Nice Girls(63)

“We’re not leaving for a while,” said Dad, glancing over.

I shrugged, sipping my cup of coffee.

I spent the rest of my morning folding my clothes on the floor, sorting everything into piles: shirts, shorts, socks, underwear all separated neatly from each other. I hated organizing things, but I didn’t know what else to do while I was waiting. I was restless.

We left the house at eleven twenty. Outside, the sky was a single sheet of white—there was no separation between the clouds. The street was dry, but a layer of snow covered the rest of the ground. From Dad’s truck, it could’ve been any brisk November day.

But only a few blocks from St. Rita’s, we saw the commotion unfolding: there were police cars, civilian cars, news vehicles lined down the street, and a couple of neon-vested traffic cops in the distance. They redirected drivers toward a detour instead of the street by the church. There were news teams and crowds of onlookers across the street, lined up behind a row of crowd control barriers. We could hear the low rumble of people outside.

“Not really private, is it?” Dad murmured, and I shook my head.

By the time we pulled up to the traffic cop, we only had fifteen minutes before the funeral Mass began.

“Names and IDs please,” said the cop. After he crossed off our names from a clipboard, the cop directed us toward the church parking lot, where there were still open spots available.

The noise from outside seemed to only grow in volume inside St. Rita’s. There were people everywhere, all dressed in black.

Everyone was packed tightly together, no room to flee. In the lobby, there was a group of people that I recognized from high school. They were Olivia’s old friends. Kevin was among them, clad in his police uniform.

I immediately turned around. Even if Kevin and I were on good terms, I wasn’t comfortable around the others. I began to feel like I was eighteen again, shy and ungainly and overweight.

Nearby, Mr. Willand and his friends had absorbed Dad into their midst.

I was alone.

I sped through the lobby. There was a sprawling group of college girls streaming in. Each of them had a gold scrunchie on her wrist—I realized that they were from Olivia’s sorority. I hadn’t seen any of them at the search. I moved faster and circled around a trio of altar servers and through a pair of glass doors.

I was suddenly in the nave of the church. It was quiet here and dim, except for the light that streamed in through the windows high above. Once again, I saw the large crucifix that hung in the air. Beneath it, there was a gleaming white casket. It sat at the end of the aisle, right before the altar.

To my right, there was a glowing figure. It was Father Greg. He sat at the end of the pew nearby, his cane propped in front of him. He wore a pale chasuble. It had a strip of lavender flowers that ran down the center. It was iridescent. It seemed so strange—the priest at Mom’s funeral had worn black.

Father Greg glanced over. Our eyes met. He might have recognized me from confession, I wasn’t sure.

But I fled instantly, my legs carrying me down the aisle to the white casket. On its left, there was a dazzling white funeral wreath; on its right, a large framed portrait of Olivia in her lacy white dress. It was the high school portrait that had been splattered all over the news.

Up close, the casket was seamless, smooth. But it was small, large enough to fit only a child’s corpse. I realized that they didn’t have much of Olivia to put in there. They only had the parts of her that had washed up. The rest of her was still missing.

It was all so pale and bland. The flowers, the casket, the altar servers, the guest list—all of it was for show. They had bleached her out completely. There was no color to her, no edges, no hardness, no depth. None of it was her.

I reached out, my fingers grazing the spot where Olivia’s head would have been. The casket was cold to the touch.

I took a deep breath. Other people would have given a prayer or a silent message. They would have reflected on a shared memory. They would have thought of something meaningful.

But nothing came to me. I was frozen, my fingers stuck on the casket, my heart hammering in my chest.

“Sad, isn’t it?”

I was startled. John Stack was next to me. He wore a dark suit, a white handkerchief peeking out of his chest pocket. John was staring at the casket. He slowly reached out and touched it.

“Just pitiful. None of it should have happened,” he said, his voice low. “Every life is precious, every choice more so. It all counts—we can either love ourselves or sin against ourselves. Then we return to dust.” John looked at me. The light glinted off his wire-rimmed glasses.

I slowly nodded—I didn’t know how else to respond. John lightly patted the casket and walked away.

I heard a door clank from one side of the church, then another. The guests were streaming in now, seating themselves for Mass. Far down the aisle, Father Greg was slowly straightening up from his seat.

I suddenly felt everyone’s eyes on me, lingering on the strange girl who hung out for too long near the casket.

As the organ began to play, I hurried past the pews to my right, moving against the current of people. I could barely breathe as I made my way through the lobby, past the front office, and down a hallway. I bolted into the women’s restroom, beelining for the nearest stall.

I was gasping for air, gulping down swigs of it. I lowered my face toward the toilet bowl and stopped—there were drops of urine on the seat. I backed away, shuddering. I needed fresh air and space, to feel my legs pumping on the cold street, away from the crowds and the casket and the news cameras—