exactly who he was

july 10, 2026

The program is on my seat when I sit down. I nudge it aside because I do not want to sit on paper, and Elaine, my cousin, engaged, this whole month has been engagement, is running late, which is very like her. The organ is playing something slow. Then I read the program. In Loving Memory of Herbert Elias Wilkes. 1949 to 2026.

I look up.

Rows of grey and black wool. A minister at the front, his hands folded. Wooden pews, a coffin at the aisle end covered in white lilies. Two ushers at the doors. As I look, the ushers close the doors.

I read the address on the program. Eighteenth and Maple, Grace Lutheran. I text Elaine. Am I supposed to be at your thing right now. Elaine writes back within two seconds. No sweetie tomorrow at four thirty ??

Herbert Wilkes. Herbert Elias Wilkes.

The woman next to me reaches over and takes my hand.

“You came,” she says. Her voice is thick. “He would have loved that you came, honey.”

She holds my hand in both of hers and looks at me and I look at her. Her eyes are wet and small and glad. She is maybe sixty-five. She squeezes my fingers and turns her face back to the front. She does not let go.

The organist finishes. The minister begins.

Herbert Wilkes was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. Herbert Wilkes was the second of four children. Herbert Wilkes worked for the county highway department for forty-one years. Herbert Wilkes met his wife, Ruth, at a wedding in 1971, and they were married for forty-eight years until her passing in 2019. Herbert Wilkes was a birdwatcher and a lifelong member of the National Audubon Society. Herbert Wilkes volunteered at the Riverbend Food Bank every Saturday for thirty years. Herbert Wilkes had a scar across his right forearm from a chainsaw incident in 1988 that he liked to say was the only argument he ever won with a tree. Herbert Wilkes is survived by his daughter, Marcy Wilkes-Peterson, and her husband Dan, and their two children, Sean and Piper.

The woman next to me presses my hand tighter at Marcy Wilkes-Peterson.

Marcy is up front. She has her father’s ears.

I did not know Herbert Wilkes. I did not know what Herbert Wilkes looked like ten minutes ago. I now know that the front of the church has a photograph of a lean man with big ears and a delighted grin holding what I think is a pair of binoculars, and that he is the person in the coffin at the end of the aisle, and that I have been holding his sister-in-law’s hand for approximately four minutes.

I look sideways at the woman. She has a program tucked into her purse. Program held so I can read the corner. Marcy is her niece. She is Ruth’s sister. Herbert was her brother-in-law.

I try to think of the polite way to say, quietly, into her ear, that she has confused me with someone else. I picture doing it. She would say what? Oh. Oh, no, honey, aren’t you. And I would say no. And she would look, in the middle of the eulogy, at her hand, my hand, our hands. And then her face would do something, and I would have to keep sitting here.

The minister invites friends and family who would like to share a memory to come forward.

The woman leans over.

“Marcy said you would say something. She said you called her last week. She said she was so touched.” Her voice is a whisper, but it is a big whisper. Two rows around us can hear. “You go, honey. You go up first, before the line starts.”

She pats my hand. She lets go of it, finally, to pat it, and I have my hand back, and it is warmer than my other hand, and the pew has released me forward and I am standing.

I am standing.

I walk down the aisle. There are eyes on me. I am wearing black because engagement parties, apparently, we wear black to now. Marcy is looking at me from the front row and her face opens like she has been waiting to see me all morning. She mouths something. I think it is thank you.

I get to the lectern. The microphone is warm from the last person’s mouth. I look at the church. There are a lot of people here.

“Herb,” I say.

The whole room settles.

“Herb was exactly who he was.”

I hear myself say it. It sounds like a sentence someone would actually say about someone. It sounds like the summary of a life. In the second row, an older man in a cardigan closes his eyes and nods. Marcy makes a sound like the beginning of a laugh and the end of a sob. Someone behind her says yes he was.

“He was,” I say, and I look at Marcy, “exactly who he was. And I think, I think that is the thing.” I stop. There is a silence. I fill it. “I think that is the whole thing.” A woman in the aisle, three rows back, is crying openly. “Thank you for letting me be here.”

I walk back to my pew. Ruth’s sister is weeping quietly and beaming at me. She takes my hand again.

Two more people go up. A retired pastor talks about Herb helping build the food bank pantry. A niece talks about the birds. Marcy does not go up. Marcy is looking at me across the aisle. She looks at me for the rest of the service.

At the reception, in the fellowship hall, a table of casseroles. Someone has made deviled eggs. Marcy walks straight to me.

“Cassie,” she says. “You made it.”

I look at her.

“I’m so glad you came,” she says. “Dad talked about you all the time. He talked about you at the end. He said your name, actually. Ruth loved you so much. God, you look like her. You look like her.”

I do not look like Ruth. I have never seen Ruth. I am also not Cassie.

“I flew in this morning,” I say.

“From Portland?”

“Yes.”

Marcy takes my hand. Marcy has a strong small hand and a good grip. She walks me across the fellowship hall past the deviled eggs and past a table of framed photographs. Herb on a boat. Herb at his sixtieth birthday. Herb and Ruth in front of a Christmas tree. Herb in a windbreaker holding what I still think might be binoculars but might be a spotting scope.

“I have to ask you something,” Marcy says. “I know it’s a lot. I know you just got in.”

She reaches into her purse. She takes out a small ring of keys. Three keys and a tag. The tag says WILKES.

“Would you go over to the house tomorrow morning? Just once. I have the flight back to Seattle at eleven. My kids are with Dan. The bougainvillea. He was so, God, he was so specific about the bougainvillea. It’s on a soaker line but the timer, he had a whole. If you could just check it. There’s a note by the sink.” Her face collapses a little and comes back. “You know how he was. You know how he was about his plants.”

I hold my hand out. She puts the keys into it.

“Tomorrow morning,” I say.

“Anytime before eleven. I’ll be gone by then.” She takes my other hand in both of hers. “Cassie. I really needed to see you today.”

“I know,” I say.

I stay for another forty minutes. I eat a deviled egg. I meet Herb’s brother from Erie, who tells me a story I do not understand about a boat. I sign the guest book with a version of my handwriting I have not used since eighth grade. Ruth’s sister finds me again at the door and holds my face in both her hands and kisses my forehead.

I walk out to my car. The parking lot is warm. I sit down in the driver’s seat and I close the door. The keys are in my right hand. I look at the address on the tag. Fourteen twenty-two Larkspur. I know that street. It is on the way home.

I put the keys in my purse. I put my own key in the ignition.

Tomorrow morning, before eleven, I will drive to Herb Wilkes’s house and let myself in and check the bougainvillea. I will find the note by the sink. I will do what it says.

I start the car.