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buyers around. I would simply smile politely at them and go back to the packing.
    These things kept me and my mind occupied—so I wouldn’t have to worry about the future.
    That reality would come all too soon.
    The day of the service I shaved and showered and put on a black suit of my father’s I was going to put in the Goodwill box once it was all over. The university president’s wife, Mrs. Lapierre, a short round woman with dark hair shot through with gray, picked me up and gave me a ride to the university chapel. She was dressed entirely in black, and she didn’t try speaking to me on the way there. But as soon as we were parked and she turned off the car, she gave me a very sad smile and patted my leg twice with her gloved hand.
    I was stunned at the size of the crowd at the service. As I was led to a pew in the very front row by one of my father’s colleagues from the newspaper whose name I couldn’t recall, it was difficult to take it all in. As I sat down and glanced around the chapel, I felt a knot rise in my throat and my eyes filling. He was my father, and I’d had no idea he was so beloved and so well thought of, and had affected so many lives in a positive way. We had lived in the same house for almost twenty-two years, and he had been practically a stranger to me. I hadn’t known him, not really.
    It had never occurred to me that so many people would care enough to come.
    The words spoken during the service were words, just noise that I heard but didn’t comprehend. I have no idea how many people spoke—but many did. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the open casket, at the sight of what was left of my father. And then it was over, and Mrs. Lapierre took my arm and led me through the crowd of sad-faced people, all of them murmuring condolences and their sympathies at me, shaking my hand or slapping my shoulder or giving me a hug, all of them strangers to me.
    Once we were back in the car, Mrs. Lapierre patted my leg again and murmured her own inanities as she put the car in gear and drove me to the reception she and her husband were hosting.
    It was there, at the president’s home, that I met Valerie Franklin, and my life changed.
    I was sitting by myself in a corner, a paper plate of uneaten food on my lap, when a slight figure in black approached me. She cleared her throat and I looked up from my food, more than a little dismayed. All day long as people voiced their sympathies, all I had been able to do was nod slightly to acknowledge their kindness. Everyone assumed I was speechless in my grief and utter devastation at having lost my father.
    But the truth was I had always been awkward in social situations and never knew what to say, so I always found it best to say nothing. I was indeed grieving for my father, but all I wanted to do was escape that house and all those kind strangers, just get away and be alone with my grief. There were too many people in the house and all of them wanted to offer their condolences, to tell me how much my father had meant to them, what a difference he’d made in their lives.
    The woman in black sat in the seat next to me, and I looked back down at my plate.
    â€œReally, dear, is your food so fascinating that you can’t stop staring at it?” the woman finally said after a few moments of silence. Her tone was bored and borderline rude.
    I swallowed and didn’t answer her.
    â€œPut your food down and come outside with me,” she said, standing up. “You need to get out of here—I know I do. This air in here is stifling.” She took the plate away from me and set it down on a nearby table. “I can’t believe I’m back in Kansas,” she said, half under her breath so I could barely hear her. “It surely must be snowing in hell today.”
    She grabbed one of my hands and pulled, trying to get me to stand up. I looked up, opening my mouth to ask her to leave me alone, but