I do the same thing I did then: straighten my back, keep my eyes trained ahead, and recite prime numbers in my head.
Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen—
My dad is in front of me, showing no signs of noticing the heads swiveling toward us. Davy shuffles along behind. I know he’s scanning the crowd, looking at everyone we pass, searching for Marion.
The line to get in starts before we even reach the steps. The whole town has turned out for this. And they’re not just here to pay their respects to Thatcher and the Montgomerys, a family who’s only ever here in the summer. No. They’re here for the gossip. This thing that’s ripped apart the Montgomerys’ lives, and which I am absolutely certain has not finished messing with mine, is entertainment for most of them. I want to scream at them all to go home.
But I don’t.
We join the line. I touch Fiona’s necklace and try to only look straight ahead, but I can’t help looking over at Davy, who’s twitching like someone’s put ants down his shirt.
I nudge him in the side. “She won’t be back here. She’ll be up front with her family.”
My brother blinks at me. “Right. I know. I just want to be prepared.”
I want to tell him I don’t think there really is a way to prepare yourself for seeing your first love who entirely ghosted you ever since one of your siblings was murdered and whose sibling has also just been murdered in an eerily similar fashion. But you can’t be flippant and sarcastic with Davy. He was a serious kid who’s grown into a serious teenager, and it’s not like life here has ever done anything to bring any levity to that.
The line inches forward till we’re past the lobby of the funeral home. More people are turning to look at me. I stay between Davy and the floral wallpaper as we approach the main room, the one with the chairs set up in neat rows, flowers and photographs lining the walls. And up front, the family.
Davy stiffens. I have to stop myself from grabbing his hand, not only for him but for me. I clutch on to Fiona’s necklace instead. Fiona’s wake and funeral felt like a dream I had, not a thing that actually happened. I remember this room being much bigger. I felt tiny in it, like a doll in a room of oversize furniture. I remember the floral wallpaper, lurid and too bright, blending with the actual flowers in the room, too many of them, a jungle, sickly sweet and green and pink and twisting out at me, carnivorous, ready to snap me up if I took my eyes off them. I remember not wanting to go anywhere near the casket, near whatever cold, waxy doll they’d put in there that was not Fiona, but Davy couldn’t bear to be by it, and my dad looked like he’d collapse right into it, and so I stood closest to the casket, shielding them. I remember thinking it was the wrong color, too dark for Fiona. Fiona was light, the way I used to be, before; blond hair, blue eyes, pale pink leotard and skirt. But it’s not like a pink casket would have made things any better.
There are still mornings when I wake up and my first tangled thoughts are of Fiona, if she has dance today or if she’d have time to hang out. My only sister and first friend. Just a year apart from me in age. Giggling inside our blanket fort on New Year’s Eve, holding hands on the first day of school, plotting to marry brothers and always live near each other. I slept in her bed for six months after Mom left. She’s the one I told when Seth first kissed me. When Jeremy first did. I missed my mom, of course I did, but Fiona was the one I knew I couldn’t live without.
Sometimes I still don’t believe it’s true. That she’s gone.
And now Seth will know what that feels like.
Before I’m ready, we’re next in line. I wish suddenly, fervently, that I’d been a coward, that I’d stayed home.
Someone in front of me moves, and there’s Seth in a black suit, black hair slicked down, stubble shaved away, handsome face impassive. He stands next to his petite, dark-haired mother as she nods at people giving their condolences. There’s none of the grief hanging on him that I saw at the ravine. But I’m not fooled. He’s good at hiding his feelings.
Someone else shifts, and then I see Seth’s uncle and father, the brothers, the patriarchs. Thatcher Montgomery Sr. is an older, broader version of his son: gray-streaked brown hair, chiseled features, expensive suit over powerful shoulders. He looks older than I remember, or maybe that’s the shadows under his eyes. Seth’s dad, Harold Montgomery, is shorter than his brother, more stocky than muscular, has darker hair and less of it. I don’t know either of them very well—they were mostly in the city during our summers together—but an ache goes through me when I look at Thatcher’s dad, his mom next to him, trim and blond and botoxed, wrapped up in a dark navy dress. The end of her nose is pink where her foundation has worn off, and the thick eyeliner and obviously fake lashes can’t conceal her red-rimmed eyes. I have a sudden image in my head of what my own mother might have looked like if she’d stuck around, if she’d cared enough to be standing here beside us while Fiona lay dead in her casket. Not for the first time, I wonder, wherever my mother is, if she’s still alive, if she even knows.
The last of the Montgomery family comes into view. Marion and her sister, Kendall.
Next to me, Davy tenses.
Marion looks a little thinner, a little paler than I remember, but she’s basically the same: brown-gold hair and big brown eyes. Today her hair’s in neat, unnatural curls, and she’s wearing too much makeup, thick eyeliner smudged from crying, foundation that tissues have rubbed away in places. The curls and makeup make her look older. And a lot more like Kendall.
Kendall Montgomery was Fiona’s friend, never really mine. I can’t blame her for that, though. I’d pick Fiona over me, too. Kendall has the same neat, unnatural curls as her sister, her makeup more artfully applied, the way it always is. But even through that, I can see that her eyes are the reddest of all.
I wonder how much Seth told her about that night. What she’ll do when she sees me.
Right as I’m thinking that, Kendall’s eyes go to mine and cut quickly away.
The woman in front of her says something, and Kendall leans forward to embrace her, giving her a smile I can tell is fake even from here. And then, so subtly I wouldn’t have seen if I wasn’t staring at them, she nudges Marion in the side. And Marion turns and sees us.
Sees Davy. Her eyes widen. Her lips part.
She still has feelings for him. It’s written all over her face. It makes me think it wasn’t Marion’s choice to cut Davy off after last summer. Someone else made it for her.
Kendall murmurs something I can’t hear to the woman, then grabs her sister’s arm, and the two of them walk out of the room.
I blink. They just ran away from us.
But I don’t have time to see Davy’s reaction. The woman in front of me is gone, and now I’m face-to-face with Seth.
“Sorry for your loss.” I echo the words of everyone who came before me.
“Thank you.” His voice is odd, formal and without its usual inflection of sarcasm. We don’t touch, just nod, but his eyes are locked on mine.
Then Seth stumbles, grabbing on to my arm for balance. I’m taken off guard but manage not to fall into Davy before Seth straightens up.
“Sorry,” Seth says. He gives me one last look, and then it’s time to move on.
That was weird.
I repeat the empty words to his mom, barely hear her murmured thank-you. Then to his dad. I glance up and am surprised to find Harold Montgomery staring at me.
He seems angry.
My heart drops to my shoes.
Does he know I was there that night? Does he know about last summer? Does he resent me because he thinks if it weren’t for me, Seth would have been safely tucked up inside his house both times, nowhere near any murder investigations?
Or does he think I killed Thatcher, too?
I can’t think on it anymore. Thatcher’s parents are next.