The memorial service looked more like Masterpiece Theatre than a funeral. Mrs. Russell and the entire corps of volunteers filled our church with their Regency best, thankfully distracted from the insults of my one-woman show. Volunteers who had served tea, sold tickets, and passed out programs over the years, now gathered to celebrate Lady Weston's life. Even the sun presented a robust rendition of its English version—nothing you could fry an egg on—but the cobalt and emerald in the church windows sparkled like tumblers inside a kaleidoscope.
Surrounded by a multitude of glorious hats, I would see nothing unless I stood on the pew. I would miss the first glimpse of Willis when the clergy processed down the aisle. The organ thundered a prelude and my heart beat faster at the immediate prospect of existing in the same room with him. Only here, at the memorial service for a dead woman, would the world come alive for me. Breathing deeply to calm myself, holding his jacket to return to him, I failed to suppress the dangerous hope that he was sorting Philippa out of his life. My anticipation grew and I desperately needed a sign from him to sustain me.
The woman next to me fanned herself with the bulletin as the small assortment of gray-haired Weston relatives filed into reserved seats in the front. The actual funeral had been held elsewhere, making family attendance here optional. Philippa wore black except for the gold purse chain slung over her shoulder; her dark glasses, worn inside the church, compelled her to lean on her brother to avoid running into things. Randolph, in a somber suit, looked like the polished bankers or lawyers that rode the elevators to the upper floors in my old office building.
With a great rustling of fabric, the congregation stood for the opening hymn. I leaned forward for a view of the verger leading the procession, followed by an earnest young acolyte hefting an ornate brass cross, flanked by two torch bearers. Behind them, the small choir followed, and finally the clergy. A star zapped me when Willis entered, the center of the lovely universe; the only one who mattered. I saw the world through him, saw myself through him, and knew I wanted to get in there with him forever.
Music stopped and the priest said, "I am the resurrection and the life." The mighty words resonated. I heard them for the first time. Fear took note and fled the premises, snagging my personal tangle of dread and beating a hasty departure. Once freed, my spirit surged and I met myself in clarity, suddenly unafraid of being alone. I wiped tear-filled eyes with my bare hands until the woman next to me offered a tissue. I turned the pages of the prayer book feeling new and strong. What was so hard about this and why was I only now feeling this lightness? Fresh confidence sustained me all the way through the Great Thanksgiving.
When the time came, I approached the rail for communion, eyes downcast and hands folded, passing the family, including Philippa, without looking at them. Aware that Willis could see me, I knelt at the rail, head bent. If my mother's spirit were here, as Willis had assured me it was, there must be so many others, a great swirling mass of ethereal beings hovering above us like spirits in an Italian Renaissance painting. In their parallel plane of existence, they welcomed the new arrival—Lady Weston—and supported me as I knelt. Outwardly, I projected calm, but beneath my composed exterior I harbored the entire heavenly company, their voices joining with angels and archangels in a chorus of eternal forgiveness. I could be free.
Willis came closer every moment. His shoes entered my downcast vision, only two people away as the priest put the wafer in my hand saying, "The body of Christ; the bread of heaven." Willis stood before me and I looked up at him. "Lily," he said, putting the cup to my lips. Then, providing the sign I craved, he touched my hand supporting the base of the cup. "The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation." He lingered a beat longer in front of me than with any other communicant. I made the sign of the cross over my chest while the wine blazed a warm path to my heart.
As I left the church, scattering birds, it occurred to me I'd left without reciting the funeral liturgy for my mother. I could still go back and say the words for her, but it seemed unnecessary. My mother had moved beyond the need for a funeral. Perhaps I should recite the liturgy for my father next time. I sat on a bench outside the church with My Jane Austen and some birds. Our relationship had been cool since the Lost Letters debacle. Now we all waited; his folded jacket in my arms, birds pecking nervously in the pebbles. Willis would be shaking hands with the congregation as they filed out to join the reception at Newton Priors. He would remove his vestments in the sacristy. My Jane Austen stood and paced once birds began landing where her lap would be, and I focused on shedding any artifice I might have recently accumulated.
