Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
N ancy Rose Du Ponte passed peacefully in her sleep that night. I’d gotten the call from Ms. Jennings around seven-forty-five o’clock, answering to sobbing from the other line. Nancy had been tired after her excursion at the country club and had excused herself to her bedroom for a nap before supper. When Ms. Jennings went to wake her, Nancy had been gone. Sumner and I had been driving to Pierre’s for a late dinner of our own; it’d been the only reservation I could snag for that day. We’d turned around immediately, rushing to a person we were far too late to be there for.
Margot, I’m old , she’d said once upon a time. I’m going to drop dead sometime. You’ll have to get over it.
At least have the decency not to do it while I’m watching. The harsh words were ones I’d snapped out of frustration, anger, and yet she’d listened to them. Peaceful in her bed, she’d left with no one to hold her hand when she went. Gone before I could even say goodbye.
The middle-aged pastor at the podium presumedly spoke pleasantly about the woman in the black framed photograph behind him, readjusting his glasses every few moments to peer more closely at his papers. I wasn’t sure if the microphone wasn’t working or if his voice was too quiet for the equipment to pick up. Either way, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear a single thing out of his mouth. Most likely, he was repeating the same canned cliché sayings one could find on a webpage “How to Preach at a Funeral.”
“ Nancy lived a good life ” and “ she leaves behind a legacy ” and “ she’s no longer in pain ” were the only phrases that’d been picked up by the mic that I caught.
They weren’t wrong, of course, but empty, as hollow as my chest felt now.
While Nancy Du Ponte had no children, she’d been surrounded by dozens of families she met while helping her late husband establish the very first and only country club in Fenton County. She was gruff at times, enjoyed a good sarcastic remark, but she was someone who attended all the events, the gatherings, and enjoyed seeing life continue around her. Even if she ended up at a table alone, she enjoyed seeing all the hard work pay off. She loved seeing everyone enjoy the country club she helped establish.
And not a single one of them showed up to her funeral.
The vultures that’d been circling her for months, picking at the exposed flesh of a dying woman, scattered when there was no more meat left to peel off. Nancy was gone; there would be no more amendments made to her will. There was no reason to show up at the funeral of an old woman who gave them nothing in the end. Not even Ms. Jennings showed. I didn’t even care to hear her excuse.
It should’ve enraged me to no end, but it didn’t. Staring at the photograph of Nancy near the podium, one taken a few years ago when she still had plumpness to her cheeks, I didn’t feel anything. No anger, no sadness. Nothing at all.
There were probably near one hundred chairs, but the funeral hall only consisted of six people. The pastor, two elderly women, me, and Sumner. Sumner sat at my side and held my hand in his, resting both of them on his knee. My fingers were limp in his grip, but I cherished the small warmth.
“Nancy brought joy to the people around her,” the pastor said, voice suddenly cutting through the room. The microphone had been the problem, after all. “She was a bright light and always put a smile on others’ faces. I can see that from the many—uh, from those who’ve showed up for her today.”
The pastor looked up from his notes with a little bit of horror, realizing his pre-written response made no sense. He looked even sweatier.
I refocused on her portrait. You chose a crappy pastor, Nancy . Her smile never changed.
Nancy had known her health was declining fast. Sunday, when she’d collapsed at the table and we took her to the hospital, Dr. Conan had told her that her heart was tired. Her organs were in the process of shutting down. He’d given her something for the pain, but he’d told her it wouldn’t be long. And it turned out that Nancy had been preparing for her impending death in the weeks leading up to it. She’d gotten her affairs in order with her lawyers, sat down with the funeral home, picked out a cremation plan. She wanted her funeral three days after her death, and the funeral home arranged it. Apparently, she’d paid for expedited services, given that her urn already sat beside her portrait.
“Nancy chose cremation,” the pastor went on, shuffling through his papers. “She shared with me, once upon a time, that she didn’t want to be in a cemetery surrounded by people she didn’t know. She wanted to be spread at her favorite place on earth: the pond behind her house.”
