I'm Fine and Neither Are You(24)

Really? I thought. Their story, which I had heard many times, had all the makings of a New York Times Vows column. But Matt and Jenny’s beginning sounded a lot less like a fairy tale now that I knew the ending.

“Jenny was an amazing mother to our little girl,” said Matt, choking back a sob. “As fantastic as she was at connecting with people through writing, she always said her calling was being a mother. Cecily was her whole world.”

That, at least, rang true. My swollen eyes focused on Cecily, who was sandwiched between Kimber and Paul. With her perfect posture and straight-ahead gaze, she was so self-possessed. Would she remember this day for the rest of her life? Would Jenny’s death rob her of a normal childhood, if such a thing even existed?

“Jen brought joy to everything she did,” continued Matt.

Except maybe your marriage. But as soon as I thought this, I felt terrible. Even if their relationship had been a disaster for years, as he claimed, he must have loved her—a person couldn’t fake the way he had looked at Jenny.

Anyway, I reminded myself, the man had a right to grieve.

I glanced around as Matt continued, trying to muster up positive thoughts before I spoke. The funeral home made it almost impossible. The walls were decorated with cheesy nature paintings, and beneath my feet the carpet was a bland shade that Jenny had often referred to as greige. She would have hated this place. I hated Matt for choosing it.

In front of me, Kimber’s shoulders were shaking. Instead of holding his wife, Paul was looking off in the distance. They were good parents but bad spouses, Jenny had once told me. Was that how she had felt about her own marriage? And had her parents been told the truth about their daughter’s death? I wanted to assume so, but assumptions weren’t working out so well for me lately.

“There was so much I should have said to her,” said Matt, and now he was openly sobbing. “There was so much I should have done while I still had the chance.”

I was glad to hear him say this. But if only he hadn’t stopped there. I had been the one to call Sonia and Jael, and both conversations had been horribly painful—not only because of what I had to tell them, but also for all the things I could not say. I was glad I hadn’t had time to chat with them before the memorial service, because I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to lie directly to their faces.

Matt’s skin was the color of the carpet, and he looked like he had lost fifteen pounds in four days. The gravity of his new identity brought a new wave of pain. He would be a single parent now. He would have to learn to do all the things that Jenny had done, and even half of that was a very long list.

I thought about his constant traveling. I had every intention of telling him that would have to change—and that conversation was one I would not allow him to dance around. The pain of my father’s inability to talk about my mother’s absence was still fresh, even after all these years. Instead of trying to fill the hole she left, he created another one by making himself scarce. Matt might not realize it yet, but that wasn’t going to be an option for him. Cecily didn’t have an older sister to care for her. And she deserved better.

“Penny.” Sonia’s hand was on my shoulder, and I realized that people were looking at me. Matt had finished speaking. It was my turn to go up.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. I stood. I pulled down my skirt, which had hitched up around my hips. Then I walked to the front of the room. When I reached the lectern, I gulped and looked at the note card I was holding.

I had spent the past few days agonizing over what to say. How could I accurately portray my friend’s life when I was not allowed to concede the circumstances of her death? Every passing was a tragedy. But Jenny’s had shone a spotlight on the many things I thought I knew—and how very wrong I had been.

Borrowed wisdom seemed like a smart way to avoid flat-out lying or saying something inappropriate, but a Google search for “best funeral poems” left me wanting to scratch my inner ear with an ice pick. The titles alone were so clichéd that they verged on parody:

Gone but not forgotten.

We never said goodbye.

If you do one thing, remember me.

A life well lived.

Well, that last one had given me pause. Not the poem itself, which was a mélange of rhyming melodrama. But the idea had applied to Jenny . . . hadn’t it? She enjoyed writing and beautiful things, and she had combined the two to create an incredibly successful career. While her marriage had turned out to be a myth, she adored Cecily and had a circle of friends and family who adored her.

I ultimately decided I did not believe that Jenny’s problems had canceled out every good thing in her life or her ability to enjoy them. And so, while I would not recite the actual poem, I would steal its sentiment.

Except standing in front of more than a hundred people, many of them strangers who would stay that way, what I had written no longer seemed right at all. I could feel my underarms growing damp as my eyes darted back and forth over my note card. All I could see was what I had left out.

“Jenny loved life,” I began.

But it was too much for me and I tried to escape.

My head shot up—her voice was in my head again. I commanded myself to stay calm; hearing her was just a manifestation of my grief. “Whether she was writing a post for her website, setting the table for one of her dinner parties, or just pointing out the good in someone, she brought beauty to everything she did.”