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Chapter Eighteen

“ Y es, the funeral will be on Saturday, with the viewing in the morning from nine to twelve, and the funeral will be at twelve. There will be a meal provided by the church in Raspberry Ridge.”

“Yes. I can text you directions if you want me to.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Claire hung up. That was the last phone call she had to make.

“How many said they’re going to try to make it?

” Josiah said, sounding as steady as ever but looking a little tired.

It was 1:30 in the afternoon, and it had already been quite a day.

Josiah had taken care of the arrangements for the body, and to Claire’s everlasting relief, no one had questioned anything.

It was just accepted that a woman with cancer who was expected to die had died.

Grandma had died.

She’d been so scared that she was going to get in trouble. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Still, Josiah had taken care of all of it, and her grandma was at the funeral home now, where they would prepare her for burial.

Josiah had been the one who had found the burial plot that Grandma had at the little church in Raspberry Ridge just outside of town. Claire had even forgotten the church existed. But Grandma had a plot, and the funeral home had taken care of contacting the gravediggers.

They didn’t need to have an actual grave ready until Saturday, when they would have a short graveside service after the funeral.

Josiah had helped her figure all that out too.

She’d been leaning toward cremation, but Grandma hadn’t said one way or the other, and since she had the burial plot, it seemed to make more sense to do it that way.

Grandma had money saved, and Josiah had found that in her desk as well while Claire had been busy calling all the relatives that she had just called the day prior.

Her mom was coming up from New Mexico, which was nice, except she wasn’t going to stay very long. She needed to get back, because her husband’s mother wasn’t well, and she was responsible for taking care of her.

It made Claire a little bit angry that her mom was more concerned about her mother-in-law and was shirking her duty in favor of taking care of her husband’s mom.

But Claire supposed that was how life went.

The living demanded more attention than the dead anyway.

She didn’t know her stepfather and had never met his mother.

Maybe she was a sweet lady who deserved her mother’s loyalty.

“So now all we have to do is wait for the kids to come home and we’ll tell them, and then they can make the decision as to whether they still want to go to their program or not.”

“I feel like we should call the school and warn them that the kids might not be there.”

“I think they’ll understand, but if you want to call the school, you certainly can.” His voice was easy, calm, and rational.

“All right. I think I’ll wait.”

And then she remembered. Grace!

“I never canceled with Grace,” she said, frantically picking her phone up and looking for her number.

“What time were you supposed to meet her?” Josiah asked as she dug through her contacts before her fingers froze.

“I couldn’t possibly—” She broke off. Why not? She had time. She had several hours. Her children got out of school at three o’clock, but by the time the bus brought them back, it was closer to four. Sometimes she would pick them up just to give them a little bit more time at home.

“I wouldn’t have very long to talk to her.”

“It might be nice to have someone to talk to,” Josiah suggested.

“Other than you?” she asked, because he had been the one she had needed to talk to all day.

“I can go with you if you want me to. Or,” he looked at the kitchen behind her, “I can work on the kitchen a bit. I am sorry that the house is such a disaster during this time.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s mine for starting the outside and then making you have to finish it.”

“I don’t mind. I just feel bad that I couldn’t get it done faster.”

“It is what it is. We can’t change it now.

” She couldn’t believe she was saying that.

The Claire of a few weeks ago would obsess over the state of the house, but the Claire of right now didn’t care.

She wasn’t sure if it was just numbness from the grief that would explode upon her at some point when she wasn’t aware, or whether it was a true calm and peace from the Lord.

One thing she knew for sure—it was good to have Josiah beside her. His steady, calm presence had bolstered her throughout the day.

“All right. You’re right. Why not go meet with Grace?” And then she nodded her head. “I know I’m going to be more emotional, but it was going to be an emotional meeting anyway.”

“All right. I can seriously go if you think you’re going to need me.”

“No. Grace isn’t going to hurt me. I know that now. And while I’m a little bit nervous, I’m actually kind of excited to talk to her. She was my best friend back in the day. We did everything together.”

“Yeah, I remember you two were inseparable. A lot of times, you wore the same outfits to school and styled your hair the same. People called you twins.”

