(AN: I feel like crap right at the moment, so if my writing's weak, blame whatever this mysterious illness is, as well as the large amount of ginger pop I've consumed, and don't flame me. Thank you kindly)

There was a lot of crying at the funeral. The finality and tragedy of Chris' death hit all of the mourners as his coffin was lowered into the ground. His children held onto each other's hands tightly as they each tossed a white rose into the ground.

Mattie didn't stick around for the second service. She had begun to cry when she watched Chris' son and daughter, both of whom resembled him strongly, burst into tears as the ground was filled in with earth, and Gordie had soundlessly taken her hand. But Toby had glanced at her briefly, and Mattie felt like the look had meant that Toby thought she had a lot of nerve to cry over a man she had known for eight months twenty years ago. She knew that Toby didn't really want her around, so after the burial, she drove back to the hotel.

Once she walked through the door, dumped her purse on a chair and kicked off her sent-by-the-devil shoes, Mattie immediately flopped down onto the nearest bed.

"Mom," Riley said, climbing onto the bed with her. "Do you want my fries? I dropped them on the floor."

Mattie looked appraisingly at Mark. "You bought them McDonald's for supper?"

"This is our snack. We're going out for supper in a half hour," he replied, shrugging. "Want a McNugget?"

"No, that's fine, thank you."

"How did it all go?" he asked.

"You didn't notice the dramatic way in which I collapsed on the bed?"

"Well, I did, but I thought that it was the shoes that made you do that."

She smiled to herself. "Them too."

"So it didn't go well?"

"It went like any funeral goes," she said. "It was just sad."

"When I'm sad, I look at the shoelaces on my runners," Elizabeth offered. "They're black and yellow striped and they make me laugh."

"What if you're not wearing your runners?" Rachel asked.

"Then I don't laugh."

Riley poked Mattie in the side with a fry. "What do you do when you're sad?"

"What I'm doing right now," she told him.

"What are you doing right now?"

"I'm being sad."

Mark took Rachel, Elizabeth and Riley out for pizza and a drive around Portland, saying they'd be back whenever one of them fell asleep.

Wearing one of Mark's University of Maine T-shirt over a pair of sweatpants, Mattie watched a rerun of Matlock. There was a knock at the door just as she was nodding off, and she got up to answer it.

"Gordie," she said. "What are you doing here?"

"Just checking to see how you're doing," he replied, shrugging. "You didn't say why you weren't staying for the second service, and I was just checking to see if you were okay."

She smiled. "Thanks. I'm fine. You can come in if you want to."

He wanted to, and he did. "Why didn't you stay?"

"Uh…" She shrugged. "Felt like going home I guess. I didn't belong there."

He sat down on the corner of one of the unmade beds. "Did Toby have anything to do with that?"

"She had a part," she admitted, surprised at how natural making conversation with Gordie felt. "It was mostly me feeling guilty for missing out on all of your lives, but yeah, I kinda got the feeling that Toby didn't think I should be there."

"She didn't mean to make you feel bad, but you have no idea what she's feeling right now."

Mattie nodded. "I know I don't." She sat next to him. "What you said about Chris today, Gordie…it really was beautiful. It made me feel really lonely."

"Why lonely?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "I think because you were describing this amazing guy that I'll never get to know again."

He smiled, gently and hesitantly. "You never did know him, Mattie. You passed up that chance years ago."

Looking up at him, she said, "I passed up a lot of chances."

Gordie looked surprised at the sudden change in her voice. He looked at her, but said nothing.

"The last time I actually saw Chris, we got into this big argument about how selfish I was being about you. At the time, I was really pissed, but as soon as he left I realized how stupidly right he was." She met his eyes. "I'm sorry you never knew how much I loved you, Gordie."

"Oh, come on, Mattie, we were just kids back then," he said, as if sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds aren't capable of the emotion of love.

"Yeah, we were just kids, but I know how we felt when we were together," she said. "There was a time when I would've died for you."

Gordie stared at her. Even with the laugh lines and crows feet and blond hair, she was the same old Mattie that had been the first girl he'd ever loved. He knew that she was right about how he'd felt back in 1965. He had loved her to the point where it had been painful, and he would've died for her too given the opportunity. He knew that he was a hell of a lot older than he had been then, and he was very married to someone else now, but when he looked at her he still felt like a seventeen-year-old boy.

"I never stopped thinking about you. And I think if I had been so stupid and immature about what happened, we might even still be together," she said.

"You weren't stupid," he told her. "You were just unreachable. That made it hard to keep the relationship going."

"It was my fault, Gordie," she said firmly. "It was my fault about how bad I feel right now, so please don't make up excuses."

He put his hand over hers, and they looked at each other, both of them remembering exactly the thoughts and feelings they'd had right before they'd kissed for the first time.

"Do you want me to stay?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah. I want you to stay." She looked down at the floor. "So you'd better go."