The Deepest Blue (17 page)

“Rich was an amazing guy. He was a hard-working guy, and he expected the best from everyone. But he was fair, and he was funny.” Chuck clears his throat and then tips his head back slightly. I can see him struggling to maintain his composure. “I never had a better friend, and I'm sure many of you feel the same way.” He grips the edges of the podium as if he is holding it in place. “Rich did everything from his heart. From raising his son,” he
raises his arm and gestures toward me, “to helping people around town, he approached everything with integrity, with honesty.”

I glance to my left. Tears stream down Maggie's cheeks, her eyes glued on Chuck. I put a hand on her arm and can feel her shaking. A burning ache rises in my stomach.

“If Rich believed in something, he believed one hundred percent. He didn't hold anything back. When I told him I wanted to be a lawyer, he believed in me. He helped me get through law school. He helped me get my practice started. Hell, he was my first client.” Chuck lets out a heartfelt laugh, and a few people in the room release a laugh, too.

“I always knew that Rich would be there for me if I needed him. He was loyal like a dog—fiercely loyal. You always knew that he had your back, no matter what. It was an honor to know him, and in everything I do, I will continue to strive to be more like him.”

Chuck wipes at his face with the back of his hand as he leaves the podium. Mr. Stroud takes his place with a black hymnal in his hand. “Would you please turn to page 173 and join in singing ‘Eternal Father, Strong to Save' for our hymn?”

We all sing in disparate voices:

“Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

Who biddest the mighty ocean deep, Its own appointed limits keep;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea . . .”

After two more verses, we stop. Maggie nudges me, and I realize it's time for me to stand up and say something. I make my way to the front, adjust the microphone, and look out at the faces. The room is filled. I hadn't noticed all these people coming in, but there are at least a hundred, maybe more. So much for the small family gathering. My heart races. I scan the room for Rachel, but all I can see is a blur of people. I spot Maggie, and she looks at me with an encouraging but worried smile.

“I'm supposed to say something great about my dad,” I say. My voice echoes in the room. Papers rustle. Someone coughs. “My dad was my best friend. He was everything to me.” My throat begins to tighten, but I see Maggie's smile, and I swallow hard. “And he wasn't the greatest at everything. He wasn't perfect. He couldn't make macaroni and cheese without turning it into soup.” I smile as I remember all the runny, orange goo that Dad would try to call dinner. “He wasn't good at laundry, either. One time he washed all my white T-shirts with a pair of red shorts and turned everything pink.” I laugh a little as a tear slips from the corner of my eye, and I hear laughter from people who would recognize my dad in the story. “But he was great with people. All our charter customers loved him. They came back year after year because he was so good. And all the little old ladies in Moorehead loved him because he could fix their roofs, or their leaky pipes, or their broken hinges on their cupboards.” I hear
someone sniff. “And people at the dock loved him because he was nice, and he was generous, and he was honest and fair.” I look down at the top of the podium. “He loved Maggie a lot. He loved her because she took care of us. He loved her because she made him laugh. He loved her because she loved me. He loved her so much that he was going to marry her, but someone took that away from us.”

Now I can't stop the tears from coming. I can't look up, not even at Maggie. I hear people sobbing and sniffing.

“But even though someone took him physically, they can't take away his love. He had so much of it. No one could ever take all that.” I step away from the podium and sit next to Maggie again. She pats my leg. The organ begins playing again, something I almost recognize. The tune is full of sadness, but full of hope, too. The silver-haired lady who is playing has her head tipped to one side, eyes closed as though she is in rapture. She finishes with a flourish, then rests her hands in her lap and opens her eyes.

Mr. Stroud stands at the podium again. “The family extends their thanks to those of you who joined us today. You are invited to join the family at St. John's church on Beaufort Street for a reception. God bless you all and drive home safely.”

He steps toward us and raises an arm, pointing up the aisle for us to leave. Maggie goes first. I take her hand. Chuck walks behind us. I can hardly see where I'm walking, my eyes are so blurry, and I can barely breathe. We
step out of the funeral home into the bright heat of the day. The cicadas are buzzing in the trees like electrical static across wires. I become aware that I am inside the bubble on autopilot again. I know it's hot, and I'm aware of the buzz, but it comes through layers I can't see or feel. Chuck steps ahead of me and unlocks the doors, then he flips the seat forward so I can climb inside the VW.

Across the parking lot, I can see Jayden getting into the driver's seat of a white sedan. His mom climbs into the passenger side. I think about driving the truck with Dad, struggling to coordinate the clutch and the brake and the gas all at once. Inevitably I would let out one or the other too fast, causing us to lurch forward and slam to a halt. Dad would laugh and say, “Ease it out, son,” or “Lighten up on it slowly,” or some other piece of advice that was, to me, meaningless in my fear and uncoordinated panic.

I watch the white car pull away from the mortuary, signal, and merge onto the main road. Chuck guides the VW out of the lot and into the flow of traffic. A bouncy country tune comes on the radio, and he quickly silences it. Maggie softly cries. I am completely numb.

chapter 14

There is a hushed crowd of people milling around the large gymnasium at St. John's. The floor is marked with basketball court lines, though the baskets are all raised. I sit in a chair at half court at a round table covered in a white paper cloth. At the far end of the room is a kitchen where ladies from their teens to their eighties are fixing trays of food and filling silver pitchers with lemonade mix, water, and ice. We arrived before they were completely set up, and now they scurry like squirrels to get platters and trays onto the long table in the center of the open space.

Jayden sits to my right, Rachel to my left. They talk about Asheville, about Jayd getting his license, about what kind of car he will drive. He tells Rachel that his grandparents may let him buy their Camry, and Rachel says something like it's a good car and gets great mileage. It sounds like I have water in my ear canals.

