Read Kindred Spirits for Free Online

down the pew.
    How could her own daughter treat her so? How could she act as if they meant nothing to each other? What about the dollhouse she’d made and the fairy houses they’d built out of moss and twigs in the woods? What about the nights the two of them stayed up reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince side-by-side on the couch, dissolving into tears when Dumbledore was struck down? Didn’t those moments count for anything?
    She felt herself trembling and looked down to see her hands shaking in her lap. Jeff must have noticed this too, because he linked his arm in hers.
    “Thank you,” she said under her breath, fighting the tears that should have been for Lynne, instead of for her daughter.
    He nodded encouragingly. “It’s going to be OK, Carol. Give her time.” He appraised her fitted black Donna Karan suit. “By the way, if I may say so, Amanda’s not the only one who looks terrific.”
    She smiled and blushed, instinctively sensing Amanda’s displeasure.
    The music ended abruptly and everyone stood as Sean, Kevin, and Kyle proceeded up the aisle. Mary Kay’s niece, Tiffany, trailed behind, head high and proud, though Mary Kay said she was overcome with guilt for leaving Lynne on the one night she should have stayed. That was absurd, especially considering the sacrifices Tiffany had already made, even taking a hiatus from her new nursing position in Boston so Lynne could have private care.
    Carol made a mental note to find a moment after the funeral to praise Tiffany to the hilt. Though Tiffany was Mary Kay’s niece by blood and daughter by adoption, the two women shared much in common, including big hearts under their colorful clothes and thick perfume. Sometimes it was easy to take their abundant generosity for granted.
    The family stopped before Lynne’s coffin, white and strewn with flowers from her own garden—purple, orange, and red mums, the last of the yellow Shasta daisies, black-eyed Susans, and the fading pink roses of summer.
    There was Lynne. She was really dead. She was really no more.
    Next to her, Amanda began to weep and Carol brushed a hand against hers. This time she didn’t flinch. It wasn’t anything, really, a trifle, but to Carol it was a start.
    The rest of the ceremony went by in a blur. Carol bowed her head and prayed, not to God, but to Lynne, wishing she was finally at peace. She hoped Lynne could see how much she was loved, how the whole town had turned out to say good-bye. It was inspiring to think one person, no one particularly special, rich, or famous—an elementary school art teacher—could touch so many, many lives.
    Out of the corner of her eye, Carol absently admired Jeff’s suit—an expertly tailored Brooks Brothers double-breasted with a slim silk dot tie. She entertained the possibility of a young girlfriend picking out his stylish accessories, wrapping his half-Windsor knot and brushing off his sleeves.
    After all, she was getting closer to Scott. It was only reasonable that Jeff would have found someone else too. She observed how the muscles in his jaw flexed as he kept his emotions in check during the reading of “Adieu, adieu,” the last line of John Keats’s Fairy Song . She let herself drink in the smell of his Neutrogena aftershave that reminded her of their nightly ritual of lying in bed, her head on his shoulder, as he discussed his patients, unraveling his day.
    What did she feel? Regret? Longing? Anything?
    Carol realized then it didn’t matter what she felt. Not anymore. They had been “torn asunder,” to quote their wedding vows. They were two, no longer one. Spiritually, psychologically, and, most important, legally. So, that was that.
    Lynne’s son Kevin delivered a eulogy and then Beth stood up and delivered an emotional, if rambling, testimony about her friendship with Lynne. She recalled meeting her next-door neighbor while she was shoveling snow off her front walk and how they discovered they were both new mothers with