Chapter 8
Julien guided Hannah to a restaurant a block from the funeral home, behind which were ten parking spots, hidden from view. It was a goldmine. Only three were taken. Hannah slid into a free space and breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought leaving Miami would mean parking wasn’t a nightmare anymore.”
Julien laughed. “It’s not even tourist season yet. In the summer, it’s even worse.”
Hannah and Julien walked through the warm sunshine toward the funeral home.
There was a line to enter, with guests standing cross-armed and looking at one another.
Hannah could just barely make out Natalie and her husband, speaking conspiratorially with another guest. She would have given anything to know what they were talking about.
When she glanced back at Julien, she saw that he looked awkward in his body, keeping a stoic face, his eyes straight ahead.
They had no reason to talk to one another, although Hannah ached to interview him for more information about Nantucket and its residents.
She reminded herself that she was grieving, that Thomas was supposed to be her second cousin.
It took nearly fifteen minutes to enter the funeral home.
Once there, it was clear the funeral home was full, so most guests didn’t have seats.
A few people came up to Julien to say a quiet hello, some of them gently touching his upper arm.
Hannah thought it was strange and sort of beautiful that people were so soft with one another at funerals.
Of course, that softness went away as soon as people entered the real world.
Without anyone else at the funeral, Hannah kept close to Julien, praying that he wouldn’t mind.
He felt sort of like a human shield, one that kept her from the prying eyes of other Nantucket residents—and Natalie.
She didn’t want to see Natalie’s volatile gaze, nor answer any of Natalie’s questions about why Hannah had decided to be a voyeur.
She imagined Natalie telling her that what she was doing was wrong. It was obscene.
Now that Hannah thought about it, she couldn’t remember what she and Natalie had had in common to begin with. Why had they ever been friends?
It was then Hannah realized the casket was closed. This was intriguing, especially since nobody would talk about the cause of death, save for the fact that it was, apparently, an accident. But what sort of accident had it been? And why was it so hush-hush? Hannah’s ears rang.
A pastor came to the front of the funeral home to read scripture and talk about Thomas Bard and his so-called “remarkable life of service.” The pastor was probably around Thomas’s age, with dark gray hair and curly eyebrows.
“I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Thomas since the eighth grade,” the pastor said morosely.
“I can honestly say that I’ve never met a more honest, more God-fearing, more considerate Nantucketer in my life.
Everything he did was for this community, until his dying day. ”
Again, Hannah’s ears rang with alarm. Something felt amiss, although she couldn’t put her finger on it.
As the pastor continued to speak, she scanned the crowd.
It was incredible how different everyone here looked from people in Miami.
Miami was all suntans and tight waists and facial reconstruction surgery.
Everyone looked like they could model. Everyone looked young, even if they weren’t.
By contrast, Nantucketers looked like real people.
After years and years of harsh New England winters on the ocean, they were hardy and stubborn and wise.
Hannah found her heart softening to them almost immediately.
She felt that there was history on Nantucket, stories of hundreds of years of community. Maybe Miami had had that, too. But it had been blotted out by the modern age, by social media models and the desire for something glittery and more.
Eventually, she scanned all the way to the aisle off to the right, where a formidable group of older women sat together, wearing wide-brim black hats.
They were maybe in their seventies. Hannah sensed a heaviness around them, as though they had wisdom that everyone else in the room couldn’t fathom.
Because her mother had died many years ago, Hannah didn’t have many interactions with older women.
She itched to interview them, if only to hear what they would say about Thomas Bard. Surely, they’d known him for years.
The funeral lasted a little less than an hour.
Several people got up to speak, including Thomas Bard’s widow and two of his children.
His granddaughter, a blond girl who had to be around Minnie’s age, got up to play the piano while her brother sang.
They weren’t very good, but everyone applauded anyway.
Hannah wondered if Minnie had met the blond girl; she hoped she was making friends at school. A glance at her phone told her that Minnie still hadn’t responded to her text, although she was definitely out of class.
After the final prayer, when it was over, Hannah turned to look at Julien.
He seemed just as stoic as he had when they’d come in, as though nothing of the ceremony had affected him.
Around them, people began to mill out, speaking to one another about their plans afterward.
One of them mentioned the wake, and Hannah’s ears rang again.
Could she discover more about Thomas Bard and his death at the wake?
Could she keep her lie going a little while longer?
The idea that Natalie would point her out and try to destroy her, at this point, sort of thrilled her. Natalie probably wouldn’t have it in her to cause a scene anyway.
