June stayed beside him until his breathing settled.
She was Sharon’s daughter, grown up and long accustomed to apologizing for things her mother considered perfectly reasonable.
“I saw what happened.”
Adam rubbed his eyes.
“Was she recording the whole service?”
June hesitated.
That hesitation answered him.
“June.”
“She went live near the end.”
Adam looked up.
“Live?”
“I told her to stop. She said she was showing the flowers.”
He stared at the closed office door.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
June took out her own phone, then stopped.
“Do you want to see?”
Adam did not want to see anything.
He wanted to go home, sit at his mother’s kitchen table, and hear her asking whether he had eaten.
But he nodded.
The video was still on Sharon’s public page.
Its opening showed the funeral home entrance. Sharon spoke softly about the terrible loss the family had endured. She turned the camera toward the flowers and the framed photograph.
Then Adam appeared.
He was thanking guests, unaware of the lens.
Later, he stood alone holding the cardigan.
The camera moved closer.
Comments rose beneath the video.
Some were sympathetic.
Others asked what had happened, how old Ruth had been, whether Adam had a family of his own.
A viewer wrote that his grief was heartbreaking.
Sharon had replied with a heart.
Adam watched until his own voice came from the speaker.
“Stop filming me.”
He handed the phone back.
“I can’t.”
June locked the screen immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do it.”
Outside the office, someone laughed briefly, then went quiet.
It sounded impossibly far away.
Adam had spent the service afraid he would not be able to give his mother a proper goodbye.
Now that goodbye had become something strangers could pause, replay, and discuss.
“Ask her to remove it,” he said.
June stood.
“I will.”
“And don’t let her tell you I just need to calm down.”
June met his eyes.
“I won’t.”
