They were halfway through the hundred or so mourners who had come, when Faith heard a voice behind her that was so familiar, all she could do was stare. She had been shaking the hand of a woman who had been one of her mother's friends, and before she could turn, he said a single word.

“Fred.” It brought a smile to her face in spite of the circumstances, and she was beaming as she turned. There was only one person in the world who had called her that, other than Jack. In fact, he had created it, and Jack had adopted it. It had been her nickname for all of her growing-up years. He had always said Faith was a stupid name for a girl, so he had called her Fred.

Faith turned with a broad smile and looked at him, unable to believe that he was there. He hadn't changed a bit in years, although he was the same age as Jack, and two years older than she. At forty-nine, Brad Patterson still looked like a kid when he grinned. He had green eyes the same color as hers, a long lanky body that had always been too thin, but seemed more reasonably so now. She had always told him he had legs like a spider when they were kids. He had a smile that stretched across his face irresistibly, a cleft chin, and a shock of dark hair that had not yet begun to go gray. Brad had been her brother's very best friend from the time he was ten. Faith had been eight the first time she had laid eyes on him, and he had painted her blond hair green for St. Patrick's Day. She, Jack, and Brad had thought it a terrific idea, although her mother had been considerably less amused.

Brad had come up with a million plots and pranks over the years, he and Jack had gotten into everything, and been inseparable for a dozen years. They had gone to Penn State together, and only separated finally when they both went off to law school. Brad had gone to Boalt at Berkeley, and Jack to Duke. Brad had fallen in love with a girl out there, and eventually stayed on the West Coast, and then somehow real life intervened. He married and had kids, he had twin sons roughly the same age as Eloise. And as time went by, Jack flew out to see him once every couple of years. But Brad stopped coming east. It had been years since Faith had seen him when he came to her brother's funeral. They had both been devastated and spent hours talking to each other about him, as though by telling everything they remembered about Jack they could bring him back to them. Brad had come back to the house with her, and met Zoe and Eloise. The girls had been fifteen and twenty-one then. Alex hadn't been terribly impressed by him, he thought him too West Coast, as he put it, and was dismissive of him, mostly because he was Jack's friend. But Faith didn't care, all she wanted to do was cling to him. She and Brad had exchanged letters for a year, and lost touch again finally. His own life seemed to devour him. She hadn't seen him since Jack's funeral, and hadn't heard from him in nearly two years. She was stunned to see him standing there, at Charles's memorial, and couldn't imagine how he had come to be there.

“What are you doing here?” The smile they exchanged could have lit up the entire church.

“I was in town for a conference, and saw the obituary in the paper yesterday. I thought it would be a decent thing to come.” He smiled at her just as he had nearly forty years before. He still looked like a boy to her, and in her heart he always would be, no matter how old he got. Their youth was all she saw. He was one of the three musketeers she and Jack had formed with him. And she smiled up at him, grateful that he had come. It made it easier for her suddenly, and made her feel as though Jack was also in their midst. “And I knew I'd see you here. You look great, Fred.”

He had teased her mercilessly as a kid, and she had had a crush on him when she was about thirteen. But by the time he left for college three years later, she had gotten over it, and was dating boys her own age. But he had remained one of her best friends. It saddened her that they had lost contact finally, but it was hard to maintain their friendship over distance and time. All they had was history, and the enormous affection she still felt for him. They both treasured endless memories of the years they had shared growing up.

She invited him to the hotel afterward, and he nodded, his eyes seeming to drink her in. He looked as moved to see her as she was to see him.

“I'll be there,” he said reassuringly. He had seen her crying as she sang “Amazing Grace,” as he had as well. He couldn't hear the hymn anymore without thinking of Jack's funeral three years before. It had been one of the darkest days of his life.

“It was nice of you to come,” she said, smiling up at him, as people on the receiving line moved around them to shake hands with Allison and Bertrand.

“Charlie was a nice old guy,” Brad said benevolently. He had some fond memories of him, fonder than Faith's. But he and Jack had done things with him Faith had never had the chance to do, like deer hunting, and fishing at the lake. He had been good about things like that, and it would never have dawned on him to include Faith. “Besides,” Brad added, “I wanted to see you. How are your girls?” he asked, and she smiled again.

“Great. But gone unfortunately. Eloise is in London, and Zoe is a freshman at Brown. How are the twins?”

“Terrific. They're spending a year in Africa, chasing lions around. They graduated from UCLA in June and took off right after that. I want to go see them one of these days, but I haven't had time.” Faith knew he had gone out on his own a few years before. He was doing some sort of community legal defense work, working with minors convicted of felonies. Jack had told her about it just before he died, and she and Brad had talked about it at the funeral. But she didn't have time to ask him about work now, Allison was signaling to her that they had to leave for the cemetery. Faith nodded and looked back at Brad.

“I've got to go…. Will you come to the hotel afterward? The Waldorf.” She looked like a kid again as she reminded him, and he smiled. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and give her a hug. Something in her eyes told him she'd seen hard times. He wasn't sure if it was Jack or something else, but there was something powerful and sad in her eyes that tugged at his heart, like when she was a kid and she looked sad. He had always felt protective of her and still did.

