Later

49

That was on a Monday, so I never did get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my class. I got the day off school to go to the funeral, and when we got back, I told my mother I wanted to go for a walk. That I needed to think.

“That’s fine… if you’re okay. Are you okay, Jamie?”

“Yes,” I said, and gave her a smile to prove it.

“Be back by five or I’ll worry.”

“I will be.”

I got as far as the door before she asked me the question I’d been waiting for. “Was he there?”

I had thought about lying, like maybe that would spare her feelings, but maybe it would make her feel better, instead. “Yes. Not at the church but at the cemetery.”

“How… how did he look?”

I told her he looked okay, and that was the truth. They’re always wearing the clothes they had on when they died, which in Professor Burkett’s case was a brown suit that was a little too big for him but still looked quite cool, in my humble opinion. I liked that he’d put on a suit for the plane ride, because it was another part of being old school. And he didn’t have his cane, possibly because he wasn’t holding it when he died or because he dropped it when the heart attack struck.

“Jamie? Could your old mom have a hug before you go out on your walk?”

I hugged her a long time.