But then, the three seventy-something women she’d seen in the crowd appeared before Julien, touching his shoulder and saying hello.
The one in the center, the tallest one, seemed like the proudest and scariest woman Hannah had ever seen.
She was the kind of woman who’d once been very beautiful and now maintained a sense of self that demanded respect from anyone who encountered her.
They looked at Julien fondly, as though they were his aunts.
Their eyes found Hannah, too. She braced herself for Julien to introduce her as Thomas’s “second cousin,” but Julien didn’t seem to want to talk to them for very long. This intrigued her, too.
“Are you going to the wake, Julien?” one of the women asked.
“It’s the right thing to do,” another said.
Julien grimaced and then looked at Hannah. Hannah nodded. “I’ll be there,” she said.
“I guess I’ll stop by for a bit,” Julien said. “But I have to get back to the docks.”
“Our harbor master never takes any time off,” one of the women said, mostly to Hannah.
Although she wasn’t versed in oceanic language, “harbor master” still seemed like a term worthy of respect. Hannah felt her heart fill with curiosity for this gruff, strong, silent man. She couldn’t believe he’d gotten into the passenger seat of her car and let her take the wheel.
Julien said goodbye to the older woman, hanging back to let them walk.
Hannah kept by his side, scouting for Natalie’s blond flash of hair and watching as she left along with everyone else.
Julien and Hannah were among the last to leave, allowing Hannah a final glance back at the closed casket, the photograph of a handsome, white-headed Thomas Bard hanging directly beside it, adorned with flowers.
Her heart pumped. Although this story was a curiosity for her and had her investigative journalist instincts pulsing, she couldn’t forget that a man had died.
He was a man with a wife, children, and grandchildren who loved him. That was a tragedy.
Outside, it had begun to rain again. Hannah zipped up her raincoat and watched as Julien flipped up his hood. “What did you think of the funeral?” she asked when the silence between them threatened to drown her.
Julien let his eyes flick over to her. “It wasn’t so different from other funerals.”
“I guess so. There’s always a script,” Hannah said. “Sometimes I wish funerals were allowed to mix things up a little bit. To reflect who the person really was. Like how they do it in New Orleans.”
Julien gave her a curious look.
“They have parades for their dead, sometimes,” Hannah explained. “It’s more of a celebration of life than anything serious and sad.” She stuttered, overthinking things. “I’m not saying it’s not sad. It is. But…”
“But life is a gift,” Julien offered.
Hannah smiled, surprised that he’d finished her thought. They were on the sidewalk, headed for the restaurant where the wake was being held. An enormous flock of people wearing all black was up ahead, walking toward the restaurant, probably hungry and eager for wine.
“Like I said,” Hannah began, “I didn’t know Thomas very well. Is there someone I can talk to at the funeral? Someone who could tell me more about him? I didn’t think the pastor did a great job of illustrating, you know, his personality. Who he really was.”
Julien furrowed his brow. “I don’t know. I guess you could talk to some of your family members?”
Hannah’s heartbeat quickened. Was he saying that because he could see through her lies? “How would you describe him?”
Julien thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Angry, sometimes. Passionate is maybe the word you’re supposed to use.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I saw him the night before he died,” Julien said thoughtfully. “He gave a speech at the city council meeting. He was angry. Angrier than I’d ever seen him.”
Hannah stopped short. Rain pelted the hood of her jacket. “What was he angry about?”
Julien waved his hand. “It’s difficult to explain. I think he hated that he didn’t have as much power as he thought he deserved.”
“But he was high up on the city council, right?”
Julien nodded. “Elections only take you so far in Nantucket. There’s an order to things here. I guess it’s different from what you’re used to down in Florida.”
Thinking of her husband, who’d taken whatever power he’d wanted along with whatever money he’d craved, regardless of his elected status, Hannah stifled an ironic laugh.
“I think things might be the same everywhere,” she said.
Julien stopped again. This time, he looked her dead in the eye and said, “As far as I know, things are not safe here. They’re not right here.
But as long as you keep to yourself, as long as you respect what’s always been, you won’t have any trouble.
” He tried to smile, as though he recognized how dark he’d gotten, then added, “But I guess that doesn’t matter to you.
You won’t be here long enough for anything else to happen. ”
Hannah’s voice was small. “So something did happen to Thomas?”
Julien raised his shoulders to his ears. “I don’t know anything. I really don’t.”