Proper
by
A.A. deFreese
It was a proper funeral. Live pipers played requiems to her ash and the sermon brimmed with fireplace trifles, tea cozies, scones with real cream. Omitted: the middle husbands; the stepdaughter, disinherited, who’d also passed that summer, alone, living with cats in a van; and the deeper secrets old friends kept buried.
Her last weeks, she’d crashed the Mercedes into the garage wardrobe and left a card at the Temple to seal Rufus. She thought him too long gone to notice, but Rufus knew. He was a hummingbird now, wild, and red; his soul had already escaped into the fuchsias.
Her last weeks, she’d crashed the Mercedes into the garage wardrobe and left a card at the Temple to seal Rufus. She thought him too long gone to notice, but Rufus knew. He was a hummingbird now, wild, and red; his soul had already escaped into the fuchsias.
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