“Didn’t want people seeing him in a casket.”
Joe’s ashes were in a gold urn on a central table covered with a maroon cloth. A photo of Joe, a candid, taken at the rink about thirty years ago judging by the haircut and his youth, sat beside it. It was a good shot, and it captured what a good guy Joe could be. A lump formed in Kyle’s throat.
The funeral director, Henry, brought over Reverend Ellsworth to introduce them both.
“Joe chose two scripture readings and a song,” the reverend informed Kyle. “He asked if you would please read the Twenty-third Psalm. Are you comfortable with that?”
Kyle stiffened. He hadn’t been to church since his mom had made him when he was young. After she’d died, he’d sort of been against it. Joe had, too. Kyle was lost, and he wasn’t ever going to be found.
“Reverend Ellsworth will be giving the eulogy,” Henry said.
“Fine,” Kyle replied. “I’ll do the psalm reading.” Psalms were short, after all.
“Then we’ll be ending the service with a song that Joe chose. Are you familiar with the Byrd’s Turn! Turn! Turn! Lyrics taken almost verbatim from the Book of Ecclesiastes.”
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven, Kyle thought.
He hadn’t known that Joe had embraced religion again. Kyle just wanted to get through this day. Honestly, he’d been through too many military funerals these past years, and each of those had been a special kind of suck, but this one...it reminded him of being a kid at his mom’s funeral. Twelve years old. Standing beside Joe. Joe had arranged that one, too. Kyle had been too devastated to be of much use. He’d thought his life had ended. In a sense, it had.
Henry led him to stand before Joe’s gold urn. Henry was a tall, polite man who was good at his funeral director job. His demeanor was calm and peaceful, so composed at dealing with bereavement. Comfortable with death.
Kyle gritted his teeth.
People that Kyle had forgotten approached him to offer their condolences. Mostly these were people from his old rink world. Guys who’d run the Zamboni, the snack bar. Lots of skaters and hockey players. They all shook Kyle’s hand.
There were a bunch of mourners Kyle didn’t recognize, too, but they looked like figure-skating people. Joe’s rink had two ice surfaces. Technically, the place was called the Wallis Point Twin Rinks. One rink had been mostly used by the local figure skating club. Periodically they hosted competitions and then they would take over both rinks. And when there were hockey tournaments they took both rinks, too. That was Kyle’s world back then. He’d wanted nothing more than to be an NHL player, but once he’d joined the Marines, it had pretty much been out of the question to pursue anything like that.
Where was Jessa—Jessica? Or her mother? Kyle had forgotten to ask about her when he’d seen Jessica yesterday.
“Hey, Kyle. It’s good to see you,” one of Joe’s former employees said to him. Johnny David was his name. “What have you been up to?”
“Marines,” Kyle said.
“Wow. You still active duty?”
Kyle shook his head. “I work for the DoD now. Department of Defense.”
“I heard you live in Florida.”
“No. Maryland.”
“You still play hockey?”
His pulse sped up. He was especially cognizant of his leg. “Yes.”
He did play hockey, in a wounded veterans league.
But that rink was an hour’s drive from his job. To run a league here, at his own ice rink, would be heaven. And he was quickly realizing that he’d never fit in here, except on the ice. And now, only on the ice with other guys who knew what it was like. What he was going through.
Johnny David prepared to ask Kyle another question, but Kyle was saved by the touch of a hand on his shoulder.
“Kyle?” A slender woman smiled at him, a pretty blonde he vaguely recognized. “I’m Natalie Kimball. We spoke on the phone.”
Natalie seemed nothing like any lawyer he’d ever pictured—she was sweet-faced, thin and slight, soft-spoken. He shook her outstretched hand and nodded at her, saying nothing.
With her other hand, she curled her hair back over her ear. Natalie wore a hearing aid.
He felt himself relaxing.
“This is my husband, Bruce Cole.”
Bruce reached over and shook Kyle’s hand, too. Bruce was older than Kyle; his face wasn’t familiar, though Kyle remembered the name—he’d been blamed for the tragedy of his best friend’s automobile death.
Kyle noticed the heavy gold ring Bruce wore. “You went to the Naval Academy?” he asked without thinking.
Bruce nodded. “I’m inactive. I work in IT now, at the Portsmouth Navy Yard.”
Kyle guessed that Bruce hadn’t seen combat. Still, Bruce was military. He understood. Kyle nodded back at him.
Get through this, Kyle thought. Just get through this. If it weren’t for the will, he probably would’ve skipped town already.
“I, ah, don’t see Jessica Hughes here,” Kyle commented to Natalie.
Natalie glanced over the crowd. “You’re right. Maybe she stopped by earlier.”
Kyle had been here since before the doors had opened. Jessica hadn’t come earlier. “Maybe she’s not feeling well.”
Natalie tilted her head at him. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“I saw her last night, I thought maybe she was pregnant.”
“Really?” Natalie looked surprised. “Did you say that to her?”
Oh, hell. Had he screwed up? “She had a ring on her finger. A guy was with her. She was wearing a baggy top and...”
“Trust me, she’s not pregnant,” said an authoritative-sounding blonde who popped her head into their three-person circle.
“That’s my sister Maureen,” Bruce said, nodding to the blonde. Kyle remembered Maureen Cole. They’d been in a lot of the same classes in high school.
“Jessica’s not married or engaged, either,” Maureen said to Kyle. “I know, because I leased a beach house to her boyfriend, and I ask about these things. If you’re interested.”
“No,” he said flatly. “I’m not interested.”
They all looked at each other. Great.
But Natalie smiled at him. “Don’t worry, Kyle. Things will be fine on Monday.”
He shook his head. He’d just made their appointed meeting at her law office that much more awkward.
“Where are you staying?” Natalie asked him, taking him aside.
“The Grand Beachfront Hotel.”
“Would you like me to give you a ride on Monday?”
“That’s okay, I have my truck.”
“You drove up from Maryland?” Natalie asked.
He stared at her. “I wanted to be ready in case there’s anything I need to move to or from the rink to take it over quicker.”
Natalie’s eyes widened. “Have you given notice on your job down in Maryland?”
“I’m hoping to do that on Monday, ma’am.”
Natalie gazed at him for a long time. Then she smiled. “That’s really good to know, Marine.”
* * *
JESSICA