Read Online May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes - Free Book Online Page B

looks at me blankly.
    “Arrangements. It’s another word for funeral plans. Susan’s husband is going to the funeral home to pick out the coffin—do you want to go? I did it for my grandmother,” I offer, as if to say it’s not so bad.
    “What do you do?”
    “You look at coffins, you pick one, and you think about what your mother should wear as her final outfit.”
    Nate shakes his head no. “Ask Ashley,” he says. “She likes to pick out things.”

    T hat night Nate comes to visit me on the sofa. “Have you Googled Dad?”
    “No.”
    “He didn’t just kill Mom, he killed a whole family.”
    “He had an accident. That’s what started this whole thing.”
    “Everyone hates him. There are postings about how he ruined the network, about what a bully he was at the office—especially to women. It says that there were numerous claims settled quietly with regard to harassment of female employees.”
    “It’s not new,” I say to Nate. “People have always had strong feelings about your father.”
    “It’s hard for me to read about it,” Nate says, almost hysterical. “It’s one thing when I think he’s a jerk, but another when strangers say mean things.”
    “Do you want some ice cream?” I ask. “There’s half a Carvel cake in the freezer.”
    “It’s from Ashley’s birthday.”
    “Does that mean it can’t be eaten?”
    Nate shrugs.
    “Would you like some?”
    “Yes.”
    Using an enormous serrated knife, I saw off chunks; the ice cream is old and gummy and hard as a rock, but as it melts it gets better, and by the time we’re done, it’s delicious. When we’re finished, Tessie licks our plates clean.
    “She’s the prewash,” Nate says.
    Nate lies with me on the sofa, his head on the opposite end, his stinky feet near my face. When he’s asleep, I turn off the television and put the dishes in the washer. Tessie follows; I give her a biscuit.

    A long black limo pulls up to the curb outside the house. The children gather, dressed in their best. I stuff my pockets with Kleenex and snacks.
    “I’ve never been to a funeral,” Ashley says.
    “I went once, when the kid of someone Dad worked with killed himself,” Nate adds.
    At the funeral home, two men hold the doors open for us. “The immediate family is receiving to the left,” one says.
    “We are the immediate family,” Nate says.
    The man leads us down the hall. Jane’s parents are there, the sister and her husband.
    There’s something excruciating about this part. Strangers, or, even worse, friends, crouch at the children’s knees, touching them, hugging them, stressed faces one after another pressing into theirs, faces like caricatures. There is the awkwardness of people feeling the need to say something when there is nothing to say. Nothing.
    I’m sorry for your loss. Oh, you poor babies. What will become of you? Your mother was such a wonderful woman. What does your father have to say for himself? I can only imagine. Is your dad going to get the electric chair?
    They feel the liberty or the obligation to say whatever the hell comes to mind.
    “I’m sorry, I am sorry, so, so sorry,” people keep telling the children.
    “That’s okay,” Ashley says to them.
    “It’s not okay,” Nate says to Ashley. “Quit saying it’s okay—it’s not.”
    “When people say they’re sorry you can just say thank you,” I say.
    We are led into the chapel for the service and sit in pews like at a wedding, Jane’s family on one side, us on the other. Behind us are people who know Jane’s family, people who the kids went to nursery school with, people who knew Jane from the gym, friends and neighbors. The anchorman from Thanksgiving is there, as is George’s assistant, a gay guy who did favors for the kids. He was the one who got them good tickets, backstage passes.
    The coffin is at the front of the room.
    “Is she really in there?” Ashley asks, nodding towards the coffin.
    “Yes,” I say.
    “How do you know they put