“We often wished we had been twins. We preferred each other over anyone in our families.”

How had they gotten to be so far apart when they had been so close at one time?

She couldn’t answer that, and she really didn’t know, and she supposed it didn’t matter now anyway .

“Should I change?” she asked, looking down at the outfit that she’d put on this morning and never changed. Jeans and T-shirt and tennis shoes.

“You’re asking the wrong person. This is one thing I can’t help you with. I can tell you that it’s clean. And if I owned a restaurant, I wouldn’t kick you out.”

“All right. That’s good enough.” She smiled at him and knew that she owed him more than she’d ever be able to repay. “Thanks again. Help yourself to whatever’s in the kitchen. Sorry there’s no fresh bread.”

“No problem. I’ll work on getting more stuff cleaned out and see what I can get done before you get back.” And then he said, “And don’t worry about getting back here before your kids. If you’re not, I’ll handle things until you arrive. I won’t tell them about Grandma.”

“All right. I’ll do my best to get back, but thanks for the reassurance that you’ve got things under control.”

She walked out the door, humming to herself. How could she be humming on the day Grandma died? But she was. She found she was humming an old, upbeat hymn. One that talked about depending on the Lord and going to Him when she had a problem.

It was perfect for today, and she smiled, though she wasn’t sure why it had popped into her head, because she hadn’t thought about it in years.

Some of the old hymns were the best. And then she smiled softly to herself. She was glad to be back in Raspberry Ridge and going to a church that sang hymns and preached from the Bible. She had a feeling she was going to need it in the weeks and months to come.

It didn’t take long to get into town, and she was early as she pulled into the healing garden, but there was a car already there. She wasn’t sure whether it was Grace’s car or not.

She got out and walked through the gate.

Josiah had told her to follow the path back—there was a pretty waterfall and a soothing reflection pond. She found it easily and thought that Grace was already there.

“Grace?” she asked, pretty sure it was her friend.

The woman turned, and then her face broke into a smile. “Claire!”

She moved forward, her arms out. If Claire had wondered how the reunion would go, she needn’t have worried. Grace embraced her like a long-lost friend. And she supposed she was exactly that.

“Thank you so much for being willing to meet me.”

“I should thank you,” Claire said.

Grace paused. “I heard about your grandma.”

“Oh good. I thought I was going to have to tell you, and… I told so many people today, I really didn’t want to have to go through it again.”

“You don’t have to. I’m not sure exactly how everything went, but I think it had something to do with my mom talking to Josiah’s mom, who knows the funeral director’s aunt, and yeah. Small towns.”

Grace grinned, and Claire laughed. “I know I’m supposed to be sad, but I’ve laughed some today too, which I think is weird.”

“Laughter is a stress relief, just like crying or anything else. In my personal opinion, I prefer laughing to crying, and I’ll do that any day.”

“I never thought about it like that. Do you really think that laughter lets stress out just like crying does?”

“I don’t know, but I always feel better after I’ve laughed. And somehow, when things are sad or hard, I always do better if I’m laughing.” She lifted her hands and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know if I’m handling it well or if I’m doing it in some kind of unhealthy way. But it works for me.”

“I suppose that’s the thing that matters.”

Grace nodded. “Would you like to sit down? I always find this spot the most comforting of all the spots in the garden.”

“Yeah. Vera and her husband did an amazing job on this.”

“They’re professionals. And you can tell. I think, since they dedicated it to their son, they spared no expense.”

“They dedicated it to their son? I thought they had a whole bunch of kids. Did they lose one?” She seemed to remember a bunch of kids running around the church after Vera and Dominic. Or maybe it was Dominic and Vera running around after the kids. That picture seemed more accurate.

“Before they had those children, they had one that they doted on, an only child. They lost him to a sudden fever, I think. Anyway, this garden was dedicated to him. They almost separated, but when they built it, they ended up coming back together. And then God blessed them with a whole pile of children.”

“Wow. That’s quite a story.”

“It is. It’s a beautiful love story. They should write it in a book sometime.”

The two friends smiled, and then Claire took a breath. “I need to apologize.”