The smell of fried chicken and fruit salad mingles with the faint scent of antiseptic cleaner that was probably used
to mop the floor. Shoes click and squeak on the wooden surface, and muted voices echo off the high ceiling.

Maggie sits one table away, smiling politely at each person who touches her shoulder and offers his or her condolences. Chuck had been sitting next to her, but he's walked off somewhere.

“Mike?” Rachel says, a look of concern furrowing her forehead.

“What?” I say, trying to strain through the bubble to be part of the real world—for a minute, anyway.

“Jayd was saying we should go to a movie later this week. I think it's a great idea.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I say. I can't think past this second, so I can't make plans for the end of the week.

“We'll just check in later and see,” Jayden says. “Maybe you won't feel like it.”

I shrug. “I don't know.” Because I don't. I don't know how I feel right now.

Jack Sutton walks toward me, barely able to meet my eyes with his own. His hands are shoved into the pockets of a suit that looks like its better years were sometime in the mid '70s. “Mike,” he says, extending one hand to me.

I clasp his hand in mine with a firm grip. “Mr. Sutton.”

“Son, I'm just so damned sorry. I just can't believe this whole thing.” He lets go of my hand and wipes at his brow with a white handkerchief he pulls from a back pocket, then shoves his hand back into the front pocket. “I know this is all so fresh, so I won't bother you with business.”

“The boat.” I am thinking aloud more than anything.

Jack looks a bit sheepish, but it's no news that the
Mighty Mike
is the envy of many at the dock. She's less than ten years old, has two sport-fishing chairs in the back, and she's thirty feet long. Dad kept her in prime condition, too.

“I don't want you to think I'm trying to take advantage.” Jack looks me square in the eye now. “I'd never do that to your dad. He was too good a man for me to try to take advantage.”

“I don't know yet what we'll do with it,” I say. “I know it's something Maggie and I will have to think about, but we haven't had a chance.”

Jack nods. “No rush, son. Just want you to know I'm here to help.”

Part of me wants to be angry about Jack asking, but he's a good guy, and he really isn't trying to overstep his boundaries. No doubt it took a lot for him just to say anything. I watch as he walks off. He wipes at his forehead again and then stops at the long table to gulp down a glass of lemonade.

More people mill around the gymnasium, filling plates with food and talking in hushed voices. Every once in a while soft laughter filters through the air, but it quickly dissipates in the heaviness of the business at hand. I only recognize about half the faces, and it amazes me so many people knew my dad. I'm a little annoyed they all seem to want a piece of my dad, like they can lay claim to him somehow, and I want to get up and yell that he was
my
dad, and what gives them the right? But
Maggie's words come back to me. My dad touched a lot of lives, but I can be proud that he was my dad—and no one else gets to have that.

Chuck returns and stands over Maggie, his back to me. Maggie sits up suddenly and looks around the room with panic on her face. I can hear her say, “Get him out of here,” and I wonder who “him” is. Then she looks at me.

I look at Maggie, then at Chuck. He motions me to him.

“What's wrong?”

Chuck puts an arm around my shoulder as if he's pulling me into a conspiracy against the kitchen ladies. “We might have a small problem . . .” he says. “Julia is here.”

Instinctively I look around the room.
Yeah,
I think,
as if you might actually recognize her.

Maggie grabs my arm and pulls me into the chair next to hers. “You don't have to see her. You don't have to talk to her,” she says.

“How do you even know she's here?” I ask.

Chuck clears his throat. “I heard her introduce herself and ask where you were.”

Again I look around the room, more crowded now as people from all over the Outer Banks region arrive to mourn my dad. I spot a woman in an emerald green dress with her hair pinned back, another in a beige skirt and brown shirt with long, dark hair.
She could be anyone,
I think. I try to draw a picture of her in my mind, try to visualize how she might look now.

Maggie touches my hand. “If you want to see her, that's up to you. I just don't think it's a good idea today.”

My heart speeds up at the fear in Maggie's voice. “Maybe Jayden can drive me home,” I say. “Or to your house.”

Maggie looks at Chuck, searching his face with her eyes. Chuck looks down at me, his hand still resting on my shoulder. “It's up to you. Nothing's been decided, and we've got the court date. We just have to wait until we can get before a judge tomorrow and start the process.”

“But I don't have to see her now, do I?” I can feel the panic rising in my chest and constricting my voice.

Jayden has moved to my left. “Is everything okay?” he asks, as if he somehow should be a part of the plot shaping up at our table.

“I'll explain later.” I turn my shoulder to him.

“I heard you say my name. You need me to do something?”

I look at him, his brown hair flopping over one eye. He brushes it away with the sweep of his hand, but it falls back to where it was.

“Maybe, I'm not sure yet,” I say. “Give us a second, and I'll fill you in.”

Jayd nods and moves back to the other table. I can hear Rachel asking questions, but I look to Maggie instead.

“If you want to go to my house, I'll give you the keys,” Maggie says. She digs through her small bag and fishes out the key ring. The keys jangle as she sets them on the table.

I look around the room again. The flood of people ebbs and surges. I feel like I'm on the boat in rough waters. “I think I'll go,” I say. I turn in the chair and grab
Jayd by the elbow. “Can you drive me somewhere?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you need.”

“I need to go,” I say. “Now. Check with your mom. Make sure it's okay.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Can I come?” Rachel looks at me with concern in her eyes.

“I guess.”

Jayden comes back to the table and gives me a thumbs up. I push Maggie's keys toward her. “I've got one, remember?”