If Only I Had Told Her

Coach and some guys from the team are going to be pallbearers, and he asked us to all meet at the start of the wake to talk about how the funeral will go the next day. It feels like a huddle during a game, except we’re standing in the parking lot of the funeral home, not on the field, and we’re in khakis and suits instead of shorts. We hang our heads like we were getting a lecture after a bad play, though Coach’s voice is gentler than I’d ever known it.

“Coffin is closed,” he says. “No one asks why. In fact, no one says much of anything in front of the family, ’kay? I picked you boys for a reason. Make me proud.”

There are nods and mumbles.

“No one is late tomorrow. Get here early. All right. See you then.”

We start to disperse, but Coach calls my name, so I kick at the ground until the others are gone.

“How are you holding up?” he asks.

I’ve discovered this will be a thing going forward. I was briefly an adult after graduation, but I’m back to grown-ups checking in on me, telling me how the world works.

“I’ll survive. We all will,” I say, because I’ve been finding it a helpful mantra.

“That’s good to hear,” Coach says. “If tomorrow is too much for you or—”

I look up from the asphalt. “I wanna do it.”

“I’m just letting you know, it’s okay if you change your mind.” He claps me on the shoulder. “See you inside.”

My parents have come with me, and they’re waiting by the car. I’m their seventh son, their last. My parents don’t like each other much, but we’re Catholic. Or they’re Catholic. Point is, as far as my parents go, they love me, but they’ve done it all before and don’t have the energy to have much of a relationship with me. Plus, if they leave their carefully constructed confines to spend time with me, they may encounter each other, which they’ve both ruled is not worth it.

So it’s nice and awkward to have them both with me. I’m grateful, and I’m resentful, and meanwhile “Finn is dead, Finn is dead” is beating in my head like a drum. This knowledge pulsates through my body like it has the power to change the way my organs are arranged within me.

The parking lot is full. At first, I think there’s another wake or funeral going on. The place is small and has two rooms. Both of my grandparents’ funerals were here. I know it well.

But both rooms are for Finn. A line of people snakes along the wall from one room into the next like they’re waiting for a ride at Six Flags. A harried-looking employee in black asks if we are family, then directs us to the end of the line.

Like I said, I can see pretty much everyone I’ve ever known here. People who I didn’t know even knew Finn and people I’ve never seen in my life, all waiting to say goodbye, to say sorry, so sorry.

I wish Finn could see this.

The thought opens a new wound, because I wish Finn had known that this many people cared about him.

He always blew it off when people said stuff like, “How are you the nicest person alive, Finn?” It was as if Finn didn’t realize his consistent kindness added up for people. It is his default setting.

Was.

It’s so hard to think about him in the past tense.

In history class, we read about these monks who would hit themselves while praying and go into ecstatic trances, and I could never understand that, but maybe I do now.

It hurts, yet it feels so good to think about Finn.

I can’t stop tearing at the wound, because the wound is all I have left of him.

My parents murmur pleasantries to the other adults around them. A sort of knowing look passes between them, a well, here we are attitude, as if escorting a child through the death of a peer was an expected milestone.

Everyone agrees Finn was such a good kid, and they will agree forever, and nothing can ever change that.

People say only the good die young, but someone once told me it wasn’t true, that we only remember the good things about those who die young. I don’t know who is correct. I just know that Finn was good. I hope that years from now, all these people will remember Finn was helpful and kind because he was always those things—not because they forgot when he wasn’t.

The line moves forward. I see kids I never expected to see again after graduation. I see kids I haven’t seen in years because they went to private high school after middle school. Sometimes we raise our hands in a small wave. Some make the mistake of greeting others with an automatic “What’s up?” or “How’s it going?” before realizing the answer is all around us.

I look for Sylvie, even though I don’t expect to see her. My instincts tell me that Sylvie won’t come to this event, that she’s saving her mental strength for the funeral.

I look around for Alexis and wonder if she felt her duty was done by holding her own wake, if she’s at home hosting another morbid party. Maybe she’s with Sylvie? I haven’t heard from her.

Someone whose voice is unfamiliar to me is talking about how Finn told him it would be his job to keep a lid on the locker room talk next year during track season and how cool that was and how inspired he felt by that. I can’t see his face, but he sounds young. It sort of sounds like something Finn would say but also not. I’m not sure what to make of it.

A funeral home employee approaches us, her golden name tag glinting in the warm light.

“Are you Jack Murphy?”

“Yeah?” I’m weirdly frightened.

“Are these your parents? Please come with me.” She motions us out of the line. “The family asked for you.”

We’re clearly expected to follow her. It’s strange, like being tapped to go backstage. My parents flank me in a way that feels formal. My dad puts his hand briefly on my shoulder as we walk.

The woman says, “I’ve worked kids’ funerals before. I’ve never seen a line like this.”

She means this to be comforting, but I don’t know what to say in reply. Thank you? How many kids have died this year?

Then we are at the doors to the other room, and there it is. There he is.

And there he isn’t, because Finn is gone, and the coffin is closed.

The employee points to Angelina standing by the coffin.

She stands by his picture, his senior portrait, taken in celebration. By his familiar face and flop of blond hair. His smile.

“They’re expecting you,” she says.

There’s an odd aura around us as we approach. I feel so young, like I’m being escorted into kindergarten, and I’m resentful and grateful all over again. My parents shoulder themselves on either side of me, and I can tell all their focus is on me. They don’t speak, but it’s strange: the closer we get to the horrible box, to the grinning photograph of my friend that sits on top, it’s like I can feel my parents saying to me, See, Jack? This is death.

I feel so small. I’m too young for this to be happening. My best friend can’t be dead.

“Jack,” Angelina says and hugs me.

I’m confused before I know why I’m confused. It isn’t until she holds me away from her to look at me, as if it’s been years since she’s seen me, that I register she’s smiling.

“How are you?”

“Fine,” I say, even though it’s not true.

Angelina doesn’t look fine either. Though she doesn’t look how I expected. There’re tears shining in her eyes, yet her eyes are bright in a different, happier way. Her mouth twitches.

“He made a mark on a lot of people,” she says with such certainty while looking at me for confirmation.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Parents and kids have been telling me stories, things I’d never heard before.” Her face crumples, but then it’s like she pulls herself up over the edge of the cliff after hanging by her fingernails. She smiles at me. “He really was a good kid.” She hugs me again, and over her shoulder, Finn is inside a gray and silver box, dead.

I cry, and his mother holds me.

Electricity ran through Finn’s body, stopping his heart and burning him from the inside out, and I cannot unknow these things. I cannot stop from imagining his face.

I feel it again, the collision with that brick wall of “this must not be.”

His mother lets go of me, and I realize I’ve stopped crying.

It feels like our mourning is all she has left of Finn. Our grief is proof of his life.

“I don’t think I’ll ever have a friend like him again,” I tell her.

Angelina shakes her head a little. “You’ll have another friendship like that, Jack, and you should.” She pats my shoulder. “Just promise me that you’ll never forget him.”

“I couldn’t.”

And there it is again, the pained joy on her face. She turns to my parents and thanks us for coming. I am a child once more letting myself be led back to the car and driven home, sitting in the silence of the back seat.

For the first time, I wonder if I can do it tomorrow.

Carry his coffin.

Carry his body.

Place it over a hole where it—he—Finn, will stay forever.