“You’ve still got thirty minutes.”

She nodded, her face neutral. “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s in back with Reverend Hollis. She should be out in-”

Liz started walking toward the chapel doors. “She’s through here?”

“Liz, it’s probably not a good idea to interrupt them right now.”

“I don’t care what you think. I want to see Mom.”

“Liz, wait.”

But before he could say anything else, she had disappeared into the chapel.

The podium was right before him now. There was no backing out.

With a deep breath, he stepped behind it, then looked out at the room full of his parents’ friends and relatives. Everyone watched him, waiting.

Everyone except Liz. Her eyes were riveted on the flower display behind the casket, her jaw tense. Quinn couldn’t feel mad at her. He knew, like his mother, she was hurting. She’d lost her father. If anyone in the room had ever understood Harold Oliver well, it would have been Liz.

Quinn pulled the notes he’d written out of his pocket and set them on the podium. After another deep breath, he smiled at his mom, then looked again at the people gathered before him.

“What I remember most about my father… what I…”

He stopped and glanced at his notes, but there was nothing there that could help him.

I remember his coldness. I remember his distance.

He had written down things he thought people would want to hear. Lies about a relationship with his father he had never experienced. Feelings he had never had.

I remember his anger. I remember his inability to love. Me, anyway .

If he tried to say any of the things he’d prepared, everyone would see right through him.

He glanced up at his mom again. She was looking back, her eyes soft, streaks of tears on her cheeks. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, that the right words just weren’t coming. But then, as he looked at her, he realized there was something he could say, something that wouldn’t be false.