Standing outside a red brick funeral parlor an older man rubs the back of a twenty-something young woman. She sniffles and struggles to keep her composure but in the end her face crumples and she buries her face in the man's chest, her shoulders heaving. There are tears in the man's eyes as well.
"You'll be all right, Katy," he tells her, stroking her hair.
A bit of time passes and she leaves the shelter of his embrace but keeps one hand tightly holding his. "I can't believe it."
"Me neither but you just remember what a wonderful woman she was and how much she loved you." He sighs. "I love you too."
"I love you. John, I'm so glad Mom found you."
"Me too. I can't believe how fast time moves sometimes. You were just going into high school and I was taking your mom to the movies and listening to her rave about you, and now you're out of college and you mama's-" he can't finish his sentence and this time it is she who is the comforter.
"We'll be okay. Mom knew we'd be okay."
He nods.
*
Four years later, John Carpenter takes hold of Katy Harrison's arm at the entry to the church and smiles as he walks her down the aisle. Her groom accepts her hand at the alter and in a stern whisper John tells him to take good care of his little girl. He nods, and John sits down and watches Katy say her vows.
Later, at the reception, Katy approaches John and hugs him. "I wish Mom could have been here."
"She was."
*
Time and work conspire together and move Katy and Alex Younger out of the area, and the visits between Katy and her as-good-as-stepfather become fewer and farther between. Ten years after Katy's mother passed away, Katy calls the number that she has for John and gets the recording telling her the number has been disconnected.
"What?" Alex asks when he sees her face.
"The number isn't any good. He always called me and gave me the new number before."
"Maybe he forgot."
"No. He never forgets."
A few days later the phone rings and through the static Katy hears John's voice. "How are you, baby?"
"Fine but where are you? I tried to call you and the number wouldn't work."
"Oh, I don't live there anymore."
"Why? Where do you live now?"
John was quiet for a moment. "Here and there."
Katy's eyebrows came together. "Here and there?"
"Yeah. a lot going on." John's voice was hollow-sounding. There was something he wasn't telling her.
"Do you need any help?"
"No, I'm handling it. I just called to say Merry Christmas and I love you. Give them babies of yours a kiss from Grampy John."
"I will. You know, if you need a place to stay, my door's always open."
"I appreciate that, honey, but I'm fine."
"Okay."
*
Valentine's Day rolled around and the day after, Katy is standing in the kitchen when the phone rings.
"I wanna get it!" Olivia, the three year old, cries, bouncing around the room.
"Okay." Katy listens as Olivia answers the phone and tells the caller that Mommy was right there. "Thank you," Katy tells Olivia as she accepts the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Katy Harrison Younger?'
"Yes."
"I'm afraid I have some bad news. A Mr. John Calvin Carpenter was found dead last night, and you are listed in his wallet as the contact."
"Oh my god." Katy sinks into a chair, tears flowing down her cheeks. "How? Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure. We need you to come and claim the body, or it will be given a county burial. He was sleeping in the park and he froze to death. Record cold temps, ma'am."
"I'll be there tomorrow."
The funeral planning passes in a blur and it seemed like only a day passed between the phone call and sitting in the funeral parlor, Alex's arm around her as the pastor reads from the Bible.
Katy clutches three index cards with snippets of memories of John written on them, and when the pastor called her name she stands and walks slowly but solidly to the pulpit.
"John Carpenter wasn't my father. He and my mother Lydia started dating the summer before I went to high school. He wasn't intimidated by a woman with a dead husband and a teenage daughter. He loved my mother and he loved me. John was more my father than anyone else.
"My mom and he never got married but that didn't mean that we weren't a family. It was John who punched the high school quarterback who tried to put his hand down my shirt at a ballgame. It was John who held me while I cried at my mother's funeral nearly eleven years ago. It was John who walked me down the aisle at my wedding. Now John is gone. But never, ever, if he going to be forgotten." She gathers up the cards and walks back to her seat.
*
On Memorial Day, they bring four sprays of flowers to the gravestone. Katy stands there and looks at it for a long while. Lydia Black Harrison lay next to her first husband, and on the other side stood John's marker. The inscription read "John C. Carpenter, Love Given, Love Received."
"I love you all." Katy whispers.