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times a person had said to me, after a long acquaintance, “At first I was convinced you didn’t like me” or “I thought you were a bitch.” When I was younger I was bewildered by these misconceptions. I thought maybe it was my height, which set me apart, that made other people think I had set myself apart. By this time I had come to accept the version of myself reflected back by others, as you cannot help but accept the image you see when you look in the mirror.
    I put on my seat belt and looked up to find Oliver watching me like I was his science experiment.
    “Let’s have fun from here on out,” he said. “There’s no reason to be so stern, is there? I already have Ruth for that.”
    I pulled out onto the road. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that he was a pain in the ass. It was what I would have said to my own father, and he would have laughed and approved. Instead—I don’t know why—I said, “You make me nervous.” Even this small confession made me feel wretched with vulnerability. I felt a flush rise in my cheeks and kept my eyes trained on the road, waiting for him to tease me. I added, “And you’re a pain in the ass.”
    He laughed and patted my knee. “Tough hide, soft heart,” he said. “That’s my girl, all right.”
    I would have stayed with Oliver, if only he had not died.
    In the three days between his death and funeral, I felt a righteous indignation directed at everything around me, especially Ruth. After all our bickering over the question of whether Oliver might need more care than I could provide, I imagined that I detected in her bearing an accusatory smugness, as if Oliver’s death were the final point in her favor. I suspected that she intended to sell the house immediately, that she was just waiting for the dirt to cover Oliver’s grave before she asked me how long until I could be gone. When I’d moved from Chapel Hill to Oxford, I’d shed every possession that would not fit in my car. Everything I owned was in my little room. I could have been packed and gone in a day. Once, I’d been proud of how portable my life had become—far better to accept a transient and unstable life than to pretend permanence when there was no such thing. Now this same idea made me angry. Every day, I looked at the suitcase on the top shelf of my closet and defiantly left it sitting there.
    Late to Oliver’s memorial service, I slipped into the last pew in the middle of a testimonial from an old friend, or maybe a cousin—some story about Oliver wading into a stream, trying to catch a fish with his bare hands. “He was so sure he could do it,” the friend/cousin said, shaking his head in sad amusement, as the people in the pews laughed or murmured or dabbed away their tears. Who were these people? I’d seen only a few of them at the house, but it seemed to me that every one of them arose on cue, one after another, and went up to speak. There were dozens. Ruth was the last. In the middle of her speech she tilted her head back abruptly and looked up at the vaulted ceiling, trying not to cry. She waited a long moment, and then lowered her head and went back to talking. Not a tear escaped. I tried not to be hurt by the fact that no one had asked me to speak. At the graveside I stood outside the tent that sheltered Ruth and the other close relatives, who sat in folding chairs. I couldn’t hear anything the minister was saying. I stared at the spot of sun on the grass near my feet and thought that soon it would be summer. I had not yet cried.
    Afterward, back at the house, I stood in a corner of the living room with a glass of wine in my hand and watched people eat. Ruth and her husband had added the extra leaves to the dining- room table, which was now covered with food. Three different people had brought deviled eggs, which seemed to me food more suited to a picnic than a death. Ruth’s son manned the bar in another corner of the living room. There was a silver ice bucket like