I thought of the last time we were there together, looking at the water. Of all the times I stood there with her, both of us just quietly watching the ripple in the surface as the wind brushed along. It made sense she’d want to be scattered there, at the home she made her own, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was such a waste. A waste to lay her to rest in a place no one would ever visit.
“Normally, after a service, we continue onto a luncheon, but, well—the only place Nancy had in her notes is booked today, unfortunately. So, the funeral dinner will be postponed.”
My lips twisted, and I tipped my face toward my lap. The only place Nancy requested to have her celebration of life at was the country club, which was rented out for Annalise’s wedding. The main ballroom was, at least. The smaller event hall off the back wasn’t, but they refused to double rent out the space even though they’d done it dozens of times before. I wasn’t sure who’d been in charge of that decision. I didn’t care.
It was just ironic. The place she helped grow from the ground up, the place she helped break ground on, the place that wouldn’t have been where it was today without her, the last place she wanted to visit before she passed—they wouldn’t even open their doors for her ashes.
“I’d like to think Nancy is smiling down at all of you, the warm and bubbly woman she was,” the pastor said as he began his closing statements. “Think of her as you go about life, and continue to do the things that would’ve made her smile.”
But Nancy wasn’t a smiler , I wanted to tell him. She might’ve been smiling in the portrait on the podium, but it was rare for her to show her happiness in that way. Quips and barbs and witty remarks—that was Nancy. Even her laugh had a wicked witch sound to it. Warm and bubbly would never be two words I’d use to describe her.
The funeral director—who was not the man standing watch in the back—took over the microphone from the pastor, sharing his own sentiments, and saying that now the funeral service concluded, there was no other direction for us to go. No dinner, no cemetery. From here, there was nothing left to celebrate Nancy’s life other than going home. The old ladies in the row ahead of me walked out first, not bothering to step up to Nancy’s urn and pay their respects one more time. One had a tissue pressed into her nose and the other had red-rimmed eyes. Both of their cheeks were dry. I didn’t recognize either of them.
I wondered if they were crying for Nancy or because they knew that with their white hair and walking canes that they weren’t far off from an urn themselves.
Sumner sat still at my side. He wore the khaki pants that Nancy had always loved on him, and a black long-sleeve shirt that he had pushed up to his elbows. I wore a black dress pants that tapered at my ankles, with a black shirt and a black vest tight around my midsection. We were a pair of mourners, the only ones left in the funeral hall.
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” I finally said, my voice low with disuse. “Nancy would’ve laughed at that trainwreck.”
A chuckle burst free from Sumner before he could dam it up, and his mouth twitched as he fought to keep the corners down. “It’s not funny.”
“It is a little.”
Sumner pressed his lips together. “We can’t laugh in a funeral hall.”
“What are we going to do? Cause a scene? What, will the ghosts be offended?”
Something about that bled some of his humor, and he looked down at where our hands still rested on his knee. He coasted his thumb over the back of mine.
It was almost as if it hadn’t hit me yet, Nancy being gone . It didn’t feel like she was. It felt like she’d be at home, watching her bad TV shows. That if I called her, she’d pick up. That if I pulled into her driveway and stepped into her house, I’d find her sitting in her wheelchair out in the backyard, gazing at her algae-infested pond.
I hadn’t cried yet, not even when we arrived at her house to find the funeral home wheeling her bagged body into their hearse; I wasn’t sure what that said about me.
I could feel Sumner looking at me, no doubt with concern in his expression over how flat my voice was. Those were the looks I’d been getting over the past few days. They only increased my unease.
“I wonder what everyone will say as an excuse,” I murmured, beginning to pick at the buttons on my vest. “Do you think you’ll say they put the wrong date on their calendar? That they were too busy with wedding preparation to come? Not everyone can use that excuse, surely.”
Sumner’s fingers caught at mine where they’d been plucking at my buttons, saving me from ripping the thread loose. “I’m sure you’re all she’d have wanted to see.”
I stared at the back of the chair in front of me. Focusing on the skin there helped me ignore the pressure that’d wrapped around my throat. “Yeah.”
“I think you missed the wedding ceremony, but you’ll still make it in plenty time for the reception.”
