Agnes sat in the parlor with her mother, but Victoria couldn’t bring herself to go downstairs that Halloween afternoon. At least Siobhan Limerick still had all of her children. None of them had been taken away from her. She wanted to go down there and smack the woman silly. After ten years, she still complained that Agnes had left the Catholic Church to marry Norman. Who the hell cares, Victoria fumed. At least Agnes was still alive. Her Norman was not.
She hadn’t left her room since coming back after the funeral yesterday. Agnes had refused to see Norman’s body after the train arrived with the naval guard – straight to the church for the funeral, straight to the cemetery for burial. But Victoria had insisted, and she was the only one who’d seen him, lying in the coffin.
Victoria had prepared herself for the worst, but the Navy’s morticians had done a good job. It was obvious Norman had died in the London bombing raid – they’d covered the top of his head with a brown wig, and he lay in dress grays under a blanket that hid what the bombs had done to his body -- but at least Victoria could recognize his square jaw and his cheekbones. The rest looked unnatural, but Victoria knew that would have been the case. Cornelius had died exactly two years ago and she’d been shocked then by her husband’s immobile face.
She thought about Agnes, a new widow like herself. And Siobhan Limerick. Agnes’s mother sat in the parlor. They hadn’t seen each other for eight years, but Siobhan had come to Norman’s funeral despite their falling out. Good for her, Victoria thought. Life’s too short to bicker over stupid things like religion.
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