“No.” A pause.

“She’s just here.”

And they drove the rest of the way in silence, and Margaret has since described the twelve minutes that followed as the strangest of her life, because she was simultaneously certain that her granddaughter was processing grief in an entirely normal way, and certain that she should not, under any circumstances, tell her to stop.

Part Six: Ninety-One People

The chapel in Mission Valley seated a hundred and twenty, and it was close to full.

Emily’s whole firm came.