That was the first thing I understood clearly the day of the funeral.
The second was that grief had a smell. It smelled like wet wool, funeral lilies, burnt coffee in paper cups, and the muddy Kentucky clay people tracked into the church fellowship hall after the service. Folks came up to me one by one with soft eyes and tired hands, saying the same things people always say when they don’t know what else to give you.
Your father was a good man.
He loved you.
He talked about you all the time.
I nodded until my neck hurt.
My father, Daniel Mercer, had died three days earlier when his heart finally gave out behind the wheel of his old Ford outside Pikeville. The truck rolled into a ditch. He never made it to the hospital. By the time the sheriff came to the house, my stepmother, Linda, was already rehearsing her crying voice.
