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By Root 2978 0

"All I'm asking is the smallest, simplest favor, from the closest friend I've had in this world. Why, you and I have been through everything together! Our weddings and our babies! You helped me put my mother in the nursing home. I sat up with you that time that Jesse got arrested." "Yes, but-" "Last night I started thinking and I said to myself, 'What am I holding this funeral for? Hardly anyone will come; we haven't lived here long enough. Why, we're not even burying him; I'm flinging his ashes on the Chesapeake next summer. We're not even going to have his casket at the service. What's the point of sitting in that church,' I said, 'listening to Mrs. Filbert tinkle out gospel hymns on the piano? "Stumbling up the Path of Righteousness" and "Death Is Like a Good Night's Sleep." I don't even know Mrs. Filbert! I'd rather have Sissy Par-ton. I'd rather have "My Prayer" as played by Sissy Parton at our wedding.' So then I thought, Why not all of it? Kahlil Gibran? 'Love Is a Many Splendored Thing'?" "Not everyone would understand, though," Maggie said. "People who weren't at the wedding, for instance." Or even the people who were at the wedding, she thought privately. Some of those guests had worn fairly puzzled expressions.

"Let them wonder, then," Serena said. "It's not for them I'm doing it." And she spun away and started up the stairs.

"Also there's Ira," Maggie called, following her. The fringe of Serena's shawl swatted her in the face. "Of course I'd move the earth for you, Serena, but I don't think Ira would feel comfortable singing that song." "Ira has a nice tenor voice," Serena said. She turned at the top of the stairs. "And yours is like a silver bell; remember how people always told you that? High time you stopped keeping it a secret.'' Maggie sighed and followed her up the aisle. No use pointing out, she supposed, that that bell was nearly half a century old by now.

Several other guests had arrived in Maggie's absence. They dotted the pews here and there. Serena bent to speak to a hatted woman in a slim black suit. "Sugar?" she said.

Maggie stopped short behind her and said, "Sugar Tilghman?" Sugar turned. She had been the class beauty and was beautiful still, Maggie supposed, although it was hard to tell through the heavy black veil descending from her hat. She looked more like a widow than the widow herself. Well, she always had viewed clothes as costumes. "There you are!" she said. She rose to press her cheek against Serena's. "I am so, so'sorry for your loss," she said. "Except they call me Elizabeth now." "Sugar, you remember Maggie," Serena said.

"Maggie Daley! What a surprise." Sugar's cheek was smooth and taut beneath the veil. It felt like one of those netted onions in a grocery store.

"If this is not the saddest thing," she said. "Robert would have come with me but he had a meeting in Houston. He said to send you his condolences, though. He said, 'Seems like only yesterday we were trying to find our way to their wedding reception.' " "Yes, well, that's what I want to discuss with you," Serena said. "Remember at our wedding? Where you sang a solo after the vows?" " 'Born to Be with You,' " Sugar said. She laughed. "You two marched out to it; I can see you still. The march took longer than the song, and at the finish all we heard was your high heels." "Well," Serena said, "I'd like you to sing it again today." Shock made Sugar's face appear to emerge from the .netting. She was older-looking than Maggie had first realized. "Do what?" she said.

"Sing." Sugar raised her eyebrows at Maggie. Maggie looked away, refusing to conspire. It was true the pianist was playing "My Prayer." But that couldn't be Sissy Parton, could it? That plump-backed woman with dimpled elbows like upside-down valentines? Why, she resembled any ordinary church lady.

"I haven't sung for twenty years or more," Sugar said. "I couldn't sing even then! All I was doing was showing off." "Sugar, it's the last favor I'll ever ask of you," Serena said.

"Elizabeth." "Elizabeth, one song! Among friends! Maggie and Ira are singing." "No,