Ali’s turn to speak came at the end of the service. It was only when she walked to the pulpit and prepared to make her remarks that she spotted Jasmine Wright seated on the aisle in the next to last pew.
Seeing her there was almost enough to derail Ali’s concentration, but she pulled herself together. This is for the kids, she told herself fiercely. With her hands shaking from outrage rather than nerves, Ali smiled as believably as possible at Matt and Julie and held up the card.
“If you knew Reenie Bernard,” she said, “you know who sent this. Reenie loved cards. She loved sending them and receiving them. She sent them at Christmas and Valentine’s Day and Easter and the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Sometimes she sent them for no reason at all. This one happens to be a friendship card. You see, Reenie and I were friends.
“We met and became friends on our first day of high school, when we showed up in Mrs. Toone’s algebra class and figured out that we were both scared to death.”
Back in the fourth row, behind the Holzers, Dave Holman smiled and nodded knowingly as did several other people in the room. Some of them Ali recognized as classmates or schoolmates. Some she didn’t, but clearly lots of the people in the room were familiar with the teacher in question. Mrs. Toone had been a daunting creature who took the position her students would learn algebra properly or else.
“We were both scared to be going to school with kids from all those other places. I was from sophisticated Sedona and imagined that kids from Cottonwood would be a bunch of country bumpkins. As for the kids from Verde Valley? Forget it.”
A few chuckles rippled through the room.
“But then we got there and it turned out it was fine because we were all just kids. It seems unlikely now that a girl who grew up living in an apartment out behind a diner would become friends with a banker’s daughter, but that’s exactly what happened.”
She talked about the things she and Reenie had done together-about school plays and pranks and organizations. And she talked about the missing years, when their friendship went dormant for a time but didn’t disappear.
“We went our separate ways and lost each other for a long time after high school, but then I came home for our tenth high school reunion and there she was, the same old Reenie. We picked up our friendship again as easily as if we’d never been apart. We called each other often and wrote letters back and forth. That’s when she started sending me cards again, an amazing collection of cards. My only regret is that I didn’t keep all of them.
“If you’ve seen the YW’s vibrant new facility up in Flagstaff, you’ve seen the works of Reenie Bernard’s heart, hands, and mind. When other people said it was impossible to have a new building, Reenie ignored all the naysayers. She wasn’t afraid to reach for the stars, and she built it anyway.
“I went to Reenie’s office in Flagstaff yesterday,” Ali continued. “One whole wall is covered, floor to ceiling, with greeting cards-the ones people had sent to her.” Ali had to pause for a moment and compose herself before continuing. “It says in the Bible, ‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap.’ Reenie Bernard sowed greeting cards wherever she went, and she definitely reaped the same.
“Last night I heard from a woman named Louise Malkin who lives in Lubbock, Texas. Her sister, Lisa Kingsley, recently died of ALS. Lisa and Reenie met in an ALS chat room before doctors confirmed that Reenie, too, had been stricken with the disease. They became friends. I know that because last night, while sorting through her sister’s belongings, Louise found a lovely greeting card. I don’t think I have to tell you who sent it.
“Thanks for all the cards, Reenie. Thanks for giving all of us something to remember you by.”
Ali resumed her seat then. As the organ began the introduction to “Morning Has Broken,” she heard sounds of sniffling as people reached for handkerchiefs and tissues.
Miss Abel would be proud, she thought.
Outside, after the service, two black limos were lined up behind the hearse. Howie, his parents, and Matt and Julie rode in one. The Holzers along with Jack and Bree rode in the other while everyone else walked the three short blocks to Cottonwood Cemetery. If Jasmine came along to the cemetery, Ali didn’t spot her. There was no exchange of greetings or pleasantries between the two opposing sets of family members, not at the church or during the brief graveside service, either.
When it was time to return to the limos, Julie slipped away from Howie’s mother and ran over to Ed and Diane. She was crying and clinging to Diane’s waist when Howie stepped forward and drew her away to the limo for the ride back to Flagstaff.
So that’s how it’s going to be, Ali thought. They’ve lost their mother and now they’re losing their grandparents as well.
Back in the church’s basement parish hall, the tenor of the gathering seemed to have changed for the better. Yes, it was still sad. People were still grieving, but with Howie and his parents no longer present, most of the uneasy tension seemed to have drained away.
Ali was standing near the punch bowl when Dave Holman made his way over to her, coffee cup in one hand and a plate of sandwiches in another. “Good job,” he said. “Especially for a last-minute pinch hitter.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“Do you have plans for later?” he asked.
Her first thought was that Dave Holman had a hell of a lot of nerve. How dare he try to pick her up at Reenie’s funeral? But then he continued.
“I’m working at the moment,” he added. “But I’ve been going over the phone records you were interested in. I’ve been tracking down some of those names and numbers. It occurred to me that you might be able to tell me about some of them.”
“About the bank…” Ali began.
“Oh, it’s there all right,” Dave said. “I have a call in to the branch manager. He won’t be back until tomorrow. Since you seem to know a good deal about all this, I thought maybe I should sit down with you and take an official statement…”
So he wasn’t asking for a date-not exactly. “Sure,” Ali said. “What time?”
“I could pick you up between six and six-thirty,” he offered. “We could go down to the substation and maybe stop off somewhere for a burger afterward.”
“That would be great.”
Because there was no elevator at First Lutheran, Bob Larson had to wait upstairs in his wheelchair while his wife made a brief appearance at the reception.
“Great job,” Edie said, as Dave Holman melted back into the crowd. “Reenie would have loved it. Especially the part about the cards. She always sent those lion and lamb ones at Christmas. I think I still have a couple of them. They were too cute to throw away.”
“I wish I’d saved more of mine,” Ali said. “So how’d it go with the consultant?”
“All right, I guess,” Edie said, but she didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“What happened?”
“Dad got along with the guy like gangbusters,” Edie said. “I didn’t like him much.”
“Why not?”
“He wants your grandmother’s recipes,” Edie answered. “All of them. I thought we were just talking about selling the building, but the recipes? Your grandmother’s sweet rolls?”
To Ali’s amazement, her mother, who prided herself on not being the least bit sentimental and who ordinarily never cried at funerals, seemed dangerously close to tears.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
Edie shook her head. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. It was my idea to sell the place, but now that it looks like it might happen, I don’t know. The Sugarloaf’s been my whole life. I don’t know what I’ll do without it.”
Ali gave her mother a hug. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll figure it out.”