She watched Agnes come into the church behind the coffin, a stranger, this daughter she hadn’t seen in eight years. She walked with a steady, erect posture now, not the rambling girl at 6th and Pine. Halfway up the aisle she removed her hat and veil, handing it to someone in a pew, not the girl who shied away from having a sweet sixteen birthday party. Agnes stood out in the crowd of hundreds, the only person wearing white.
And she held the hands of two children, the eleven-year old Grace, Siobhan knew – but the little boy, she’d heard, the little boy Harold born in ’37, a six year old. She’d never met him. The coffin and the procession came closer to their pew in the front – Siobhan recognized Agnes’s mother-in-law, Victoria. Mr. Larney and Cristina were there, plus a group of people Siobhan assumed were Norman’s family. Strangers, every one of them.
“Good morning, Mama,” said Agnes, an alto depth in her voice Siobhan had never heard. Before today.
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