The Funeral

Mae

Patrick nodded. “I couldn’t find a lot of pictures. Usually they do a slide show but they are going to just flash the pictures behind the minister while he talks.”

“Are you going to give a eulogy?” I asked. It was something we debated for hours the other day. Neither of us wanted to do it. We didn’t know of any of his friends that could do it. We were left trying to decide what was the right thing to do and what we wanted to do.

“I wrote up a very short one. I can’t get up there and give a long speech about what a great dad he was.”

“I understand and I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“What about Mom?” Hayden asked again as she leaned forward to look at Patrick. “Shouldn’t she say something?”

“No,” Patrick and I answered at the same time.

I put my hand on Patrick’s leg, letting him know I would field the question. “No, the widow doesn’t need to speak. No one will expect her to. It’s best she doesn’t try.”

“Oh,” Hayden said, seemingly satisfied with my explanation.

I noticed a flash of moveme