“I'll be there.” Faith nodded, and two people came between them and offered their condolences as they shook her hand.

Brad signaled good-bye to her, and then drifted off. He had some errands to do before he went to the hotel. He didn't come to New York often, and he wanted to stop at a few favorite haunts, and go to a couple of the shops he liked. He would have preferred to go to the cemetery with her, to offer his support, but he didn't want to intrude. He knew it would be hard for her, because of Jack. Funerals and cemeteries were all too familiar to her now. And he realized as he watched her get into the limousine and drive off behind the hearse that he hadn't seen her husband with her. He wondered if something had happened between them—if they'd split up—and if that was the sadness he'd seen in her eyes. He and Jack had talked about it after Faith had married, neither of them had been enthused about Alex. He had always seemed distant and cold to them, even then, but Faith had insisted to Jack he was a great guy and warmer than he looked. And Brad was no longer close enough to her now to ask how things were. But he found it odd that Alex wasn't there.

The brief interlude at the cemetery was perfunctory and grim. The minister read several psalms, and Allison said a few words, while her husband stood silently by. And then each of them left a rose on Charles's casket, and walked away quietly. They had agreed not to stay while it was lowered into the ground. It would have been too sad. Only a handful of people had come, and half an hour later, they were on their way back to the city again. It was a brilliantly sunny October day, and Faith was grateful at least that it hadn't rained. It had poured the day they'd buried Jack, which made it that much worse. Not that sunshine would have helped. Nothing would. It was without question the most agonizing day of her life.

Burying Charles was different for her. It was quiet and sad. It made her think of her mother, the marriage they'd had, and the childhood she and Jack had spent with them. Based on her experience with her own father, Faith had been afraid of Charles at first, when her mother had married him. She wasn't sure what to expect. But she had been relieved to find early on that he had no sexual interest in her, although he had been unyielding and stern. He had often shouted at them. The first time he'd done it, she had cried, and Jack had held her hand. Her mother had said nothing to Charles in their defense. She had never wanted to make waves, and hadn't stuck up for them, which seemed like a betrayal to Faith. All her mother had wanted was for everything to work, no matter what it took, whether she had to sacrifice herself or Faith or Jack. She deferred to Charles about everything, even her own kids. It was Jack who had always protected Faith. He had been her hero all his life until the day he died. It made her think of Brad again, and how pleased she was that he had come. Seeing him at the hotel was something to look forward to, as she tried to turn her thoughts away from painful memories. There were far too many of them.

The car pulled up outside the hotel, and Faith and Allison agreed to let it go then. Faith could either walk or take a taxi home, and Allison and Bertrand were going to take a cab to the airport at six o'clock. All they had left to do now as part of Charles's funeral was spend a few hours with his friends. As they walked into the hotel, Allison was still holding the folded flag they had taken off his casket at the cemetery. It made her look like a war widow, Faith thought, as they walked across the lobby, and took the elevator upstairs.

The room Allison had rented for the afternoon was simple and elegant. There was a grand piano in one corner, and a buffet covered with sandwiches, cookies, and cakes. There was coffee, and a waiter offering people drinks and wine. What she had provided to eat was basic but adequate, and the first people began to arrive almost as soon as Faith hung up her coat. And she was relieved to see that Brad was the third one there.

She just stood and smiled at him for a minute as he crossed the room to her. It made her think of how gangly he had been as a kid. He had always towered over her, and when she was really young, he used to throw her in the air, or push her on the swing. He had always been part of the furniture of her childhood and teenage years.

“How did it go?” he asked her, as a waiter handed him a glass of white wine and he took a sip.

“Okay. I don't do funerals anymore, if I can help it. But I couldn't avoid this. I hate cemeteries,” she said, with a fleeting frown, and they both knew why.

“Yeah, I don't like them much myself. Where's Alex, by the way?” Their eyes met and held, he was asking her more than just that, and she sighed and then smiled.

“He had to go to Chicago to see clients. He'll be back tonight.” There was nothing critical in her tone, but Brad thought he should have been there, for her. It annoyed him on her behalf that he wasn't, but he was also glad. It gave him time alone with her, to talk and catch up. It had been far too long since they'd talked.

“That's too bad. That he's in Chicago, I mean. How's everything else?” He perched on the arm of a chair, and was almost the same height as Faith as she stood and they talked.

“Okay, I guess. It's weird having both of the girls gone. I don't know what to do with myself. I keep saying I'll go to work, but I don't have any marketable skills. I was thinking of going back to law school, but Alex thinks I'm nuts. He says I'm too old to go back to school, or pass the bar.”

“At your age? Lots of people do. Why wouldn't you?”

“He says by the time I pass the bar, no one will hire me anyway.” Just hearing her say it annoyed Brad. He had never liked Alex anyway.

“That's nonsense. You'd make a great lawyer, Fred. I think you should.” She smiled in answer, and didn't try to explain to him how impossible it would be to convince Alex of that. He was a stubborn man.

“Alex thinks I should just stay home and relax, take bridge lessons, or something like that.” It sounded deadly to her, and Brad agreed. As he looked at her, he was remembering her long blond hair when she was a kid, and wished he could pull the pins out of her bun, for old times' sake. He had always loved her hair.