My generous parents allowed my absence for Annalise’s wedding on the sole condition that I would be present for the reception. They made it clear that if I did not show up, they’d hunt me down. Sign our name on the guestbook, they’d told me, as if their names written on a piece of paper no one would ever read was respectful enough.
“A travesty,” I said. “I was hoping the pastor ramble about Nancy and her bubbly personality longer.”
“For a moment there, I thought he’d walked into the wrong funeral.”
I smirked a little before standing, squeezing Sumner’s hand once more before letting go. “Thank you for coming. For… being with me. ”
“I knew Nancy, too,” he told me, blue eyes bright. He rose to his feet, too, and he laid his hands on my shoulders and forced me to face him. My body responded by swaying closer. “I’m here because I want to be.”
The weight of his hands, in reality, was slight, but it felt as though they held me heavily to the floor. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like feeling grounded to the moment. It’d been this way the past few days, Sumner picking up my hand, offering the little touches here and there. In a distant way, I appreciated it, but each time he looked at me like that—with sympathy swimming in the blue eyes of his—it felt as if I was moments away from drowning myself.
And I hated myself for feeling that way. “Don’t look at me like that,” I told him.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m going to start crying. That’s the only way you’ve been looking at me.”
“It’s okay if you do.” Sumner’s hands shifted from my shoulders to rub down my upper arms, though I couldn’t feel his touch through the fabric of my shirt. “Crying isn’t a bad thing, Margot. Sleep isn’t either, and you haven’t been getting nearly enough of it.”
I moved away enough that his hands fell off my arms. “You worry too much.”
Sumner tilted his head a little, that sad expression deepening. “Don’t push me away, Margot.”
“I’m not.”
“You are, because it’s what you do.”
Something dark rolled over me, like a cloud blocking sunlight. It left me cold, near shivering. I didn’t look at him. I stared at Nancy’s portrait. Her smile became creepier the longer I looked. I almost wondered if it was photoshopped.
“Why don’t we skip the wedding? I’m sure everyone would understand?—”
“I can’t.” As tempting as it was, I didn’t let myself entertain his words for longer than a moment. “I have to meet the Astors.”
“Why do they matter? You’re not going to marry Aaron.”
I hesitated. I didn’t know why I hesitated, but the silence in the beat before I spoke was louder than my words. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what? You don’t know why they matter, or you don’t know if you’re marrying Aaron?”
I did not want to marry Aaron Astor. I didn’t know why I couldn’t say that. I should’ve told him Aaron was a nonissue, that meeting the Astors meant nothing, but I couldn’t. The words wouldn’t form. I normally loved Sumner’s full attention, but it felt almost suffocating now, and I hated that I felt that way. I hated myself for feeling sick when he turned to me with that concerned expression. I hated myself for it.
You like how he makes you feel, but what happens when he doesn’t make you feel good anymore? Aaron’s words, for no reason, crept back into my mind. Will you grow to resent him? Will he grow to resent you?
I closed my eyes now to block out the words, but it didn’t work.
We’re not meant to be the main leads in rom-coms, Margot. Not everyone is meant for love. You have to see that.
Panic fluttered through me, the first real emotion I’d felt in days. I couldn’t even put a name to the wanting in my rib cage, but all I knew was that it felt as I could’ve collapsed under the pressure. I surely couldn’t be made for love, because I couldn’t even muster up a single tear at the funeral of the woman I loved more than my own parents.
Without warning, Sumner wrapped his arms around me, tugging me flush to his chest, almost as if he could read my mind. I’d never considered myself a dainty girl who could fall into the arms of someone for comfort, but here I was now. I felt small against him, consumed, and for a moment, I gave into the desire and melted into him. Sumner, Sumner, Sumner . The scent of the cologne in the fabric of his shirt calmed me somewhat. I wanted to burrow into his chest and never emerge.
The darkness was still there, but it was like he was trying to extinguish it with the warmth exuding from him. I let him try. “How can I help you, Margot?” The words were just a step above a mumbled whisper, and I could feel them vibrate in his chest. “Tell me, and I’ll do it.”
