maybe it is the measure of a life well lived.”
“Only if people attend because they want to.”
Charlotte’s smile warmed and softened her face, like a light going on inside a room at dusk, and even though the smile was sad, she looked more like herself. “You mean well-dressed businessmen checking smartphones don’t count?”
“It wouldn’t be fair to ignore them completely. Say…three businessmen equal one faithful mourner.”
“Maybe I’d better reserve this little chapel for my own funeral. Or the sexton’s broom closet.” Charlotte smiled again, almost as if in comfort.
Analiese wasn’t sure how to answer. “I’m afraid you’ll have to take a number. The broom closet’s been booked for months.”
As exit lines went, that and the smile accompanying it would do, but Analiese didn’t leave. She could hear a clock ticking inside her head, and still she couldn’t go without offering something better. As odd as it seemed, she felt as if Charlotte had just tried offering something to her.
“I don’t think we should worry,” she added. There’s probably time for both of us to cultivate a few more mourners. Unless we take matters into our own hands, only God knows the hour of our death.”
Charlotte looked surprised. “How strange you should say that.”
“Why?”
“I was thinking about that exact phrase, right before you walked in.”
“Cultivating mourners?”
“No, that only God knows the hour of our death. A long time ago I heard those same words in a very different place, and I’ve never forgotten.”
Chapter Three
EARLY IN HIS granddaughter’s life Ethan Martin had learned that his major role—next to doting uncontrollably—was to give Maddie the confidence she needed to become an adult who took the hand life had dealt her and played it with skill and daring. This meant that while he never lied to her, he also never quite leveled, at least not when she scared him to death. Which she did frequently.
She was scaring him now, swaying at the top of a piece of carefully engineered climbing equipment like a pirate searching the seas for ships to plunder. She was with two other children, and he recognized one, Edna Ferguson, whose mother, Samantha, was a long-time friend of his daughter’s. Sam wasn’t far away, on a bench typing on a laptop, but he caught her eye. She nodded, then gave a barely perceptible thumbs-up sign that told him Maddie was fine, but she had kept his granddaughter in her sights just in case. All was well.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, when he got close enough that Maddie could hear him. “We’re having an early supper tonight, remember?”
“Papa!” Maddie swung lower until she’d reached a height that no longer frightened him. He judged all heights the same way. How far could the girl fall without hurting herself? At what point was she risking a broken bone? A concussion? He was never sure, but he was sure it wasn’t his place to hamper her. Maddie and her mother had worked out rules, and so far Maddie had been good about obeying them, most likely because they were few and sensible.
She launched herself into his waiting arms, the way a younger child might. But Maddie was small for her age, and delicately boned. He caught her easily and swung her to the ground.
Ethan ruffled her hair. “See the Blue Ridge Parkway from way up there?”
“I wasn’t paying attention. Edna was telling us about a movie she saw on television. Where’s Mom?”
“Making dinner. She’s teaching a class tonight, so you’ll have me all to yourself.”
“Cool!” Maddie’s blue eyes danced. “You’re eating with us, too?”
“I even brought dessert.”
“Cookies?”
“Chocolate chip.”
Maddie yelled goodbye to the other children. Then she waved at Samantha, who glanced up as if she’d just realized Maddie was there and smiled in response.
As they crossed the park they chatted about school. Although she was ten, Maddie was only in fourth grade, which wasn’t uncommon. Parents often held children with summer birthdays back, even if they were officially able to start school a year earlier. But Taylor, Ethan’s daughter, had decided Maddie should start later because, among other things, she had been more than two months premature at birth.
The street where Taylor and Maddie lived was eclectic, modest one-story homes mixed with more expansive ones. The architectural styles were eclectic, too, and it pleased Ethan, an architect himself, that the homes weren’t cookie-cutter copies. Most were well taken care of, but some, particularly the obvious rentals, needed paint or simple landscaping.
Taylor’s own landlord was, for the most part, invisible, because Taylor only contacted him when something major needed repair. He, in return, never asked for an increase in her modest rent. Ethan hoped nothing changed in the near future. The house spelled independence, something Taylor badly needed.
They were still two houses away when he smelled charcoal. They cut across Taylor’s yard, bordered with swaths of daffodils and grape hyacinth in full bloom, and rounded the house. His daughter was just putting burgers on the grill in the center of a