The Keeper of Lost Things(30)
“Too hard to live. The lady died.”
Sunshine was shaking as she tried to explain. Freddy pulled her close and squeezed her tight.
“I think that what you need is the lovely cup of tea.”
He made it, under Sunshine’s strict supervision. Two cups of tea and a jammy dodger later, she tried to tell them a little more.
“She loved her little girl, but the lady was very sad” was the best that she could do.
Laura was strangely unsettled.
“Sunshine, maybe it would be better if you didn’t go into the study anymore . . .”
“Why?”
Laura hesitated. Part of her didn’t want Sunshine becoming too involved. She knew it was selfish, but she was desperate to find a way to make Anthony and maybe even her parents proud of her. Posthumously, of course. It was her chance to finally do something right and she didn’t want any distractions.
“In case there are other things in there that might upset you.”
Sunshine shook her head determinedly.
“I’m okay now.”
Laura looked unconvinced, but Sunshine had a point to make.
“If you never get sadness, how do you know what happy is like?” she asked.
“And by the way, everybody dies.”
“I think she has you in checkmate there,” Freddy murmured.
Laura conceded defeat with a reluctant smile.
“But,” continued Freddy, “I may have the very thing to cheer you up. I have a plan.”
CHAPTER 21
Sunshine stood waiting by the sundial, a solemn figure in a pink duffle coat and silver sequined baseball boots. The dank October afternoon was already seeping away; the edges of an empty sky tinged with the rhubarb flush of a looming sunset. On Sunshine’s signal Freddy started the music and took his place next to Laura to walk down the “aisle” of flickering tea lights to where Sunshine was waiting to start the ceremony. Freddy was carrying Anthony’s ashes in a plain wooden urn, and Laura, a fancy cardboard box full of real rose-petal confetti and the photograph of Therese from the garden room. Laura fought the urge to giggle as she walked as slowly as she could to the inevitable Al Bowlly. Sunshine had planned everything down to the last detail. The gramophone had been conveniently positioned so that Freddy could reach it by leaning in the window, and the confetti and rose-scented candles for the tea lights had been ordered especially. Sunshine had originally wanted to wait until the roses were in bloom again, but Laura couldn’t bear the thought of Anthony’s ashes languishing on a shelf for the next nine months. She couldn’t keep him from Therese any longer. The rose-scented candles and confetti had been a hard-won compromise. Freddy and Laura reached Sunshine just as Mr. Bowlly was beginning the final verse and Laura listened, really listened, to the words for perhaps the first time. It could have been written for Anthony and Therese. Sunshine left a pause just long enough for it to be dramatic before consulting the piece of paper she was clutching.
“Dreary beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God and in the fate of this complication, to join together this man, St. Anthony”—she tapped the top of his urn—“and this woman, the Lady of the Flowers”—gesturing toward the photograph with an upturned palm—“in holy macaroni, which is the honorable estate. St. Anthony takes the Lady of the Flowers to be the lawful wedding wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, richer or poorer, to love and to perish with death now you start. And it still rhymes,” she added proudly to herself.
She paused again, long enough this time for it to be almost uncomfortable, but no doubt intended to underscore the sanctity of the occasion.
“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, funk to punky. We know Major Tom’s a monkey. We can be heroes just for today.”
She leaned forward and addressed Freddy and Laura in a stage whisper.
“Now you throw the ashes, and you throw the confetti,” and then, as an afterthought, “Follow me!”
They made an odd little procession filing round the rose garden, Sunshine leading them in and out of the desolate-looking bushes whose summer finery had been reduced to a ragbag of sodden, yellowing leaves stubbornly clinging on. Freddy followed Sunshine, emptying the urn as delicately as he could, with Laura behind him, trying to avoid any backdraft as she scattered confetti on the wispy gray trail of Anthony’s remains. The “scattering of ashes” had always sounded like such an ethereal act to Laura, but in reality, she reflected, it was more akin to emptying a vacuum-cleaner bag. When the urn was finally empty, Sunshine consulted her piece of paper once again.
He was her North, her South, her East, her West,
Her working week and Sunday vest,
She was his moon and stars and favorite song,
They thought that love would last forever: they weren’t wrong.
Freddy winked at her, smiling broadly. “And it still rhymes,” he mouthed.
Sunshine wasn’t to be distracted.
“I now announce you husband and wife. Those whom God, and Sunshine, have joined together, let no man steal their thunder.”
She nodded at Freddy, who scampered off in the direction of the gramophone.
“And now it’s time for the bride and groom’s first dance.”
As the dying sun stained the ice-blue sky crimson and a blackbird’s call echoed through the gathering dusk, warning of a prowling tabby, Etta James proclaimed “At Last.”