Lucas suddenly became aware that he was sitting inside a family conversation.
He started to stand.
Stephen caught his sleeve.
“Stay. Please.”
Lucas remained.
His sister introduced herself as Anne.
She looked at the marked music. “He kept that on the piano for years.”
Stephen frowned. “It was in the trumpet case.”
“After he got sick, he moved it.”
The word sick changed the air.
Harold’s death had not been sudden, Lucas realized. The family had lived with an approaching goodbye long enough for requests to become loaded with meaning.
Stephen rubbed both palms over his knees.
“He asked me to play at the funeral three weeks ago. I said no before he finished the sentence.”
Anne’s face softened.
“I know.”
“He said, ‘Fine.’ That’s all.”
“He was tired.”
“He thought I was a coward.”
Anne shook her head. “You don’t know that.”
Stephen looked toward the grave.
“I do.”
Lucas thought about the first broken note of the funeral. He had spent the entire ceremony assigning judgment to strangers whose faces he barely knew.
“I thought you hated me after I missed the first note,” he said.
Stephen turned.
“What?”
“When you looked up. I thought you heard the mistake and decided I’d ruined the funeral.”
Stephen stared at him.
“I looked up because my dad missed the first note all the time.”
Lucas felt the bench beneath him more distinctly.
“What?”
