Free City of Hope by Kate Kerrigan

there overnight with the keening widow and her family watching over the closed coffin. There was usually a removal service the night before and a funeral Mass before the burial. The official mourning period was one month. This ended with a Month’s Mind Mass, to signal that it was time for the family to return to “normal” life. These rituals were, I knew, important landmarks for the bereaved, but God and Church held no comfort for me and I had lost what little sense I had of holding with convention. I wanted the whole thing to be over and done with as quickly as possible. I had let Maidy wake John in our home, and now she had to respect my small break with protocol.
    At half past five I was sitting on the edge of the bed in the apartment, dressed and ready. Fully made up, I wore a moss-green silk scarf and gloves as a tribute to John, the black trilby hat pinned neatly to my bun, the veil pulled down fully and tied at the back of my neck.
    I could not move.
    I knew I had to go, but the thought of it had filled me with such an unnameable fear that I was paralyzed.
    I sat looking over at the clock at my bedside. One minute passed, two, three minutes. I had to get across to Heffernan’s and take my place alongside Maidy in the funeral home, while people came to pay their respects and look at the coffin. Not at John. Not at my dear John, but a box. A wooden box. I tried to persuade myself that’s all it was, but still, I could not move.
    Five minutes. It was twenty-five minutes until the funeral, and I should have been there twenty minutes ago. The curtains throughout the apartment were closed, but I could hear people gathering in the street outside. Waiting. The longer I sat here, the more of an “entrance” I would have to make. The grieving widow in black, with her fancy getup and her airs and graces, keeping everyone waiting. Still I could not move.
    There was a knock on the door. I started, then heard the gentle turn of a key.
    â€œEllie?” I heard Katherine call through from the hall. “I have Maidy here.”
    Maidy stood in the bedroom door. Her face was bloated from the tears of the past twenty-four hours, and she looked tired, but stoic.
    â€œCome on, Ellie dear,” she said, “it’s time.”
    We walked out of the building, and the main street of Kilmoy was lined with people as far as my eye could see. Everybody knew John. Everybody loved him. I kept my head down and gripped Maidy’s arm. A path cleared for us into Heffernan’s. Everyone fell silent; a cloud of solemn respect hung in the air. The funeral home had cleared its small back room to accommodate my unusual request. The little window was open and there was incense burning in a pot by the door, but it barely masked the acrid smell of dead bodies and the chemicals they used to preserve and prepare them.
    I retched and swallowed. Soon this would be over. An hour at most, I told myself. The coffin sat on a makeshift table and there were two large church candles, on stands borrowed from the church, burning at either end. A slim spray of prepared flowers sat on the lid. I had filled our house with flowers all through our married life. In the early days in jars and bottles, latterly in cut-glass vases. I felt a stab of regret that, despite Heffernan’s efforts, the place looked shabby and makeshift. What a chapel I might have prepared here, with my good lace tablecloth and arrangements of wild flowers from our own garden. It was spring after all, and the world was coming to life.
    Heffernan, with his grim, apologetic face, sat us on two wooden chairs facing the coffin.
    â€œAre you ready?” he asked.
    I nodded, although I did not feel ready. I did not feel ready at all.
    I don’t know how long we sat there and took condolences, but it was certainly hours. People shook our hands and embraced us and offered their sympathy: “I am sorry for your trouble,” in an interminable line that