The director asked if they wanted a minute before the next guests. Vera said the minute had happened. People came. They signed the book. They said he was a good man. Vera said thank you. Thank you was a lid. She did not lift it. Keisha stood at the podium and turned the page when it filled and did not read the names for a Nadine. If Nadine had signed, Keisha would have torn the page. Nadine had not signed. The not-signing was the only manners available. Vera noticed the blank and did not mention it. Mentioning it would have put the coat back in the row.
Raymond Lang had sold insurance and coached a church basketball team and called his wife from the car when the traffic was bad. The calls had stopped being long in the eleventh year before his heart stopped, which Vera had blamed on retirement and a quiet house. The quiet house had been a toothbrush somewhere else. She hated the reframe. She stood in it anyway. People needed a widow who could nod. She nodded. The pearls clicked. Keisha watched the click and wanted to take the necklace off her and did not. The necklace was not the locket. The locket had left. That was the only victory of the hour, and it was thin, and Vera took it.
Nadine drove to a apartment on the east side and put the locket on the table and did not open it. Raymond had given it to her in year four, a photo of the two of them at a lake that was not a family lake. He had said if anything happens, don’t come. She had come. The coming was the part she would not apologize for in a empty kitchen. The leaving she had done when Vera told her to. Both were true. She called no one. A friend named Loretta texted: you went. Nadine wrote: I left. Loretta wrote: good. Good was traveling. Nadine let it travel. She brushed her teeth with the toothbrush that was his and then threw it out. The throw was late. Late was the only time she had.