Book One, Page Sixteen. Meet The Survivors.
The sight of the extravagant redhead made Jerry rise, instinctively and immediately. He existence required more space than that occupied by the aura of the average person. People in the room moved subtly to the left and right, parting to make way for her. Her clothes were not holding her in, either. Her youth--if she was thirty, it was barely--accentuated the effect, since most of those pushed aside by her wake were well into the latter halves or quarters of their lives.
Jerry had been sitting in what he supposed was her chair. He used this as a pretext to begin a conversation. "Here you go," he said. "I was just talking to Mr. Roquette here, and he said it was all right to sit here until you got back. You must be Mrs. Lancaster's daughter. I'm Dr. Wells, the vet. We spoke on the phone. I'm so sorry."
"Dr. Wells," she said, reaching out and gripping his hand, in that distinctive way women have of reaching out farther than a man would, with a stiff elbow, when they're trying to appear strong. "It's very nice of you to come. I'm sure my mother must have liked you if she'd bring her cat to you."
"Well. . . well, I wish there had been more I could do." Jerry realized he was talking about the death of a cat, when its owner was herself dead, right behind him. Awkward. "Yes. Here's your chair back. I was about to go over and pay my respects."
"Thank you again," said Mrs. Lancaster's daughter.
"Yes. . . my pleasure," Jerry said. My pleasure? That was the wrong thing to say here and now. Jerry moved with irregular, hesitating steps, looking back a couple of times as he did, over to the open coffin. He stood a few feet from it, waiting while a thin, sixtyish woman in a filmy red dress knelt before it. He looked into the coffin at the face of Mrs. Lancaster. They should have propped up the bottom of her head, he thought. The way they put her in there gave her a big double chin that he didn't remember from real life.
The lady in red crossed herself and rose from the kneeler. Jerry paused, then knelt. He looked more closely into the casket, and saw a photograph sticking up from the other side of Mrs. Lancaster's corpse. Jerry straightened himself out and leaned forward to inspect it more closely.
It was a family portrait, showing a very beautiful young woman with dark red lipstick. A tall man who looked fifteen or twenty years older, dressed in one of those ridiculous suits with the wide lapels that people wore in the early 1970s, had his arm around her. Two little girls stood in front of them. Jerry couldn't see much more than their heads, but there was no doubt as to which one was the woman he'd just met. A big grin across her freckled face, she held an orange cat around her neck, tangled in red hair. The other girl, a towhead, looked two or three years older and much less happy to be there.
Jerry made the Sign of the Cross, although it did not end any prayer. He rose slowly, then turned again in the direction of Mr. Roquette and his niece, who now sat next to the old man. Of all the people in the world, these two were the ones Jerry wanted to speak with most at this moment. But he couldn't figure out how to bring up the subject that burned in his brain.
He walked out of the parlor into the hallway, to the men's room, then to the coffee room. He drew a cup of coffee from the silver urn, and sat down at one of the tables. Maybe they'd come in here, and it will be easier to talk, he hoped.
Soft chimes rang, like a doorbell. Jerry heard a man in the hallway saying, "The Mass for Mrs. Finis Lancaster will begin in five minutes. We ask that everyone please move to the chapel."
Jerry looked at his watch. He really needed to get back to his office, which was essentially shut down while he was gone. He drank the rest of the coffee, got up, and moved toward the chapel.