I wanted to tell him that he’d done plenty over the past few days, enough to last a lifetime. I appreciated everything he’d done since Nancy’s passing—ordering me room service, staying with me until I fell asleep for the night, holding my hand as long as I needed it. Why couldn’t I tell him any of that? Why couldn’t I just let myself be vulnerable with him?
“Do you have a sister?” I asked into his chest.
I could practically feel Sumner’s confusion. “What?”
“Do you have a sister?” I tightened my hold on him. “Tell me.”
“I do. She’s older—in her thirties.” Sumner’s hand smoothed up and down my back in slow, lulling movements. “Why?”
Because I want Aaron’s voice out of my head . “Any brothers?”
“No. No brothers. I think that’s why my mom thought I’d be a girl, since she already had one. Why are you asking?”
“I never ask questions about you,” I whispered, a burning popping into my eyes. “I should ask more questions.”
Sumner’s voice grew gentle, mimicking the touch along my spine. “Stop, Margot.”
“Stop what?”
“We learn things about each other in time . That’s how relationships work.” Sumner pulled away enough to tip his head down toward me. “You’re not running out of time with me. I’m here. I promised, remember?”
I drew away from his chest and sniffed, though there were still no tears in my eyes. The burning, though, still remained. “You did promise,” I said thickly, fingers once more finding their way to my vest’s buttons. “I should’ve asked Nancy more questions.”
Sumner once more caught at my fingers and stopped them from ruining the fabric. “I’m sure you asked her plenty, Margot. And besides, Nancy’s the kind of woman who only tells you what she wants to. Even if you didn’t ask, she’d have told you something if she wanted you to know it.”
He was right, of course. And if I asked her about something she didn’t want to share, she never would. She’d never be vulnerable unless she chose to be, and even with me, that was rarely.
“Tell me what you need. If you need space—if you need me to call an Uber and let you go back to the hotel alone—I can do that. I don’t want to, but if it’s what you need, I will.”
Alone . If Sumner hadn’t been here today, I would’ve been alone during her service. Mourning one of the most important people in my life… all by myself. I well and truly would’ve gone insane then; I just knew it. And it wasn’t necessarily the fact that I wanted to be alone because I didn’t want to be around anyone—I wanted to be alone to keep these feelings from lashing out.
But another small cry echoed in my head. Please, please, please don’t leave me. Don’t let me push you away .
Nancy had never been vulnerable with me, who was one of the most important people in her life, and I didn’t want to be that way with Sumner. I realized, much like being alone, it was a choice. A hard choice, because it was easier to push someone away, to run from anything uncomfortable. But Sumner was right. That was how relationships worked.
I twisted my fingers in his hand so that they could squeeze his. I tried to imagine this moment without a hand to hold, without a comfort, and thinking about the alternative helped me realize how grateful I actually was for his presence. Even if I felt like a timebomb about to explode. “I don’t want you to leave,” I murmured. “Could you go pull the car around, though? I just want a few minutes… with Nancy.”
“Of course,” he answered with so much tenderness in the two words. With his free hand, he dragged the pad of his thumb along the top of my cheekbone. “Come out to me whenever you’re ready.”
He waited for me to pull my hand back first, but before I did, I leaned forward and kissed him. It was probably inappropriate, given our location, but I had never cared about propriety. It was a short kiss, an assurance where my words were lacking. A promise, of sorts. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere either. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled back.
I half expected the pastor to remain and speak with anyone who wanted to talk to him, but he must’ve realized that there was no one to talk to. I was sure my stone-faced expression during his sermon left him not really wanting to talk to me, either. But the funeral hall was completely empty now, with no sound to echo off the walls.
I walked up to Nancy’s portrait and urn, staring at the wooden lacquered box with her name engraved into it. The date of her birth and death seemed impossibly far apart, nearly a century. And if the birth date was correct, it made her a year older than she always said she was. Ninety-one instead of ninety. An ancient lady. Not anymore.
“You’re such a coward, you know that?” I said to her urn, to the burnt up remains of her just barely hidden from view. “Making me go to Annalise’s wedding alone. You were the one I was supposed to sit and talk to.”