It seemed Willis and I shared The Look at communion but I couldn't be sure. He should be here by now. Sun and breeze conspired, causing leaves to flicker in my peripheral vision. Perhaps he had departed by another exit and missed me altogether. But then I saw him in the door, shading his eyes, looking toward Newton Priors. At that instant, the clock started. Time sped recklessly and I resented the passing of every precious second.
"Willis." I ran to meet him, slipping on the pea gravel.
"Lily." He came down the steps and held out a hand.
"You left this again," I said, surrendering the jacket.
"Yes, another abrupt ending, I apologize." I denied his expression and ignored the word ending.
"Look what I found." I held up my necklace. "Can you believe it?"
"No." He held the cross; examining the piece he'd heard so much about. "Where was it?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"Around a neck in a London pub."
"Naturally," he said. And then, "How is your Jane Austen?"
"The same," I said, "timeless and sparkling, swirling in my subconscious, folded into my existence."
Willis smiled and reached for a lock of my hair blowing across my eyes.
"Although she did get me in big trouble," I told him, birds eavesdropping under cover of pecking nearby, the breeze blowing my skirt.
"How?"
I tried to communicate how she'd spoken through me at my one-woman show but Willis wasn't listening. Talking to him felt like running in a dream without making forward progress. The connection failed on his end and I heard desperation propping up my voice.
"Are you all right?" he asked quietly.
How to answer that? I would be all right if he'd give me a sign. I could bear anything as long as the promise of Willis secured my future. But I wasn't all right. I was terribly not all right, on the brink of suffering emotional torment as ferocious and debilitating as an abscessed tooth because Willis wasn't listening to me and he hadn't been looking for me when he stepped out the church door just now.
I asked him quietly, "How's the sorting going?"
His expression reminded me of Martin when he said he didn't want a scene.
"This has been terribly awkward for you." Willis shook his head.
"Yes," I said. My Jane Austen stood behind me, revisiting her hero list with a cloth for erasing in one hand. I looked hard at Willis, memorizing his features for future recall. Even as he asked about my well-being, sincere and penitent, he would leave me as soon as I answered. He'd gotten the distance he needed to carry on with his original plans. He'd done his sorting and I was out. Only he wouldn't tell me. He'd join Philippa at the reception and beyond, suppressing all the fear he'd entertained in the attic, and I would start the waiting again, far less certain than I'd been before the service, the black abyss seeping into my future. Waiting forever.
"Willis," a voice called.
"Over here," he said, without turning.
Philippa stood in the church door looking down at us. In the moment our eyes met, I understood two things: Although Philippa had perhaps sensed that something in her relationship was not right, she had not known what, and now she knew. Willis had told her nothing. What she knew, she inferred from the tension around my eyes and the stress in my jaw. "I lost track of you," she said, smiling, scattering birds with the snap of her heels on the stone steps.
"Pippa," Willis said, eyes still on me, "you remember Lily."
"Of course," she said, both hands busy adjusting her purse strap.
"I'm so sorry about your grandmother," I said.
"Thank you." Even behind her dark glasses, I could read her fearless expression. She whispered to Willis, "I'll go on. The costume drama awaits us," patting his arm to fortify him for what he must do to me. A clergy wife braces herself for these things, all in the line of duty.
Willis looked at me, tilting his head in silent question, but this was not as complicated as I would like it to be. Quite simple really, Willis would soon walk away and I would be alone. I moved my mouth, speaking very quietly, watching Philippa in case she should turn around and catch me. "I can see where this is headed." I touched my heart and shook my head. "I'm not going to wait for you."
His eyes widened and his smile faded. He understood.
"Good-bye, Willis," I said, releasing him.
Willis rubbed his nose, looked at the ground in a helpless way I couldn't bear, and then whispered, "I understand." Time came to a screeching halt. Birds froze, the breeze ended, the sun dipped behind a cloud, and all color drained as Willis turned away from me and followed Philippa down the path to Newton Priors.