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she’d said to the city employees and Abbey had to give her credit for that. But when the coffin wentinto the ground, the Shaws stood on one side of the grave and Jane and Abbey stood on the other. Abbey looking at Isabelle the whole time and seeing herself there, the same height and build, the same dark hair. The Shaws were mostly in their fifties, and Frank was the spitting image of one of the younger brothers.
    Midway through the service Jane put a hand on Abbey’s arm, was watching her watching the Shaws. Then the priest threw a clump of dirt on the grave. Jane stepped forward and did the same. People turned to Abbey. She bent forward and scooped up a handful from the mound of earth near her feet. Let it go over the casket. A small stone skipped over the mahogany. The Shaws did nothing, as if they had no right, despite being Frank’s blood relations. Four brothers and a sister. The sum total of all their parts. Even though they were standing next to the grave, even though they’d driven for over four hours to get to his funeral, making the effort to show up in pressed suits and polished shoes, Isabelle fingering her pearl necklace, Frank wouldn’t have forgiven them. One last affront—that’s how he would have seen it. As if this was their way of saying “you were never one of us.” All of his life Frank had talked about how he thought they blamed him for their mother’s death. As if he’d done something in the womb. His father giving him away to punish him. And not so much as a word of acknowledgement from the Shaws all those years. Not even a look that said “we know you.”
    The twelve who’d come to see Frank off went over to the church hall for the reception. The city workers looked longingly over at their cars. Abbey’d stayed to watch the backhoe push the dirt onto the grave, the driver wary of her presence. After he left she walked over to the headstone and traced theletters of her father’s name. Felt nothing. Tried to picture him in her mind in better days. But every thought led her to the last time she’d seen him, the night of the fire. Over by the church the crows swooped around the red-brick bell tower, cawed in the nearby trees. The sun was out but the air held onto the cold. It was mid-April but it didn’t feel like Spring. In three days’ time, she’d be on a plane heading back to Ireland. She’d be back with Dermot, trying again to find work on the west coast. Jane had asked her to go through Frank’s apartment, to take anything she might need before it got hauled away. But Abbey didn’t want to go back there; she didn’t want to be here now.
    Over by the church hall, a few people stood outside the main doors, smoking. They went in and came out again a half hour later. One of the men, a cousin of Frank’s, had a paper napkin in his hand. He wiped his mouth with it and let it drop onto the gravel. Abbey tried to picture her father again, from when she was young, that period of time when he could easily please her. But every thought was tinged with grief, with his failure. She could hear the start of an engine in the parking lot. Then the gate creaked as two of the city workers went through it. Tentatively, Abbey took a step forward. Put her right foot on the mound of earth over her father’s grave. Then her left. She turned around once and stamped her feet. Watched her shoes sink into the dirt, the barrow.
    Abbey steps off the bus in Dublin and Angela is there, waiting by the gate. A cup of coffee between her hands, lipstick along the rim.
    “Thank fuck you’re here. I’m freezing my tits off.”
    “Sorry, I thought I’d catch the early bus.”
    “Well, you owe me a pint.” Ange kisses Abbey’s temple and then walks over to the waste bin, tosses her coffee cup in, starts for the door.
    “When’d you get glasses?” Abbey asks. Angela is wearing a pair of thick-rimmed black frames.
    “Last week. They’re not prescription. What do you think?” She pushes them farther up