The funeral was the following Saturday. At a small chapel across town in Clintonville. Schoedinger Funeral Home, on North High Street. A little brick building with white trim.
The HR follow-up email had the details at the very bottom, under a reminder about the new expense reporting software.
On Friday, I walked around my floor and asked, quietly, if anybody was planning to go.
A few people gave me that sympathetic head-tilt. The one people give when they want to look like they care without actually having to do anything.
“Oh, I’d love to, but I have my kid’s soccer thing.”
“Saturday’s tough for me.”
“I didn’t really know him, you know?”
Megan from accounting said, “That’s so sweet of you to go, Charlotte.” Like I was doing a charity 5K.
Nobody from my office came.
I went alone.
There were maybe a dozen people in that little chapel. A few older men from his church, in suits that didn’t fit anymore. A woman from his street who’d brought a casserole dish to the reception room. An elderly neighbor with a walker. And a man in a dark suit sitting by himself in the front row.
Thirty-three years in that building. The man who’d given so many people directions. Fixed so many jammed printers. Found so many lost rings and dead batteries. Kept that whole place running so quietly that nobody ever noticed it was running at all.
And he was being buried with barely a dozen people in the room.
I sat near the back. The service was short and simple. A pastor from Overbrook Presbyterian read the Twenty-Third Psalm. Somebody sang “How Great Thou Art,” a little off-key.
It was dignified. In the quiet way Charles himself had been.
There was a picture of him on an easel by the casket. A young Charles. Maybe forty. In a suit and tie, with dark hair, smiling with his whole face.
I’d never once seen him smile like that. I didn’t know he could.
When it ended, everybody filed out to the reception room for coffee and the casserole.
I stayed. I couldn’t make myself get up. I sat there in the back pew, looking at that young smiling face on the easel. Not ready to leave yet. Not sure what I was waiting for.
That’s when the man in the dark suit from the front row walked back down the aisle toward me.
Specialty: Emotional Turning Points
Rachel Monroe writes character-driven stories about betrayal, second chances, and unexpected resilience. Her work highlights the emotional side of family conflict — the silences, the misunderstandings, and the moments when someone quietly decides they’ve had enough.