The hall was full of men and women in their best clothes, chatting and waiting for us to get ready. Groups gathered in the parking lot for one last cigarette. In the lobby were donuts and finger sandwiches. My uncles were picking out the turkey sandwiches and trying to keep the young ones off the donuts. The older women had tissues close at hand. The men joked about the women. The kids chased each other around the pews, oblivious to the ceremony about to take place. Someone had taken a tri-fold poster board and pasted pictures over every inch of it. There were pictures of her and me and our friends. Pictures from our childhood, of her laughing at the T.V., of her throwing up a peace sign on the back of a motorcycle.

I was in another room, an offshoot of the hall. My mother was fighting with the flower on my chest. It kept swinging around to point at my belt and she had already stabbed me multiple times trying to make it stay up. Finally, my aunt took it from her, ushering her to go and check on the others. “Are you nervous?” She smoothed my dress shirt, fixing my collar.

“No.” I lied.

“It’s okay to be nervous.”

“I’m okay,” I said, almost believing it myself.

But when the hall got quiet and they asked everyone to take their seats, I started to bounce. My cousin kept poking me, telling me to relax. My aunt lined us all up in the proper order, fussing over our clothes and hair. She kept checking her watch. Finally, she nodded to my cousin and he pulled open the double doors, locking each one in place.

Her family went first. Then mine. Last, I stepped out and made the long march to the priest. My mother walked beside me, her arm linked through mine. Everyone turned to watch as our progression passed. People smiled at me. Nodded. Some reached out to touch my hands. Someone’s kid smiled and waved at me. Up at the front, she waited for us.

The rest of the procession took their places on either side of her. But I stopped at the end of the pews for a moment. She looked great. They’d done her hair the way I liked it, down and braided to the side. Her dress, simple as it was, fit her perfectly. It looked a lot like the one she’d worn to our prom. The one she’d spilled soda on while dancing to some line dance I didn’t know. Then I realized it was the same dress. But the stain was gone. Her mother must have bleached it.

And she was smiling. The way she did when she knew something I didn’t, which was almost always. She had small jewels in her ears. Light pink on her lips. And she looked as beautiful as the day outside, where I remembered seeing little floods of sunlight pouring over jammed close cars and faded yellow lines. She held tulips, her favorite. The bright burst of red, yellow, and pink was held up to her breast, the petals brushing her throat.

The priest nodded and my mother let me go, kissed my cheek, and took a seat in the first row. I stepped to my place beside my cousin. I took a deep breath. And I took one last, long look at her before turning back to the priest. He nodded again and motioned to the younger man standing off to the side. He came forward and, as the music began to play, closed her coffin.

We pallbearers closed rank, each palming the cold bar that ran down the side of the box. The priest directed us to lift. Someone behind me took a deep, rattling breath. We lifted to waist height, then, with help from the two young men accompanying the priest, we lifted her onto our shoulders. In time to the piano solo filling the hall, we carried her back down the aisle.