“Perfect?” Maggy shrieked. “It’s hideous. I wouldn’t be caught dead in that thing.”
Evelyn turned her head and gave Riley an expectant look.
“Would you please explain to your child that it’s rude to speak to her elders like that?”
“I will. But in the meantime, I really don’t think this dress is right for her.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Evelyn asked, stepping out of her bedroom wearing a severely cut long-sleeved black dress. “I’ll have you know I paid a hundred and seventy-five dollars for that dress.”
“If you like it so much, you wear it,” Maggy retorted.
“Margaret? That’s enough,” Riley said. “Take the dress and go to your room. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“I’ll go,” Maggy muttered. “But I am not wearing that rag.”
When she’d heard the bedroom door slam, Riley returned to the subject at hand. “I’m sorry Maggy was disrespectful. She’s obviously upset. But about the dress. It’s at least two sizes too big, and it’s not her style at all. She’s twelve, Mama, not four.”
“Fine,” Evelyn snapped. “I was just trying to help.” She started to walk away, but Riley caught the sleeve of her mother’s dress.
“I know you were, Mama, and I really do appreciate all you’ve done for Maggy and me. So let’s try not to fuss at each other so much. Especially today. Okay?”
“Whatever you want, sweetheart,” Evelyn said, turning a critical eye to her daughter. “But it’s already after two. Don’t you think it’s time for you to change before we leave for the chapel?”
Riley found the pill bottle right where she’d left it, on her dresser. She swallowed two tablets and tucked the bottle in her pocketbook, along with her grandmother’s red leather-bound Bible. “Help me, sweet Jesus,” she whispered.
* * *
“Maggy!” Riley stood in the main floor hallway at the bottom of the staircase. Evelyn was already waiting outside in the golf cart, tooting the horn every thirty seconds. “We need to leave for church now. Right now!”
“Coming!”
Maggy walked slowly down the stairs. She was wearing an old dress of her mother’s, which Riley had rigged to fit with strategically placed safety pins and duct tape. And over the dress she wore her father’s old pinstriped dress shirt. The shirt was buttoned and there was a suspicious, wriggling bulge in front.
“You look very nice,” Riley said. “What’s that you’ve got under your shirt?”
“I had a big lunch,” Maggy said, brushing past her and motoring toward the front door.
“Not so fast.” Riley clamped one hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“Moooom. We’re gonna be late.”
Evelyn tooted the horn again.
“See?”
“Lose the shirt. And the puppy,” Riley started, and then changed her mind. Maggy had been through enough. If wearing Wendell’s clothing and clutching the puppy he’d given her gave her comfort, so be it. “Never mind.”
Maggy’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really. Just make sure Banks doesn’t poop in the chapel, or your grandmother really will blow a gasket.”
“Thanks, Mommy.” Maggy smiled for the first time that day.
Evelyn pulled the golf cart alongside the porch and stared at her granddaughter. “What on earth?”
“Mama?” Riley gave her a warning look. “We’d better get to the chapel. I need to give Father Templeton the readings.”
“I never,” Evelyn muttered under her breath as they pulled away from Shutters. “I really never.”
* * *
The Chapel in the Pines had been designed and built in the 1950s by Riley’s great-grandfather from plans he’d sketched on a two-by-six piece of lumber. The foundation was of granite from a nearby quarry and the board-and-batten pine walls had been cut and milled right on the island. The large stained-glass window behind the altar had been donated by Evelyn in memory of her parents, and it depicted stylized versions of creatures found on the island—mockingbirds and herons, deer, chipmunks, squirrels, and raccoons set in a border banded by native flowers; dogwood, wild rose, dune daisies, and rudbeckia.
The altar had been carved by a local boat builder, and today it was dressed with a pair of huge silver urns overflowing with deep-blue hydrangeas and ferns.
The nondenominational chapel could only seat sixty people, but today every pew was packed, with dozens of people standing along the side aisles.
Parrish greeted them at the door. “Okay?”
Riley took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“The rest of the family is up front on the right,” Parrish whispered. “Father Templeton is in the sacristy. Did you bring the readings?”
“Right here.” Riley held up the Bible. “They’re all marked.”
“Good. I already briefed him on what you want. If he goes any longer than thirty minutes, I’ve threatened to unplug his mike. I forgot to ask, does anybody in the family want to say a few words?”
“No,” Riley said firmly.
“I do,” Maggy said.
“Oh, no,” Evelyn said, looking horrified. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’ll be fine,” Riley said. She glanced at her watch. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
* * *
The organist played Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
It took awhile to make it to the front of the church. People stopped and hugged them, whispering words of comfort and encouragement in their ears. Billy was sitting on the aisle in the first pew, beside Scott, who was seated beside Ed Godchaux. Aunt Roo sat at the end of the pew, resplendent in a vivid purple muumuu and flower-decked straw hat. Billy and the rest of the family slid down the pew, and the three of them sat down, with Riley seated next to Billy, and Maggy between her and Evelyn.
“How you doin’?” Billy asked.
Good question. She’d felt a weird sense of something—detachment—settle over her during the short ride to the church. “I don’t know why, but I feel kinda numb,” Riley said.
Billy gave her a sly wink and patted the pocket of his sport coat. “Me, too.” He slid his hand into his pocket and showed her the top of the sterling silver flask that had been W.R.’s. “Want some?”
“No, thanks, I’m good.”
True to Parrish’s word, Father Templeton stuck close to the script he’d been given.
“In the Gospel of John, we are told that, ‘in my father’s house, there are many mansions,’” the priest intoned.
Mansions, Riley though grimly. Mansions in heaven. If that’s where Wendell was headed, and she had her doubts about that, he’d be happier than a hog in slop. But down here on Belle Isle, he’d somehow managed to mortgage their own mansion right into oblivion.
She felt her eyelids flutter and close just as the priest was starting to remind the congregants of the fleeting nature of life. At some point she must have actually nodded off, because Billy elbowed her in the ribs.
“Wake up,” he hissed. “We’re getting to the good stuff.”