Free Obituary Writer (9780547691732) by Porter Shreve

Irish Wolfhounds recalled the day nine years before when Arthur drove out to see a litter of puppies and walked away with majority ownership of his farm.
    "He told me, flat out, he'd never even owned a breeding farm before," Clyde Hermann said, tugging at his shirt as though his tie were too tight. "But you know Arthur. He'd done all his research and he knew exactly what he wanted. I gave him my two best sires, and the rest is AKC history."
    Margaret Whiting made a brief, somewhat chilling speech that seemed to end before it was meant to, as if her emotions would not allow her to say more. "As children Arthur and I were inseparable. I was born three years before him, but, like twins, we were connected at the core." Her voice trembled as she spoke. "To be happy in this world is to be understood," she said. "I understood my brother and my brother understood me." She looked down at her hands, clasped in front of her, then returned to her seat.
    Alicia was sitting in the front row, several rows ahead of me, at an angle that made it difficult to see her face. The collar of her dress was pulled slightly down, exposing the back of her smooth neck, the notch at the top of her spine.
    We all sang "O God Our Help in Ages Past." Toward the end of the service, during the moment of silence, I opened my program.
    On the inside page was a poem I knew well. My mother had torn it from a book of romantic verse by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and taped it to the dining room wall when we moved into 102 La Grange:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
...I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
    I realized that for all the years that poem had hung on the dining room wall, I had never stopped to read it through, to consider it for what it was: the story of my mother's life.
    The service over, Alicia exited through a side door carrying the small box with her husband's ashes. The wolfhound walked beside her, stride for stride, on tiptoe. Joe and Margaret Whiting followed, then the bank manager and the dog breeder and a woman in a tweed suit, then Reverend Johnson, who gestured for us all to rise and join them.
    Alicia stood under the green awning with Joe Whiting, who was handing out directions to the Whispering Pines Country Club, where a reception would be held at six o'clock.
    "I hope to see you there," she said solemnly.
    "Of course I'll come."
    And with that, the dinner plans I had made with Thea Pierson earlier in the day must have flown from my mind.

    I couldn't leave work until the six-thirty meeting, so it was just after seven before I arrived at Whispering Pines, a modest country club with nine holes of golf, a swimming pool, and a rambling clubhouse, white brick with a green roof.
    The reception was held in a dark room behind the ninth tee, where, through the sliding glass doors, we could see the last foursome of the day taking practice swings, polishing their three irons in the evening dusk.
    A few guests stood around the buffet, a couple more perched uncomfortably on couches. Joe Whiting, a glass of Coke in his hand, was looking out at the golfers.
    "How are you?" I asked.
    "Me?" He turned around, pulling his head back, giving me a confused look.
    He was maybe six foot four, with a long chin, high cheekbones, and the same large Adam's apple as his brother. He wore glasses now, squarish, thick-rimmed bifocals with a strong prescription, too big for his face. He had a smooth, shiny head, gray hairs around his temples; his pencil mustache was jet black.
    "What a beautiful service," I said.
    He seemed to have no recollection of meeting me. "Oh, yes. Yes, that's right. A beautiful service. It provided a service for all of us." He smiled broadly, holding his drink with two hands, bowing as he spoke. "For those of us in the