Chapter 6: The Funeral Home Invoice
The invoice was still on the fridge.
I'd walked past it forty times in two weeks.
I'd moved it once to get to the magnet underneath — a lemon-shaped one my mother had sent as a joke years ago, because I'd complained that our fridge magnets were boring — and then I'd put it back in the same spot.
I didn't know why I hadn't paid it.
We had the money.
It wasn't that.
On Saturday morning I took it down.
Tom was at the table with his coffee.
He watched me take it down and smooth it flat on the counter.
"I'll come with you," he said.
"It's just a payment."
"I know." He didn't move to get up.
He just said it.
*I'll come with you.*
"Okay," I said.
We dropped Max at Tom's brother's place and drove to the funeral home together.
It was a twenty-minute drive.
We didn't talk much.
The radio was on low — some weekend morning program, a man with a gentle voice talking about gardens.
The funeral home was a converted Victorian house on a quiet street.
It had a car park at the side and a small sign by the door that was tasteful in the way that places like this always are, like they've thought very carefully about every detail so you don't have to think about anything at all.
A woman named Patricia met us at the desk.
She had the manner of someone who had spent decades being steady in rooms where other people couldn't be, and I was grateful for it.
"I'm here to settle the account," I said.
"For Margaret Hollis."
"Of course." She typed something.
"I'm very sorry for your loss."
"Thank you."
Tom stood just behind my left shoulder.
Not in front of me, not managing it.
Just — there.
Patricia printed a receipt and slid it across the desk.
I signed it.
That was all.
The whole thing took four minutes.
We were back in the car park when I stopped walking.
Tom stopped too.
"She picked everything herself," I said.
"The casket.
The flowers.
The music.
She called them eighteen months ago and made all the decisions and then she called me and said she'd sorted a few admin things."
"I know," Tom said.
"You told me."
"I was so angry at her for that." I looked at the building.
"I thought she was being morbid.
I thought she was catastrophizing." I shook my head.
"She was just trying to make it easier for me.
She was doing it from the beginning and I kept thinking she was doing something wrong."
Tom didn't say anything.
He waited.
"I told her she was being dramatic," I said.
"When she first brought it up.
I said, you've got years yet, stop being morbid." My voice was steady but my hands weren't.
"She never brought it up again.
She just — went and did it herself."
"She knew you," Tom said gently.
"She wasn't hurt by it."
"You don't know that."
"No," he said.
"But Riley might."
I looked at him.
"She talked to Riley about all of it," he said.
"If she'd been hurt by what you said, Riley would know.
And Riley — " he paused.
" — Riley would have told you by now.
She's not someone who holds things back to protect you."
I thought about that.
About the box under the bed.
About the Sunday phone calls.
About *she said you'd had a harder life than you let on and that you'd never once asked anyone to notice.*
"She was proud of me," I said.
"Yes."
"I didn't know that.
I mean — I knew she loved me.
But proud." I shook my head.
"I thought I'd disappointed her.
The money stuff.
The years when things were tight.
I thought she worried."
"She did worry," Tom said.
"And she was proud.
Both."
I leaned against the car.
The morning was cold and bright, the kind of day that looks warmer than it is.
"I need to talk to Riley," I said.
"Properly.
About all of it.
About what my mum told her and what she didn't tell me and — I need to hear it from her.
Not because I'm owed it.
Just because I think I need it."
"She'll talk to you," Tom said.
"She's been waiting for you to ask."
"How do you know?"
He almost smiled.
"Because she's your mother's granddaughter.
She's been patient with us for two weeks.
She's not going to make you beg."
I pushed off the car.
"Let's get Max," I said.
"And on the way home, can we stop somewhere?
I want to get a frame.
For one of those cards."
Tom looked at me.
"The one that says *I'll always find you,*" I said.
"I want to put it somewhere I can see it."
He nodded.
May you like
He didn't say anything else.
He just unlocked the car, and we got in, and we drove.
