I patted my wife's hand gently. She sniffed and leaned sideways into my shoulder. All around us, the sounds of sniffled tears and murmuring voices. I hadn't known my wife's aunt Christina well, but from the turnout at her funeral, it seemed like she'd been well liked.
"Are you holding up alright?" I whispered.
"Yeah," Jane said. "I feel bad for some of her friends that she hadn't seen in a while. This came out of the blue for them." I could understand her sympathy. Christina had been sick for a very long time, and we had all come to terms with her passing long before the actual event. Looking around the room, there were actually very few tears.
Jane got up to circle the room and talk to family she hadn't seen for some time, and I took the opportunity to excuse myself. The visitation was a little uncomfortable for me, knowing so few of the people there.
The funeral home was simply gorgeous. The owners were personal friends of mine (I had managed to call in some favors to get a nicer funeral than my wife's family would otherwise have been able to afford) and had done a lovely job at furnishing the place. It had been done up in a Victorian style that was somber and tasteful, with the gravitas that made people feel like their loved ones' deaths were being taken seriously.
I saw Glenn, my friend, in the hallway as I headed for the bathroom.
"Hey, Jake," he said. "I just got a call from a client. I have to head out."
"Damn," I said. "We don't have to cut it short, do we?" I would hate to have to shoo my wife's family out of a funeral.
"No," he said. "As long as you can stay until I get back." He held out a set of keys. "Here's the spares in case the visitation ends before I get back. Would you mind locking up before you leave if that's the case?" I nodded and thanked him again for the favor he was doing us. It was especially nice because Glenn and his family, a wife and two kids, lived in the funeral home. Squeezing us in like this meant his family had had to be hustled out of the house for the evening. I pushed on down the hallway, sighing at the extra responsibility I'd just agreed to take on.
I stopped at the door to the bathroom. Inside I could hear sniffing. I turned to go, but the door opened, and Jane's sister Violet came out into the hall.
"Sorry," she said, "I'm done."
"Take all the time you need," I said, trying to smile. I'm not real great with grieving people, so I tried to default back to supportive-but-not-smothering.
Violet, Jane's younger sister, had been out of the country on business when Christina had died. She'd had much less advance notice than the rest of the family, and was taking it harder.
"Sorry," she said again, wiping her eyes. I put a hand on her shoulder, and she wilted into me in a pathetic hug. Her face was hot from crying, and pressed into my neck.
I'd always found Violet attractive, and the feeling of her pressed against me was something I'd always imagined but never experienced in any but the most platonic of senses. I forced myself to think about something else.
"Sorry," she said for the third time, pulling away. "I'm just so stressed."
