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burial commenced. The men of Sam’s barbershop, acting as pallbearers instead of playing checkers and smoking cigars as they normally would on a Saturday afternoon, took him out the front door like the coffin was an ordinary piece of furniture. The flowers were tossed aside, in various locations, their usefulness done. Later, she recalled nothing of the burial, but there was dirt under her fingernails and mud on the midsection of her skirt. She could not fathom how that had come to be.
    When they returned home, her daughters each holding onto an arm because she could not walk alone, the sickly sweet smell of the flowers greeted them. Lydia gagged. Emma, her oldest at fourteen, guided her into a chair. Birdie brought a glass of water. At fourteen and twelve they were little ladies, taught in the southern style despite their northerner mother.
    The women from church had cleaned up, but they’d left the flowers, perhaps thinking they would be a comfort. They were not. She hated them, every petal, every stem. They covered her beloved piano, the formal sofa her daughters weren’t allowed to sit on, the side table where letters often waited for the post. Had the flowers multiplied while they were away watching William being lowered into the ground?
    She sent Birdie and Emma to wash up and put their nightgowns on. “I’ll be there shortly to tuck you in.”
    They didn’t argue, knowing when to leave and when to stay, a quality they’d inherited from their father.
    The silent conversation with William continued. It was softer now, without the other voices to interfere. I need to play you one more hymn, William. Your favorite hymn. But this time he did not answer. Already she was losing him. She collapsed onto the piano bench. But even here, the flowers mocked her. They occupied every inch of the keyboard’s closed cover.
    She twisted on the bench; her gaze swept the room. Angry energy coursed through her until she was hot and damp. She rose to her feet. The flowers must be removed so she could breathe again. They could not, would not, stop her from playing one last hymn for her William. Every last flower was destined for the compost, if it took her all night. She stomped to the sewing basket and pulled out her scissors. They must be cut to bits, their perky buds slaughtered. They must suffer.
    She turned and stumbled on the corner of the braided rug, the scissors like a sword in her hand. Wait. Where to start? The scissors dangled now from her index finger. William would know where to begin, but he wasn’t here. She closed her eyes, gripping the scissors. Please no , she begged the pain. Please don’t come until I get through this day and into bed . The pain heeded no pleas. It came in cruel waves, as if someone stabbed her with the benign sewing scissors, but worse because the wound was inside and could not be healed with ointment or pills.
    William waving to her from the driveway. Chicken potpie in the oven smelling like love, like life. That grin he always had when he first spotted her, even after fifteen years together.
    She’d come to greet him from the porch like most days, anxious to tell him of her morning, of the way the sparrows had seemed to sing harmony with her piano. First the wave, the grin, and then he collapsed onto the red dirt, inches from the green lawn, clutching his left arm. His last breath was of the red dust instead of the cool grass. Even that small comfort was denied her.
    Not even two days had passed since that last moment. And now? The house smelled of death.
    The flowers must suffer.
    The doctor assured her that William hadn’t suffered. “Heart failure. It was instantaneous. Didn’t feel a thing. That should be a comfort to you.” It , she wanted to tell him nastily and with emphasis, was not a comfort to her; she knew it wasn’t true. His last thoughts would have been of her and their daughters. He clung to life, to them, even in those final seconds.
    Now, the clock chimed eight. Four