The last song ended before the coffin reached the door

Dear Delyara, I play trumpet in funeral processions. My job is to give grief a rhythm people can walk behind. Today, we buried a man named Louis who had played beside me for thirty-one years. We had performed hundreds of funerals together, and he always complained when the band moved too quickly because he said mourners deserved time to carry their dead. This afternoon, I stood in his usual place and played his favorite hymn. Halfway through, my mouth went dry and the note broke. The drummer slowed down, thinking I needed help, but I could see the coffin was still twenty yards from the church door. The song ended too soon. For the first time in my career, there was silence between the music and the body. I wanted to begin again, but the family had already started crying harder, and the pallbearers kept walking. Louis would have hated the gap. He would have leaned toward me afterward and said, “You left that man without a bridge.” Tonight, his trumpet case is in my hallway because his daughter asked me to keep it. I opened it and found a small cloth he used to clean the mouthpiece, still marked by the shape of his thumb. Tomorrow, I will play another funeral. I am afraid I will hear Louis in every note I miss.