Rapid Falls(72)

“Helluva thing, Cara,” Wade says, nodding to a couple who have just entered. They look vaguely familiar to me, but I don’t have the energy to try to figure out who they are. “I ran into your dad the other day. He said Anna was getting better.”

“Yeah,” I say, letting tears come to my eyes again. “They say sometimes that can happen right before . . .” Wade grimaces. “Sometimes they try to make everyone think it’s okay. So no one suspects.”

“Jesus,” he says. We stand in silence in a crowd full of conversation. He smiles gently. “Maybe she felt better because she knew she was on her way to something good? Maybe she knew that her troubles were finally over.” Only Wade could find a bright side to suicide.

“I hope you’re right.” I look through the small groups of people to spot Rick.

“I’ll let you sit down. I just wanted to give you my condolences.” Wade pats my arm and turns away.

“Thank you.” I walk toward Rick, who’s holding Maggie in his arms. I scoop her onto my hip and grab Rick’s hand. We are united as we walk up the aisle to the first row. My mother is already there, and she turns toward us. A slight hush falls in the pews as we walk. Not like the one that Anna faced. It feels like the people in this church believe in us and are grateful that the Piper family has finally found peace.

No one has asked too many questions, at least not to my face. Sergeant Murphy must be retired by now. I didn’t recognize the officers who came to the scene. They were sympathetic as they spoke to me, just like the visitors who came by the house with their too-sweet banana bread and too-solemn faces. They all seem spooked by Anna’s suicide, especially since they think of her as a murderer. Maybe they wonder about why she did what she did at Rapid Falls, but they have enough respect not to ask me for too many details. I know this story will be told again and again in this town. They will shudder as they speak of the Piper sisters and how it came to an end, but I realize suddenly that I don’t care what they think of me anymore.

We sit down beside my mom and do our best to keep Maggie occupied. Rick eventually relents to her requests and gives her his phone, which he loaded with toddler-friendly games just for this purpose. I hear the crowd’s buzz quiet again. I turn to look down the aisle, and I see my father. He walks, his face carved in a mask of grief and his shoulders stooped with the weight of misery. I nod, but he doesn’t respond. It seems like it’s taking everything he has to walk forward, trapped in the gaze of so many people. He reaches the front and slides into the pew beside me.

“Hi, Dad,” I say. He looks at me blankly as if his mind has shut down, as if he has nothing left to give.

The service is simple and short. Rick asked the minister to use a few traditional mourning verses from the Bible and to close with a short hymn. No one from our family wanted to speak. As the minister brings the service to a close, I hear the shuffle of bodies as people ready themselves to leave the church. The minister asks the congregation to respect our family’s wishes for privacy and says coffee and baked goods will be served in the Sunday school room in the basement. Rick picked up a huge assortment of pastries from the local bakery and dropped them off early this morning. There won’t be a burial. The police had to bring a helicopter in to find her body. The ring was never recovered. It must have fallen from her hand into the river. Rick, my mom, and I had decided that cremation was the best option.

“I’m hungry!” Maggie announces.

“We’ll take her,” my mom says as she and Rick stand. “We’ll give you a minute.” They shuffle out of the opposite side of the pew. My dad doesn’t move.

I nod at them and turn to my dad. He is still staring at the front of the church even though the minister has left and the lectern is empty. The room empties around us and the conversations disappear. His sadness pushes into me, and I open myself to it. It feels like penance. He breaks the silence with one quiet word.

“Triage,” he says.

“What?”

He is still staring at the space where her coffin should be.

“What do you mean, Dad?”

He doesn’t respond and I don’t ask again. I don’t want to know. My steps echo in the emptiness as I walk slowly back down the aisle. As I reach the doors, I turn back. He has not moved an inch. He is still facing the front of the church, hands clasped in his lap, like Anna’s only true mourner.





EPILOGUE

September 2017

A year after the funeral, my cell phone vibrated in the middle of a meeting with Larry. It had been so long since my dad and I had spoken that, at first, I assumed he had dialed me by accident. Larry nodded when I let him know that it was my father and I had to take the call. I had told Larry almost everything about my sister when I returned to work. Now that Anna was dead, I spoke about her much more often than I ever had when she was alive. My dad was calling to ask if I could come back to Rapid Falls. He wanted me to be there when he spread his third of Anna’s ashes. My mom, Dad, and I had divided them. I agreed, feeling touched, and told him that I would bring mine as well.

The trees on the roadside are painted with dots of orange and red as I drive through the early fall sunshine. I feel grateful for the warmth. Rapid Falls is far enough north for September to be a month of uncertainty. Sometimes it’s lovely, and sometimes it’s harsher than anyone could anticipate. When I arrive at my dad’s house, he is already outside.