That was the entire argument, stripped to its bones. It had been the argument at the funeral home, the argument over the obituary wording, the argument over who sat in the front pew at the church, the argument over who had the right to choose the tie Thomas wore in his casket, and the argument—though nobody had spoken it that directly—inside every phone call Michael had fielded for the nine months since his father’s death. Thirty-one years against the last six. History against legality. Endurance against recency. Two women who had both loved the same difficult man and hated the shape of each other’s proof.
“Mom,” Michael said quietly. “Please. People are looking.”
Eleanor’s eyes flashed to him so quickly that the old fear of being twelve years old again rose in his chest before he could stop it.
“Which mom, Michael?” she asked.
The question landed with the precision of a slap.
June’s face changed, not toward triumph, exactly, but toward the resigned pain of someone who knew even silence could be used as evidence against her. Michael looked away for a moment and saw exactly what he had been trying not to see: a nearby family with two teenage girls pretending not to stare, an older veteran in a wheelchair glancing over and then respectfully down, a cemetery volunteer pretending to adjust a small flag while clearly listening. He hated that the scene had an audience. He hated more that it did not matter.
June’s fingers touched her purse strap.
“The license is in my purse,” she said.