With This Heart(51)

So I sat in my car, leaving her voicemail after voicemail until the tears overpowered my vocal cords.

I had to sit in that car for an hour before my eyes cleared enough so that I could see the road on my drive home.





[page]CHAPTER NINETEEN





I was the last person to speak at Caroline’s funeral. I’d tried my best to stay composed as her parents and family recalled stories and anecdotes about her life, but it was a losing battle. I bent down to light the Donut Shop candle that was meant to smell like coffee and then stepped behind the podium. My heels sank into the soft grass as I shuffled back and forth, eying the note cards in my hands and willing my voice into submission. When I finally looked up, the sun was shining through one of the trees overhead so that I had to squint to keep my eyes from watering.

“ My name is Abby Mae McAllister,” I began, and the microphone rang out a high pitched noise causing everyone to groan and cover their ears. I cleared my throat awkwardly and shifted a few inches away before trying again. “Um… I never knew Caroline when she was healthy. We met when we were both sick and staying in the hospital for treatment. She was wearing this pink bow headband the first time I met her…” I held my hand over my head to show them how high the bow had been. “We met in a group for sick teens that I had planned on skipping. My mother eventually talked me into going, but I wasn’t in a socializing mood. I remember sitting on a metal chair moping when Caroline plopped down in the seat next to me. This was a support group for kids in the hospital, mind you, so it wasn’t surprising that most of the people there had a gloom and doom attitude. But, not Caroline. She wouldn’t stop talking. She yammered on forever and eventually I had to cave and answer her for fear that she would never stop.”

“ She was an in-your-face type of person. She weaseled her way into my life and took root until one day I woke up and couldn’t go a single day without talking to her. We bonded over everything: boys, books, annoying nurses.” I half-smiled toward the nurses who’d come from the hospital. “We talked about our funerals as most sick kids do. It takes the edge off. As if by talking about death, suddenly it no longer holds power over you.” I cleared my throat and shuffled behind the podium, pleading with my tears to stay in the corner of my eyes.

“ She had a few demands for today.” I looked down at the note cards shaking in my hands so much that I couldn’t actually read the scribbled words anymore. I recalled the night in the hospital when we were supposed to be sleeping in our separate rooms, but the nurses looked the other way. We stayed up late laying out what our funerals would be like as if it was one big joke.

“ She wanted all of her old friends from school to be here.” I looked up to where a group of teenagers sat wiping tears away with tissues. I hadn’t seen any of them visit Caroline in recent months. “She wanted the service to be outside. A place she rarely got to visit in the last few weeks.” And then I smiled at the last request. “She also demanded that I bring Orlando Bloom as my date. I tried to contact his people, but I never heard back, so instead I brought this.” I motioned toward the lifeless prop next to me. I’d searched everywhere around town and could only find a cut-out of him dressed as an elf from Lord of The Rings. The top of the cardboard was bending forward so that his bow looked rather limp.

I cleared my throat and pressed on. “I told her that I would play “Sweet Caroline” as a joke. She forbid me under penalty of death,” I paused at the finality of that word before taking a deep breath and continuing, “but Caroline was my best friend. We were there to push each other’s buttons, so in one last attempt to annoy her…”

I bent down and hit play on the iPod lying next to the podium. Neil Diamond’s voice began to croon through the speakers as I took a step back. I had to stay up front while the song played so that I could take the iPod and candle off at the end. My eyes scanned the rows of people, taking in the crowd. They all held sad smiles and wet tissues. I didn’t recognize most of them. They must have been her relatives. So many of them shared her dark brown hair. My parents were up front with Caroline’s mom and dad.

My eyes kept scanning until I passed by her old high school friends. Then I looked toward the last row of seats that was occupied by a single person: Beck.

He sat with his hands folded between his legs. He was wearing a fitted black suit with a black tie that sat crooked around his neck. He looked like he was a boy on the cusp of manhood. His unruly brown hair wasn’t styled or anything, but it was still longish on top, curling at the ends. He filled out his suit perfectly, as if he’d owned it for years but only recently grown into it.

I couldn’t believe he was there. And yet I’d hoped he would be.

He was watching me with sad hazel eyes, and for the first minute of that song, our eyes never left each other. My gaze held immense grief, his held immense empathy. But then as the song kept playing and the crescendo hit, Beck sat up straight and lip-synced the words. His eyes closed and a smirk spread across his lips. He put his heart and soul into each syllable and then when the “bum, bum, bum” of the trumpet hit, he punched his hand into the air three times with the beat.

No one else could see him, but that didn’t stop me from starting to laugh. Leave it to Beck to put life back into perspective. Caroline wanted me to be happy; she wanted people to sing at her funeral, not cry. So I reached down and spiked the volume of the speakers until the sounds of sniffling were drowned out. The song’s happy tempo blasted on and Beck and I brought it home, singing loudly and pointing to each other when the lyrics called for it. We were separated by an audience of grief, but our singing pushed through it.