I stared at her urn, trying to imagine what she’d say in response to that—something snippy, I was sure—but her voice was quiet in my mind.
“Then again, it’s totally like you to mar the beautiful day of the Conan wedding. It’s something I would’ve done.”
Again, I couldn’t imagine what she’d say to that. That was almost more painful, the silence of her voice. I hadn’t thought the absence of her would come so quickly, but it was like my brain couldn’t recall the timbre of her tone. Not yet. Not yet.
The choking band around my throat squeezed tighter, and I cleared my throat to speak around it. “You want to be spread around that pond?” I asked the urn. “I don’t know how bad your eyes were, but it’s not as pretty as it once was. I bet all the fish in it are dead. It’d be a drabby spot to be laid to rest, you know.”
There was a sound behind me, rustling, and I glanced over my shoulder. They started picking up the chairs. The remembrance of Nancy, rushed to a finish. It felt morbid, but I reached out and traced her name engraving with the tip of my finger, the scripted font elegant and wrong. Everything all felt wrong.
“Margot.”
I turned at the sound of my name being called from behind me, finding a lone girl standing at the entrance of the funeral hall.
At first, I didn’t recognize her. Her brown hair was pulled back into a low bun, a few curls escaping to frame her face. Her features were sharper than I remembered them, as if she’d lost weight, or maybe it was just that she’d lost her baby fat that’d still lingered in high school. She looked older, as if in the year since we last saw each other, she’d grown five. She looked elegant in her black dress, resembling something like a full adult.
“This was supposed to be a good surprise,” Destelle Brighton said with her eyebrows scrunched together in the world’s saddest expression.
The ache in my chest returned in full force at the sight of my best friend. “I thought you weren’t flying in until tomorrow.”
“I wanted to surprise you by showing up at Annalise’s wedding.” She started toward me, her small heels muffled on the carpeted floors. “Mom only just told me about Nancy. You should’ve called me.”
I should’ve. She should’ve been the first person I called. While Destelle wasn’t close with Nancy much at all, not in the way I was, I still should’ve reached out. Thinking back now, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t. “These past few days have been a whirlwind.”
Destelle was the only one I could stand the pitying expression from, strangely enough. Maybe it was because we’d been so close, had seen each other at our worsts growing up, that it felt okay to let her see that side of me. To bear that burden of my sadness.
Destelle leaned her shoulder against mine and tilted her head close. I could smell her strawberry scented shampoo, and the familiarity of it comforted me. “It doesn’t really look like her, does it?”
We peered at Nancy’s portrait for another long moment, but it didn’t grow any more similar to her. I half expected the funeral director to come up and shoo us out. I wondered what they would do with the portrait then. What they’d do with her ashes. Would they go to the country and spread the ashes themselves? Would they entrust someone else to do it? My stomach clenched at the idea of them reaching out to Yvette or Ms. Jennings, or even my mother.
I allowed myself to lean a bit firmer against Destelle’s side. “No one came.”
Destelle didn’t hesitate. “Bitches.”
A corner of my lips tilted up. “Bitches,” I agreed. Nancy would’ve said the same. I could finally, blessedly, hear her voice in my head. Bitches . “All of them.”
“Are you still going to the wedding?”
Sumner’s suggestion about skipping it echoed in my mind. The idea of going, facing everyone happy and laughing on such a miserable day, was exhausting. But then, the idea of facing my parents’ wrath for not showing up, for not properly introducing myself to Mr. Astor… it was equally exhausting. Breathing itself just felt so exhausting. I just wanted to close my eyes, to bask in that darkness.
“Of course,” I said to Destelle. “My chariot awaits outside. Do you need a ride?”
“Wait, that was your car pulled out front? Was the guy inside him ?” Destelle’s expression lit up a little, and she bumped harder into my shoulder. “ The boy?”
She nudged me again until I smiled, tugging on the hem of my vest to straighten it out. “Yes, that’s him. Sumner. Nancy always talked about how he had a nice butt.”
Destelle nodded understandingly. “She liked Harry’s too. She liked her butts, that’s for sure.”