Beau had been to seven funerals in his entire life. He pressed his fingers against his thighs inside the pockets of his black suit pants, counting.
Cecily Watkins, his middle sister, who’d drowned when she was eight. He’d only been about four, himself, and the whole, long ceremony hadn’t meant much to him. He hadn’t really understood what was going on. Didn’t really understand that he’d never see his sister again, and by the time it really had sunk in, he didn’t remember her well enough. Sometimes, coming across old pictures of his family, Lee and Cissy and Beau clustered around a mall-Santa’s knee, dressed in their horrible nineties outfits, he mourned. Not for Sissy herself, but for the loss. A buffer zone between himself and Lee. A girl for his mom, who had always wanted a daughter. So
