He paused.
“She went to his funeral, Daniel,” he said.
I froze.
“Your father’s funeral,” Dr. Hale said. “November of 2013. She came. She didn’t go inside. She stood across the street, under an umbrella, and watched them carry him out of the church.”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered that day. I remembered every second of it. The cold. The rain. My mother holding my hand so hard it hurt. The casket going down the church steps.
“She sent flowers,” Dr. Hale said. “White lilies. With a little card.”
My eyes flew open.
I remembered the lilies. I remembered them because they were different from all the other flowers. Everybody else sent roses and carnations. But there was one big arrangement of white lilies by the casket, and nobody knew who sent them. My mother asked everybody. Nobody knew.
There was a card with them. I remembered it. I’d read it myself, standing there at fifteen years old in my too-big black suit.
