The officer’s face reddened.
“You don’t get to lecture me.”
The general’s expression barely changed.
“No.”
She glanced toward the courthouse road where another sheriff’s vehicle was arriving.
“Other people will ask the questions.”
She walked away.
Her brother reached her first.
He looked at her wrists.
Then at the officer.
“I swear to God—”
“No.”
“He put his hands on you at Mom’s funeral.”
“I know.”
“You want me to just stand here?”
“Yes.”
Her brother looked furious.
She took his hand.
“We still have to bury her.”
His anger collapsed.
For the first time since the confrontation began, his face broke.
He hugged his sister.
She held him.
The crowd slowly lowered their phones.
Nobody knew what to do.
The pastor approached.
“We can wait.”
The general shook her head.
“No.”
She looked toward her mother’s coffin.
“She waited long enough for us all her life.”
The burial continued.
The sheriff moved the senior officer away from the chapel.
The younger partner remained near his cruiser, pale and motionless.
The unmarked vehicles parked discreetly down the road.
The general returned to the place beside the coffin where she had stood before the officer interrupted.
Her mother’s closest friend took her hand.
The elderly woman looked at the red marks around the general’s wrists.
Her mouth tightened.
“Your mother would have had words.”
Despite herself, the general almost smiled.
“She always did.”
“She would’ve chased that officer with a wooden spoon.”
“No.”
The elderly friend frowned.
“No?”
“She would have invited him inside.”
“For what?”
“Coffee.”
The elderly friend stared.
The general continued.
“Then she would’ve asked him questions until he regretted coming.”
The woman laughed through tears.
“That sounds more like her.”
The pastor looked toward the general.
She had been speaking when everything began.
Her prepared eulogy remained folded inside her jacket.
She removed it.
Looked at the pages.
Then put them away.
“My mother believed there were two kinds of people who loved rules.”
The mourners became quiet.
“Those who loved rules because they protected people.”
“And those who loved rules because rules gave them permission to control people.”
She paused.
“My mother had no patience for the second kind.”
A few people smiled.
“She never held a title that made strangers stand when she entered a room.”
“She never commanded anyone beyond her children, and even that authority was contested.”