“I can’t stay here,” Merlyn sobbed, “I have to walk away.”

We followed him to a corner of the cemetery near our cars and we all stood in a huddle. The tears flowed unashamed until not one of us could breathe. Finally, Alexander spoke, “Damn it!” He said, “I should be able to dial him right now and get him on the phone!”

Penny reached up and petted his hair like he was a little dog.

“He was so damned tall!” Merlyn blew his enormous nose, “I’m going to miss him!”

“We all will,” Oliver said, “It’s going to be different from here on.”

“I feel like we should do something,” I glanced around at each of them, “Something to honour him. He’d be so upset if he saw us all standing around bawling over him. We should do something to celebrate him.”

“I agree,” Lucy lay her head against Oliver’s arm. “But what?”

Alexander turned toward the gravesite. He stood there for a moment before he began to sing the Bennington song, “Oh, Bennington, Oh, Bennington, our home away from home…” softly at first, “We see your fields before us…” and then he began to belt it out at the top of his lungs, “Oh, Bennington, Oh, Bennington…our home away from home…We see your fields before us…”

“We sing of you in united chorus,” Oliver joined him. “Oh, Bennington, through your halls we pass…”

Suddenly, without any type of communication, the twins hooked arms and began a folk dance that we had all been forced to learn at school.

Merlyn blew his nose one more time and joined their dance. “Oh, Bennington, our home away from home!”

And as quickly as they had begun singing, they changed the words.

“So take your ties and shove them!” Alexander bellowed to the next part of the song, keeping true to the tune.

“We’ve had it with your black jackets, too!” Oliver roared.

“Oh, Bennington, oh, Bennington, to hell with you!” Merlyn sang at the top of his lungs.

They swung each other in circles, laughing and shouting.

“Oh, Bennington, where our parent’s sent us…Because no one would pay to rent us…Oh, Bennington is like the zoo!”

“Come on, Sil!” Oliver cried, his face pink with life, “Lucy, Penny! Have a dance for Lance!” He pulled me in by my arm. Penny, who didn’t even know the song or the steps to the dance, joined in.

“Oh, Bennington, oh Bennington,” Lucy’s voice was off key and shrill, “Long will we remember!”

“Oh, Bennington, oh, how can we forget?” Sang Merlyn.

“Your detentions and your curfew bells!” Yelled Alexander as he spun me in a circle.

“Your lousy pumpkin soup that I threw up all over the wall in the West Corridor!” Oliver offered.

Merlyn burst out laughing. “Yeah, that was bloody disgusting!” He spun his wife around. “How about the time we all got caught after curfew nicking apples and cakes out of the kitchen?”

“Lance was the only one who could fit through the service slot!” Alexander’s face was flushed, but he smiled brightly, “Remember how Ollie picked him up and stuffed him in headfirst?”

“And then he couldn’t get out so Alex reached in to pull him and his shoulders got lodged?”

They were laughing hysterically.

“Lance was tall enough! I don’t know why he thought he needed help! Boyo, wasn’t Professor Adkins completely bloody cheesed at us?” The three of them slapped their hands together in one giant high five, “Take the chorus, Silvia!” Oliver lifted me in the air and spun me around.

“Oh, Bennington, oh Bennington,” I cried, “Brothers and sisters in our hearts, oh, we shall never part…”

“Oh Bennington, where it smells like farts!” The Bennington boys rang out.

“Oh, Bennington, through your halls we pass…”

“Oh Bennington,” Oliver and Alexander shouted in unison, “You can kiss our arse!”

“Oh, Bennington, Oh Bennington, to hell with you!”

There we were, the six of us dancing a folk dance in the middle of a cemetery path, sing-shouting the Bennington song combined with lyrics the boys had made up as children so loudly our voices bounced off the stones. When we were through and breathless we stood around with our hands against our knees and laughed and fought to catch our breath.

“Good bye, Lance!” Penny called, “We’ll never forget you!”

“See you across the veil!” Oliver yelled.

“We love you, Lance!” Lucy and I hollered.

“You owe me money!” Merlyn shouted.

“Ah, forget him, Lance, give it to me!” Alexander bellowed.

And then, as people must, we hugged and kissed Merlyn and Penny goodbye and we went our separate ways home. We promised we’d get together soon.

The following autumn we got word from Merlyn’s daughter. He’d had a heart attack and was in intensive care. He was not faring for the better and Penny was not dealing well with the situation.

“Please,” Oliver asked her, “Let us know if there is anything that any of us can do, either for him or for your mother.”

She promised that she would call us again with any news.

We never heard another thing. Oliver and Alexander tried to phone his mobile several times, but they got Merlyn’s voice mail until the answering message said simply that the mailbox was full. No one ever answered his home phone. Finally, Alex rang the mobile again and it was disconnected, as was the home phone when he tried that one last time. After that, the twins drove over to England and took the ferry over to France. When they got to his town, Merlyn’s home was vacant. There was no place of employment to check as Merlyn was self-employed and operated his business from his house, using his mobile as his contact number. We could never track down an obituary and we did not know his daughter’s married name to look her up. Merlyn’s three older sisters lived in France, but we had no idea of where or of what their married names were. Penny seemed to just disappear off the planet without a trace.

Losing Merlyn like that was worse for the twins than when Lance left them. They were forced to wait, hoping for some information on what had happened to their other brother. Eventually, they gave up and accepted that he had died. It was the only explanation that made sense as to why they never heard from him again. Had he lived, there was no way that Merlyn Pierce would ever have abandoned them. It defied his character.

We thought and spoke of him often. Oliver and Alexander would go to the church and light a prayer candle for him once a week. It was never the same knowing we never had Merlyn or Lance to laugh with ever again.

“I just would have liked to have known what happened,” Oliver said softly months later as we sat with Alex and Lucy in the garden, “We grew up together. I think it’s very rude-like that no one ever gave us the chance to say goodbye to him.”

I put my arm around him and said nothing, but he knew I agreed.

Alex nodded. “We loved him. He was our family, too. It’s not fair.”

“He loved you two as well,” Lucy rubbed her husband’s shoulder, “He’d be right brassed off if he knew no one called you and let you know.”

“I know he would be. We just wish we knew what happened to him. I mean, I know he’s gone. He has to be, unless he’s some vegetable in hospital somewhere. Even then, he’s gone.”

“And then again,” Oliver sighed, “I don’t suppose it would be any comfort, really, to find out either way. It would only be a hint of closure.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Closure would be nice, though, wouldn’t it? We’ve cried and worried and been sick and sad about him. I think we all need to find a way to say goodbye. I mean, at least I do.”

Oliver stood straight up from the ground and walked into the cabin so quickly no one had time to ask him what he was up to. A few minutes later he came out with a hat in his hand.

“You have Merlyn’s hat?” Alexander recognized the beret, “How in the world did you wind up with that in your possession?”

“Remember when the three of us sat in the car after your speech at Lance’s funeral? He left it. I never saw him again to return it,” Oliver looked at it fondly. “I was supposed to send it by post, but I put it up and forgot.”