The second signature was Rhonda.
My brothers wife. Standing at the back of the VFW hall in her good blouse next to the buffet, holding a paper plate she had not touched.
Mr. Haskell did not look at her when he read it. He looked at the room, the way he told me later he always does when a name is going to hurt, because he wants the family to see that nobody is being singled out for sport.
Gene did not say a word. He turned his head and looked at his wife.
Rhonda put the plate down on the buffet. She walked up to the bar. She did not look at her husband either. She looked at me, and she said, Lee, I signed it because it was a joint account and Gene told me it was the money from selling Daddys truck. He said it was Daddys wish. I did not know it was from the funeral home until just now.
I believed her. I had known Rhonda for thirty-five years and she has never once lied to me, even when it would have been easier.
Then she said something to Gene that I will not forget. She said, You told me the casket was beautiful. You stood in the church and let me tell your mother-in-law how beautiful it was.
Mr. Haskell explained what came next, gently. Oklahoma keeps prepaid funeral money in trust so that a family can be sure the thing Dad paid for is the thing he gets. A refund to the buyers family is allowed in certain circumstances, but only if the buyer is alive to ask for it or the contract allows it. Dad was gone. The contract did not. The refund had been issued on a form that Gene signed as the representative of the estate, and that was a statement he could not truthfully make, because he was not the personal representative. I was.
Gene did not need to be told what that meant. He had been in the room when the lawyer said it.
Dad had put eleven thousand dollars in trust so his boys would never be left a bill, and the only one who ever sent one was the one he trusted to carry him.
The Oklahoma Insurance Department opened a file the following Monday. Mr. Haskells office cooperated fully, and so did Rhonda, who brought them the bank statements herself. Gene repaid the full eleven thousand dollars within ninety days. Rhonda sold her own mothers ring to help him do it, and then she told him that the ring was a loan and he would be paying her back for the rest of his life.
Gene paid a civil penalty and signed an agreement never to serve as executor or trustee of anything. It was not a prison sentence. It did not need to be. In a town like Lawton, a man who sells his daddys casket for cash does not need a judge to tell him how to feel.
With the money returned to the trust, Mr. Haskell offered something I had not expected. He said that the bronze casket was still available under the contract and that his staff would handle a private ceremony of transfer, at no extra charge, if the family wished, with the VFW honor guard and a pastor and nobody else.
I said yes. I called Gene, and I did not shout. I said, Dad wanted it, and you are going to be there.
He came. He wore the suit from the funeral. He stood at the back, and when it was over, he walked up and put his hand on the bronze for a long time. I did not say anything. Neither did he. But I noticed that his lips were moving, and I think he was saying, I am sorry, to a man who had already forgiven him a long time ago.