Stranger Read online

  “I thought it would be worth it,” Sam said.

  I had to swallow hard before I could answer. “And now you don’t? Because of decisions I made before I even met you?”

  There was more to it, I was sure. More about his dad. His music. My sweet Sam was a bundle of issues he didn’t want to share.

  “Look at it this way,” he said at last. “I’m giving you what you wanted. Now you don’t have to worry about crying.”

  “It’s too late, Sam. I already am.”

  For a minute, I thought he’d take me in his arms. That everything would be all right. I thought we’d work through this and come out stronger for it.

  “Just pretend I’m still a stranger,” he said, and that was when I left.

  Chapter 20

  It would be dramatic to say the earth stopped turning for me, or the sun stopped shining. I could say I plunged into a deep depression and couldn’t get out of bed, but that would be a lie. I didn’t have time not to function. Jared’s internship had ended and he’d passed his license test.

  He’d accepted the job I’d offered him and would start after a month’s vacation. Good for him, bad for me. I still hadn’t decided about offering him a partnership.

  Shelly, however, had quit. She and Jared had fought horrifically about the whole partnership thing, and she’d broken up with him. I hadn’t heard if she’d gone back to a smug and formerly forsaken Duane, but I was sure to find out sooner or later.

  I stopped hoping each phone call I answered would be Sam after the second week, not because I didn’t want him to call, but because I had to force away the sadness and concentrate on my life. I cried, sometimes, but even the urge to do that faded every day.

  With Jared gone and a temporary office manager who didn’t know the routine, I was trying to juggle eggs without making omelets. I could handle the services and burials. I could even handle the embalmings and preparations. I didn’t sleep much, but that was okay because it meant when I did that I didn’t dream of Sam.

  What I prayed wouldn’t happen was a home-death call. Most of the calls we got came from hospitals and nursing homes, and I kept my fingers crossed that nothing else would happen until I could get Jared back on the job.

  No such luck.

  The call came in the early afternoon from a family who’d been in a month before to make arrangements. The wife was dying of pancreatic cancer and had hospice service at home. They’d expected her to pass away much sooner, but she’d held on.

  I assured them I’d be there to take care of her as soon as the doctor signed the papers, and then I hung up the phone and buried my face in my hands.

  “Ms. Frawley?”

  I looked up. No matter how many times I’d told Susie to call me Grace, she hadn’t quite mastered it. And she still closed her eyes at the sight of a corpse. “Yes?”

  “You have a couple messages.”

  I thanked her and took them, sorting through them and finding nothing from Sam. No message from Jared telling me he’d be back earlier than planned, either.

  Dammit. What was I going to do? I couldn’t go alone. I couldn’t tell the family I wasn’t able to take care of their wife and mother.

  I did the only thing I could do. I called my dad.

  Things had been strained between us since the day of my mom’s party, but he didn’t refuse to help me. I knew he wouldn’t. No matter what he might think about me, my dad wouldn’t let down a client.

  I’d worked with my dad often enough to know his style. The words he used to offer comfort to the family, the way he preferred to cover the bodies and tuck in the edges, all of that.

  But watching him this time I seemed to see it all with fresh eyes. I saw myself in my dad, in subtle ways, like which straps on the gurney I buckled first or how I folded the body’s hands.

  At the funeral home he helped me get everything settled and started, but instead of telling me what to do or correcting me when I did something differently, he followed my lead.

  “Things have changed,” was his only comment.

  I’d been thinking a lot about the partnership idea. Jared was a good worker, and taking on a partner would mean more freedom for me in many ways. Making this business a corporation would change things but also make them better, I thought. I thought my dad might growl when I brought the subject up, but I had to ask someone and I respected his opinion.

  We talked about it for a long time, as we worked and later, in my apartment over coffee and doughnuts. He had a lot of good points, but more importantly, he listened to what I had to say and didn’t try to tell me what to do. He offered advice without orders.

  I got up to hand him another doughnut when he side-swiped me.

  “We haven’t seen you in a while. Why don’t you come over for dinner on Sunday. Bring Sam.”

  I put the plate back on the coffee table. “I don’t see Sam anymore, Dad. We broke up.”

  My dad didn’t have to say anything. He just held out his arm and made a place for me to cradle my face against his shoulder when I started to cry.

  “It hurts, doesn’t it,” he said, patting my back. “I know.”

  That was all he said, but it was enough. Later, when I’d stopped crying, he offered me the ever-present white hankie from his pocket. I declined with a grimace, and we laughed.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there enough when you were younger,” my dad said. “I know you think I don’t have the right to tell you what to do now.”

  “And I know you’re just trying to help. I do. But…it’s better if you let me ask you.

  Okay?”

  He nodded with a sigh. “Yeah. For what it’s worth, Gracie, I’m sorry about your fella.”

  “Me, too, Dad.”

  “I think it’s a good idea. Offering Jared the partnership. The home’s too much work for one person. I had your uncle Chuck and it was still a lot of work. I missed things I shouldn’t have. It’s good to have time for your family, too. Your kids.”

  I gave a soft snort. “I don’t have kids.”

  “Someday,” my dad said.

  I’d thought I was done crying, but I was wrong.

  The service had been simple but well attended. Mrs. Hoover had been loved by many. I’d hung back to make sure the chapel was empty before I drove the hearse to the cemetery, and found Mr. Hoover still sitting in the seat in front of the poster-size photo of his late wife.

  “Mr. Hoover, it’s time to go.”

  He looked up with a smile. “I know. I just wanted to sit here for a few minutes. I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well. The bed’s just not the same without her in it.”

  “I understand,” I told him, and I did.

  “Of course, she hasn’t been in our bed for months, but I guess while she was still in the house I could imagine that one day she might be.”

  I nodded. Time was ticking, but I didn’t even glance at my watch. I sat beside him, instead, and we both looked at the picture of Mrs. Hoover.

  “That was her graduation picture,” he said. “I already knew then that I wanted to marry her, but she wouldn’t say yes. I’d asked her twice by the time we graduated from high school, but she said she wanted to wait until after she’d gone to nursing school.”

  “She was lovely.”

  “And headstrong. Mercy, but that woman was bossy.”

  I handed him a tissue, but he waved it away and took out a white hankie to wipe his eyes. I patted his hand. We both looked a bit longer at the picture.

  “If you’d known back then that someday you’d be sitting here like this, getting ready to bury her,” I asked him, “would you still have married her? Even knowing one day you’d have to live without her?”

  “Oh, heavens yes,” Mr. Hoover said with a sigh.

  “Even though it hurts so much?” I heard the quaver in my voice and fought to hold it back.

  “Of course.” Mr. Hoover patted my hand now. “Because my life’s been so much richer for having had her in it, you see. And I know I