The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(73)

I looked at Aaron Weston and saw a muted smile of satisfaction on his face, and wondered how much of this was his doing. From the first time I’d met him, I’d thought that Judy was manipulated by him. But I should have trusted Judy more.

The paragraph she read was simply Carrie saying that she would do anything to be with her daughter, that there was no threat that would keep her away, that there was no hurt she would not endure to be at her daughter’s side and keep her from harm. Then she sat down and it was Aaron’s turn.

The smile was gone from Aaron Weston’s face when he stood, and I wondered if I had misread it. Except for a niggling feeling on that first day, everything Aaron Weston had done had made me believe him to be a deeply caring father and a devout, humble Mormon. His talk was one of the best I had ever heard. It was obvious he had spoken at many funerals before, and knew exactly how to engage the grieving family members in the audience. He looked directly at Kelly below him and told her that her mother would be waiting for her, in heaven. He described a scene of a beautiful young woman waiting in a garden for the one thing that would make her heart complete.

“Heaven is a place of peace. No one there feels any degree of pain. They may wish for things. They may hope. But there is no impatience there, no sense of a long passage of time. They wait easily and happily. And I know that Carrie is waiting to see Kelly again. It may be a hundred years, but she will wait there still, and she will be as beautiful as she was the last day that she saw you.”

I felt a sting of pain at the thought of my daughter, waiting. But in Aaron Weston’s garden, it did not seem such a terrible thing.

Aaron Weston continued, speaking to his granddaughter in the first row, sandwiched between Jared and Alex Helm. “She will kneel to greet you, Kelly, and she will open her arms and she will tell you that you are her little girl, just as you are now. And at that moment, you will not remember any of the sadness that you feel today. It will all be forgotten. There will only be forgiveness between you. She will be cleaned from all her sins and so will you and you will be two shining daughters of God forever.”

If Kurt was good at speechmaking, Aaron Weston was ten times better. I was wiping at my face and wishing that I had brought more tissues. People sometimes said they’d had a feeling about a man who would turn out to be a prophet, that the Holy Spirit had whispered that this man would be the leader of the Mormon church someday. I felt like that about Aaron Weston at that moment. He was the man who should raise his granddaughter. I had no doubt of that.

Finally, he read some scriptures about heaven from Revelation that supported his vision, but it was that beautiful vision of a garden that stayed with me, long after the songs were over and the funeral luncheon was cleaned up. It made me think of Tobias Torstensen’s garden, so carefully kept and so beautiful, even after his death. After the service, there were two distinct lines where people waited to give their respects, one to Jared and Alex Helm—and Kelly—the other to the Westons. Some people only went to offer their respects to one line. Some went to both.

I tried to force myself to go to the Westons first, and then maybe I could manage the other, but I found my legs would not move forward. I was caught at the door of the chapel, reliving my own daughter’s funeral, where I had had to stand in a line very like that one, and had struggled to say a single word to the few mourners who were there with us. What words could possibly be adequate, on either side? I had come. I was mourning with them. That was the most I could do.

I noticed that Gwen Ferris and her husband, Brad, were here together. I saw them greeting the Helms, but noticed they left immediately after that without saying anything to the Westons. I suppose they hadn’t known Carrie’s parents. There was something in Gwen Ferris’s expression that struck me. I was trying to figure out what it was when I was startled by a familiar voice.

“Mom, how are you doing?”

I turned around and found my middle son, Kenneth, was there in the hallway by the back door. I realized my hand had flown to my throat. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

He looked thin. He hadn’t been taking care of himself. I wondered if he thought to eat more than once a day. He was wearing the suit I had bought for him when he was eighteen, just starting to think about a mission. It was too small for him across the shoulders and in the sleeves.

I stared at him and was surprised that he looked more like my own father than like Kurt. He had my father’s hawkish nose, and my father’s lean face, as well as my father’s ears poking out of slicked-back dark hair. When had that happened?

“Dad told me it was today and I didn’t know if I could make it. But I did. It was lovely.”

“But you didn’t know Carrie Helm, did you?” I tried to think back on the timeline. When had Kenneth last lived at home?

“No, I didn’t know her. I just knew that you were upset by her death and I wanted to come and support you.”

I teared up again. “Thank you so much. That means a lot to me.” I wouldn’t have thought Kenneth, of all my sons, would have thought of my feelings. He seemed so distant of late, coming rarely to family dinners because he was busy with his own life in the city.

“I know you’ll be fine. But I wanted you to know that I’m here for you. If you need someone to talk to. Dad is great and all that, but I know he is sometimes really well—orthodox.”

I stared at Kenneth for a long moment. “Are you trying to tell me something?” I asked. I had known he hadn’t been attending church for a while, but I’d hoped it was just a stage.