Willa was so relieved to score something better than a T-shirt for the service, she didn't think ahead to a chapel packed with Zeke and Helene's friends. Now it dawned on her they might recognize this navy silk suit, last seen at some promotion party. Making her the creepy mother-in-law who didn't even wait till Helene was in the grave to poach on her couture. She could see awfulness in the situation but felt it at a distance, walled off by exhaustion. Anyway, the suit was probably camouflaged by the pinstripes of spit-up trailing down the lapels.

The baby's howl caught in a series of gasps and went quiet, providing a moment of funereal balm before he shattered it again. His wail rose and fell like a siren above the muted organ music. For all Helene's worries about pharmacological harm, she'd borne a son with a dandy set of pipes. And yet he felt insubstantial in Willa's arms, pink as a baby mouse. Willa hadn't consoled a newborn for decades and felt close to tears herself. Catching Zeke's eye she nodded toward the aisle, then got up and made her awkward way out, squeezing between the wooden pew back and people's knees. Maybe it was sleep-deprived paranoia, but she felt disapproval in the stares. Or at least no gratitude for the gift of Helene's DNA, right here with us. The well-dressed assembly struck her as a judgmental tribe, which she chalked up to Helene's influence. Zeke's friends had always been sweet, unpretentious boys who divided things fairly and let the terrible athletes play on their teams anyway. Admittedly, she was recalling in that moment his Cub Scout days. She might not really know who Zeke had become in Boston, first as a student at Harvard Business and now striving as a young professional among some of the most famously competitive assholes on the planet.

She paced at the back of the chapel eyeing the exits, wondering whether they should seek asylum in some basement fellowship hall or head out to the street. It was raining. Funeral guests kept turning around to verify that this child was still the source of all that noise. Willa stared back, brewing some umbrage. Wouldn't it matter someday that the boy had attended his mother's funeral? Producing this perfect child was Helene's final accomplishment and he was entitled to be here, as the only blood relative in the house. Other than Helene's parents, who'd barely arrived from London in time for the service. Aldus was the name of Helene's father, Willa had learned, but she wasn't sure that justified keeping it in circulation. She perused the front row trying to recognize Helene's carefully tinted mother from the back. Poor woman, to have lost a daughter.

She shifted Aldus from one shoulder to the other and felt muted dismay at the amount of milk he'd brought up on the jacket. This might qualify as the worst-ever use of an Armani suit. But she had no better plans, beyond a Goodwill drop box. Maybe an email blast inviting Helene's stick-thin, judgmental friends to drop by and pick up a souvenir. Either way it felt painful to give away a fortune in designer clothing, probably the couple's largest material asset, when Zeke was taking on serious debt for this funeral.

The officiating minister, a round-faced woman in owlish glasses, was crooning her way through a one-size-fits-all prayer. It was pretty obvious this minister hadn't known Helene. Willa wondered whether Zeke even told her it was a suicide. The Anglican church was Zeke's best guess at what Helene's parents would want, though they hadn't been present to organize or pay for any of it. He'd had to lay out credit cards in those first dizzying hours, and the cost of having Helene embalmed was mortifying. Willa drew no pleasure from the pun. The parents' one expressed wish had been to see their daughter, for closure, so he'd shouldered the cost of open-casket.

Excerpted from Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. Copyright © 2018 by Barbara Kingsolver. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.