I’m sure she would have, if she’d had the chance. Bette called Alice when we were all at one of Kallie’s practices to tell us the news. She’d gone in her sleep, and the doctors said she’d been in no pain, but it was still really hard to swallow. The funeral was heartbreaking. She’d wanted to be cremated, but Bette wouldn’t hear of that at first, and it took a lot of convincing and cajoling by all of us to get her to finally concede. It was a beautiful service, although I honestly can’t remember much of it since I was crying so hard and trying to comfort my son. Alice was a wreck too but she tried to comfort Kallie as best she could.

David showed up, which none of is had been expecting. He’d known she was sick, but he hadn’t come to see her once. We suspected that he was there to hear the reading of the will, but to everyone’s shock he’d left right after the funeral and left a letter stating that he was sorry and that whatever was left to him, we could divide amongst ourselves.

I know I shouldn’t have been amused when all he was left was a stack of letters tied together with a rubber band, but I was. I think he’d been expecting to get the Planet, but Kit had left that to Shane. Her will stated that since Shane had been one of her most frequent customers and best friends, it should rightfully be hers to do with as she pleased. Jenny was given a pretty big share of the ownership too, but Shane had the majority of it.

The rest of us got letters that she’d written since she’d been sick, and her assets and song rights had been divided pretty much equally between us. I thought it was a nice gesture, although I told Bette to handle my share. I just wanted the letter. Bette insisted that Kit would have wanted me to put the money in a fund for the kids, though, so I did.

Charlie missed her terribly and I don’t think he ever got over her death, but it did inspire him to swim with a lot more effort. I think a lot of his future success with the sport was directly related to the last thing she said to him being “you gotta try harder, kid.”