Chapter 16

The funeral had been a bit much for both of them. It was like taking a boyfriend home to meet the entire family, but in all the wrong ways. Sedgewick sat in the back wearing a pressed shirt, a tie and dark pants. Allison was up front surrounded by her family, protected and isolated.

Though she walked in with Sedgewick, holding his hand for strength, she didn't see him again until he came through the line, a custom he would have avoided but for her. When she saw him in the line she stepped ahead of her brother and hugged him, burying her head and lingering on his shoulder for a moment or two while her family wondered who this was. There were awkward introductions and Sedgewick shook hands and expressed condolences.

He moved away from the line as quickly as he could, feeling like every eye in the place were on him. He didn't know anyone, save for Allison—and now her dad and brother—and he wasn't sure what to do.

He had been so young for his grandfather's funeral. Too young to expect him to go through the lines and shake hands and accept hugs from wrinkled relatives he didn't know. They let him play in his dress clothes, though he didn't feel like it.

Allison, though, had to hug the wrinkled relatives and exchange nods and dab her eyes. It was all so much, more pomp and formality than she could handle. It was a forced sadness, a forced, outward grief, and that's what made it so hard for her. She felt like she couldn't smile, like she wasn't supposed to, even if a happy memory came.

When it was finally over, when the family commitments were complete, and Sedgewick had stood around by himself for long enough, and then stood at Allison's side feeling just as awkward for long enough, they left.

Allison asked Sedgewick if he minded driving back to campus. He took the keys and they drove home in silence. Sedgewick flicked off the radio as soon as he started the car.

The grief and sadness that Sedgewick remembered from Monday, when he first learned about Allison's mom and saw her sitting on the river's edge came back to him. She was back here again. It wasn't surprising or wrong or bad. It just was. That's the place she found herself.