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chapter three

Eve hated funerals She detested the rite hu death The flowers, the

There s out And if there were, she thought, It h over Its creations’ useless rituals and passages

Still, she had inia to attend Sharon DeBlass’s funeral She wanted to see the dead’s faether, to observe, and analyze, and judge

The senator stood grim-faced and dry-eyed, with Rockman, his shadow, one pew behind Beside DeBlass was his son and daughter-in-law

Sharon’s parents were young, attractive, successful attorneys who headed their o firm

Richard DeBlass stood with his head bowed and his eyes hooded, a trimmer and somehow less dynamic version of his father Was it coincidence, Eve wondered, or design that he stood at equal distance between his father and wife?

Elizabeth Barrister was sleek and chic in her dark suit, her waving id And, Eve, noted, her eyes red-ri with constant tears

What did a mother feel, Eve wondered, as she had wondered all of her life, when she lost a child?

Senator DeBlass had a daughter as well, and she flanked his right side Congresswoman Catherine DeBlass had followed in her father’s political footsteps Painfully thin, she stood s in her black dress Beside her, her husband Justin Sulossy coffin draped with roses at the front of the church At his side, their son Franklin, still trapped in the gangly stage of adolescence, shifted restlessly

At the end of the pew, somehow separate from the rest of the family, was DeBlass’s wife, Anna

She neither shifted nor wept Not once did Eve see her so lance at the flower-strewn box that held as left of her only granddaughter

There were others, of course Elizabeth’s parents stood together, hands linked, and cried openly Cousins, acquaintances, and friends dabbed at their eyes or simply looked around in fascination or horror The President had sent an envoy, and the church was packed with more politicians than the Senate lunchroom

Though there wereRoarke out of the crowd He was alone There were others lined in the peith hinized the solitary quality that surrounded hi, and he would have remained aloof from them

His striking face gave away nothing: no guilt, no grief, no interest Hea mildly inferior play Eve could think of no better description for a funeral