St. Augustine’s Cathedral was cool and dim when I arrived, all stone and wax and stained glass. The organ was already murmuring under people’s conversations. There were polished shoes on marble floors, damp tissues, men with their ties loosened even though the service hadn’t started yet. My father had known everyone in half the city, and apparently all of them had come.I stood in the back of the cathedral for a second just to breathe.
At the front, his casket sat beneath a spray of white roses and blue delphiniums. Father Martinez was speaking softly to Mr. Blackwood, Dad’s attorney and oldest friend. My aunt Helen was directing people with the expression of a woman who would personally fistfight chaos if it tried her. All of it felt unreal, like I’d wandered into a performance of my own life and someone else had been cast as me.
Then I saw my husband.
Grant was seated in the front row where he should have been, except he wasn’t alone.
The woman beside him was wearing my dress.