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Wren blanches before her face fills with emotion. But it’s not me she’s looking at, it’s Mel. They stare at each other, saying nothing, no doubt trying to digest what those words mean to each of them.

Wren straightens and lifts her chin as if fortifying herself to speak. When she opens her mouth, instead of words, it’s a loud sob that escapes her.

“I’m so sorry,” she cries, tears streaming down her face, every single one of them hammering a dent in my heart. She jams her palms in her eyes, another apology coming out barely discernable.

Mel, without missing a beat, wraps her arms around her and takes her into her chest, acting every bit of the mother she is as tears form in her own eyes. “Sweetheart, you have nothing to apologize for.” She rubs a palm across Wren’s back. “Nothing in the world.”

They seem to stand like this for a year, a tangled-up mess of cried apologies and arms. When they pull apart, they both wipe their eyes.

I realize I’m intruding.

“I’m going to go look at bird feeders so you two can talk for a bit. Gotta stay on your dad’s good side so I can get in his pants, you know?”

They grimace and I grin, leaving them as they sit on a metal bench between rows of plants.

Thirty minutes later, Wren gets in the Bronco with a bird feeder that holds jelly and orange wedges as Mel and I stand on the sidewalk.

“Never took you for an Emmeline,” I tell her with a sideways look.

Mel chuckles softly. “Your delivery could’ve used some work,” she says. “But she’s got a heart like Ford. Thank you for this. Ghosts come in all forms but haunt us just the same.”

“I knew you had a weakness for good girls raised by bad women.” I give her a cheeky grin before turning my attention to Wren through the windshield. “She’s carrying a lot of hurts—a lot of guilt that shouldn’t even be hers to begin with—I thought seeing you would help. Make her realize that she doesn’t have to be what her mom did. That her rocky start doesn’t mean a rocky future.”

She makes an agreeable grunt.

“Scotty,” she calls as I walk to the driver’s side of the Bronco; I glance at her. “You and she aren’t so different. You should take your own advice. Might do you some good.”

Thirty-Nine

“You’relooking...” I assess Wanda’s clothes clinging to her body like neon plastic wrap, leaving nothing to the imagination as she wheels a casket into the cremation room. “Bold.”

She fluffs her hair, smiling wide. “Bold and the beautiful, just like my favorite soaps.”

I laugh under my breath and turn my attention to the woman in the casket. Alida Boudreaux is Black and in her early sixties with perfect skin that glows against the shine of the gold dress she’s in. Even though I know she’s dead, it’s as though her full lips are smiling.

“Wanda.” She looks at me. “You ever confront your ex-husband?”

“Psh!” She cuts her hand through the air. “Got me nothing but a black eye when we were married if that’s what you mean. After though . . .” Her voice trails off as she chews the inside of her lip. “After, we were in a room and the lawyers stepped out. For whateverreason, they left us alone. He looked at me, just like I’m looking at you right here, and he said,‘I loved you the only way I knew how, Wanda.’” Her eyebrows hitch high on her head. “I rolled my eyes at the time, but now”—she shrugs one shoulder—“now I think maybe I get it. Not that it excuses it. Don’t change how I feel about the situation or him, but . . . broken people break people if they don’t get their shit fixed.” She blows a bubble. “Even though I tried to kill him, part of me hopes he figures it out. Hunts his demons down and destroys ’em so he can move forward.” She pauses as if replaying her words for accuracy. “Of course, the rest of me hopes someone ties him to the train tracks like a penny, and he gets flattened right out of existence.” She giggles.

Despite how morbid it is, I chuckle as I adjust the volume of the music—a Zydeco band whose rich sounds of saxophones shift the atmosphere of the whole building to that of a bar during Mardi Gras.

“Looks like the family’s arriving, honey.” Wanda nods toward the window looking into the witnessing room where people have started to file through the front door—a shocking amount—all dressed in bright colors and large hats, same dark skin as Alida’s.

“Let’s send her off, then,” I say as I hang the clipboard on the hook.

The door to the witnessing room bumps against someone as I open it, forcing me to wedge my body between a sliver of opening. The room is packed with people. Some crying, some laughing, emotions amplifying when they see my outfit, a cartoon fleur-de-lis playing an accordion on a T-shirt under a bright purple blazer.When Alida’s favorite song “Tee Nah Nah” starts to play through the speakers, their shouts and cries reach a crescendo.

“Would y’all like to see her before we start?” I ask.

It’s always a crapshoot of what people prefer. Some want to say goodbye, others opt to stay in the witnessing room and simply watch. In almost perfect unison, their yeses come as a collective holler. I barely get the door fully open before they push their way by me to where her body rests in the simple cardboard casket. There have never been so many people in the room.

Alida’s daughter stops beside me as we watch the horde of people surround her mother. “Who are all these people?” I whisper, several of the women dabbing their eyes with hankies.

Her daughter, Flavie, probably mid-twenties, smiles. “A sister. Brother. Friends from church. That’s my brother and his wife.” She points to a younger couple holding a baby. “That guy over there is our mailman, and I’m pretty sure more than the mailman.” She laughs, but it’s watery. “We moved here from New Orleans when I was a baby. Whole family did. Just up and left the swamp for the mountains.”

She and I stand quietly at the perimeter as the rest of them form a horseshoe shape around Alida, hands connecting.

“She must have been a hell of a woman,” I say.