Only after pulling away, does she finally speak to Blaine.

“Darling, I’ve found that I am incredibly funny.”

Blaine shares a look with Cooper, who quietly shakes his head. The three Anderson boys watch their mother take in her new surroundings. Blaine can feel disaster looming just over the horizon.

The turnout for Thomas Anderson’s memorial is huge. Crowd members, many dressed formally, have arrived early and are already filling the ballroom. Blaine smiles at the charm and ritual that so defines this town.

The McKinley High school marching band is playing off to one side of the ballroom near the stage. Guests are looking at programs and large posters of Thomas Anderson displayed around the ballroom. Beth is there dressed in what must be her Easter dress. She is tugging furiously at the hem, as she watches Puck set up his drums with other band members on the stage. Beth climbs on the drum kit and plays a little.

All the best of intentions are in play and the gathering crowd feels it. Something great could happen here tonight.

Sebastian joins Blaine looking out over the crowd, watching silently.

Across the room, Puck is talking with an electrician motioning to a pulley.

“When I give the signal, pull the pulley very slowly. It’s all worked out with the song.”

“Will do,” the electrician replies.

Blaine and Sebastian join the Anderson’s in the reserved family seating area. Nervous, yet amazingly poised, Julia Anderson nods politely to unfamiliar faces in the surrounding family area and beyond. She knows all eyes are on her.

Everett is looking around, completely glazed over; it’s all Fantasia to him.

Cooper leans over to whisper in Blaine’s ear. “Somewhere Dad is freaking out.”

Blaine cranes his neck to look for Kurt. He spots Nick, sitting with the rest of the attending Warblers, but no Kurt.

Paul Karofsky is just finishing his speech and calls Blaine to the podium on the stage.

Blaine stands at the podium looking out at the sea of people. He has never been so nervous in his entire life.

“I could never understand those fathers who didn’t say ‘I love you’ because my dad said it all the time. So, I have nothing to complain about, except that he’s gone. And to all of you who helped put this evening together, thank you, it has gone beautifully. Now, without further ado, Julia Anderson.”

Blaine practically dives away from the podium as his mother rises and makes her way to the stage. In every public event, the crowd craves some kind of drama. This is drama.

Mrs. Anderson walks resolutely, from her front row seat to the podium.

“I’m a little nervous, but here we are,” she begins. “Thanks for coming and thanks for inviting me. I’m glad I got on that plane. It’s been a while.”

She smiles a little.

“He talked so much about all of you, and late at night I’d often hear the typing of one of his long detailed letters, answering a simple question in thirty single-spaced pages. Always on Saturday, that was his day to type letters. Saturday was the day he devoted to you. And how fitting that today is Saturday. And there was the shorthand of a long marriage. We were complete opposites – but we worked.”

She moves away from the podium. She is the first speaker to use any part of the stage away from the podium. She was also the first to realize the microphone was cordless all along. In that moment, Julia Anderson comes to life and she is speaking from her heart. Even the tone of her voice sounds less guarded and freer.

“There are three islands of security in this world. Health, love, and work. I lost all three in a single phone call. I am now a widow.”

Blaine and Cooper share a look. This is going downhill very fast, but neither of them moves to try to stop their mother. She’s getting her footing on the stage as the thoughts start pouring out of her, sans a filter.

“The plan was to send my middle child here to represent us. I was terrified that you’d look at me and see – the woman from California. The one who took him. He was always your boy, Tommy, coming home from Harvard. And somehow I hijacked him and took him… To Disneyland!”

There is a soft chuckle in the back of the ballroom.

“Thom didn’t come home. Didn’t start the business with Paul… Got a steady job to support our boys… Didn’t marry the person everybody thought he would… And we never talked about any of it, we just built layers on top of layers and we argued about the layers. Layers of bullshit.”

Cooper and Blaine start shaking their heads fanatically, trying to get their mother’s attention. She doesn’t see their efforts. She’s on a roll.

“All because I was standing in the right elevator at the right time, and a handsome Harvard graduate walked in, on the way back to Lima and… He was engaged and I was engaged too! And… something happened that wasn’t… part of the plan.”

A terrifying silence has fallen over the room.

“But we were in love. And I know the rap on me, I’m the humorless Catholic liberal and I never took the time to know all of you, and for that I am sorry. And I criticized someone’s cook on my last visit here, but as you’ll soon find out, I’m now a struggling cook myself, I know how hard it is, please forgive me, and I say that as a humorless Catholic liberal how is apparently… Still humorless.”

Blaine is horrified that his mother is actually trying to make jokes. Cooper is giggling next to him. Farther down, Everett appears to have fallen asleep. On his left, Sebastian is making eyes at someone Blaine can’t see. The disaster he felt at the airport is now upon them.

“People handle grief in different ways! Thom believed in people. Some let him down. Jesse St. James, you know what you did. And I know what you did. And I’m an inch… Or two inches from actually forgiving you, only because you’re the lying bastard son of the town harlot and I’m not going to hold a grudge forever.”

There are some stunned coughs, some murmuring, and a few laughs. Most of the laughing is coming from Cooper who can no longer contain himself. Jesse St. James and his mother leave the ballroom.

“Some didn’t let him down. He rooted for all of you. And he loved his family… And he was not bitter… And he was more playful than maybe some of you knew. But here’s some advice that I can give you. Give all of these gifts to the living. Do it now. Be embarrassing. Don’t wait for the perfect time. Thom is gone, and that’s life. I may need your help. I haven’t been single since I was eighteen. And that… That was a couple years ago.”

The crowd laughs forgivingly.

“One more Thom story. One night we were out walking – And I asked him, ‘what should I do if, god forbid, you die before me? How do you want to be buried?’ And he looked at me and smiled and said… ‘Surprise me!’ This would surprise him.”

She turns to a poster of Thomas sitting in an easel on the stage and addresses it.

“I’m going to surprise you too! Just you wait and see.”

Julia turns back to the crowd as they applaud; she has tears in her eyes.

After the memorial is over, Blaine is sitting alone in the ballroom. Sebastian approaches him and places a hand on Blaine’s shoulder.

“Why are you here, Seb?”

“Because I’m your boyfriend and that’s what boyfriends are supposed to do?”

Sebastian’s response came out as a question because that’s how he meant it. He didn’t know what Blaine wanted him to say.

“But we broke up, remember? You picked that new guy over me, you hung up on me when I needed you the most…”

Sebastian crouches down in front of Blaine, grabbing Blaine’s face in his hands.

“I love you Blaine. I’ve just been too scared to admit until now.”

Blaine laughs a little, shaking Sebastian’s hands from his face.

“Did you know that Nick is one of my best friends from high school?”

Sebastian goes pale.

“Yeah, I knew just about every person in this room today. And, of course, I found out.”

“Blaine… I – I’m sorry… I’m not good at this whole boyfriend thing and –“

“Hey, I’m not mad. I’m more relieved than anything else. Just be happy, Sebastian. Find someone and be happy.”

Blaine pulls Sebastian into a friendly hug. Sebastian pats Blaine on the back and says his goodbyes. Blaine watches him walk out of his life forever.

Blaine plops back down into a chair, closing his eyes and relaxing for the first time since he arrived in Lima.

“So nobody showed, huh?”

The voice startles Blaine. He didn’t realize he wasn’t alone. He jumps nearly a foot into the air.

Standing in front of him, holding a wooden jewelry box is Kurt.