All We Know of Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

side and one overhead, then quickly slapping their arms down to their sides. Taylor Cuddahy, the captain, placed the trophy they had won at the Lud ding competition the morning after the accident on top of Maury’s coffin. She then sang this old song about having your friends winter, spring, summer, and fall. Coach Ed dington, who was always jumping around in white shorts and a white polo with her whistle, was wearing some navy

    blue suit that made her look like a flight attendant who hadn’t slept in six months. She began to cry loud enough for everyone to hear when she placed a brand-new varsity sweater on the coffin. Maureen was being buried in her cheering outfit, but no one could see that.
    Danny hated leaving Bridget long enough even to go to Maury’s funeral, but he had to say good-bye to his friend, too.
    He got down on the kneeler and leaned on the pew in front of him with his head on his arms.
    Evan Brock, who was sitting next to him with Danny’s parents on the other side, said, “It’s okay, man,” and put his arm around Danny for a second. Danny rubbed his lips and nodded. He looked up, but then he could see the cof fin . . . and all the pictures. It was like a freaking museum project.
    The O’Malleys (Mom said they were on autopilot) had set up all these boards with pictures of Maury and her brothers and Maury-and-Bridget, Maury-and-Bridget, Maury-and-Bridget. They had pinned Maury’s soccer rib bons up there, her letter jacket and about fifty letters from girls all covered with pink heart stickers and crap that said they would never, ever forget her. When his mom talked to Jeannie O’Malley, she said Jeannie staggered and slurred her words because the doctor had given her a downer of some kind. The Flannerys sat right next to Coach and Mrs. O’Malley and their four boys.
    Mom saw Danny staring at the boards and said, “They’re

    never going to be able to give her a wedding or a gradua tion. They need to do something.”
    Danny nodded, and then Father Genovese got up. He smoothed back his hair, something Danny had never seen him do. It was like he didn’t want to go through with this either. The guy was a nervous wreck.
    “We cannot begin to accept or ever hope to under stand why this blithe spirit was taken from us,” said Father Genovese, after the traditional “The Lord is with you and also with you too” stuff. Maury’s great-uncle, Father Jim O’Malley, was there, too, assisting; and he kept reaching over to pat the quilt on top of the coffin—Mrs. O’Malley had made it for Maureen’s sixteenth birthday out of all her baby dresses.
    “Maureen came to this world as an unexpected gift, a child her parents never thought they would have. I bap tized this sunlight child. She gave us so much light in her short time on Earth. She sang to us like an angel, like the angels among whom she may sing now. She was as light as a leaf, dancing in her ballerina outfits as a little girl and later on the cheerleading squad she loved. Maureen showered affection on her dog, her brothers, her circle of friends, her school . . . and she loved her best friend, Bridget Flannery. As we pray for the repose of Maureen’s unstained soul, let us take a moment to pray for Bridg et’s recovery. . . .” Danny felt his face heat up then. He didn’t want to blubber. Maureen was a flower, like Father Genovese said. If you turned her toward the sun, she was

    happy. If you just gave her a smile . . . She was a girl you could really talk to.
    He would sit on the sled hill behind the O’Malleys’ house and tell Maury things he would never tell Bridget—about one of his brother David’s friends who’d tried to grab him coming out of the shower when he was little and about his hope to work for the FBI someday because he loved the idea of going after real bad guys. He even sang her the country song he wrote that began, “You said I’d walk away from you
    . . . that I’d get bored or I’d get blue. / I’d be