Roy Watzka’s death and funeral

Roy Watzka’s death and funeral bring his long, complicated relationship with Delphine to a close while revealing the persistence of her attachment to him. He is found sitting upright before photographs of Minnie, and the stillness of his death becomes a public story; for Delphine, however, the funeral opens onto a private mixture of anger, exhaustion, and the love she had felt for him as a child.

Discovery and Public Story

The county visiting nurse finds Roy wide awake in appearance but dead, seated before Minnie’s obscure photographs on the edge of the flour cupboard. She checks for a heartbeat, records the time and her observations, and notes her conjecture about the cause of death. She also describes his composed stare, which seems to confirm the town’s sense of his legendary devotion. After arranging his body and contacting Delphine, the nurse uses the telephone to spread news of the stare around town.

The nurse’s account turns a private death into a public narrative. Roy’s expression is treated as evidence of the love associated with Minnie, and the rapid circulation of the story makes that interpretation part of the occasion before the funeral begins.

Funeral and Delphine’s Grief

Roy’s funeral is well attended, including the wives of bankers and landowners, who appear drawn to the prospect of such devotion. Flowers fill the church, and mourners respond to the photographs laid face down in the coffin over Roy’s heart, as he had instructed. A dinner follows in the church hall, where an interdenominational group serves a communal meal.

Delphine experiences the gathering as both kindness and pressure. The people serving the meal seem more sincerely considerate than curious, yet their attention overwhelms her. She leaves the hall with Mazarine and stands with her outside, away from the funeral dinner. The movement from public ceremony to a quieter conversation gives Delphine room to face an emotion that the town’s romantic version of Roy’s devotion cannot explain for her.

Delphine’s Conflicted Attachment

Delphine tells Mazarine that she is tired and angry: Roy has wasted much of his life, and her affection for him has often felt wasted as well. Yet his death brings back the desperate love she had for him as a child. She has spent years preparing herself to lose him and, during his frustrating periods, has even looked forward to his death. That history does not prevent grief; it makes her response harder to name.

Delphine rejects several simpler explanations for what she feels, including fear of loneliness, exhaustion, and relief. Calling the feeling existential helps her regain composure, but does not dissolve its contradictions. Her response holds together resentment at the life Roy squandered and attachment to the father she loved, rather than resolving either into a single judgment.

What the Death Makes Plain

Roy’s death prompts Delphine to speak urgently to Mazarine about her relationship with Franz. She tells Mazarine that she and Franz love each other and asks why she should not write to him and say so. The advice emerges from Delphine’s recognition that death makes postponement consequential: whatever tenderness or devotion survives privately may remain unspoken unless someone acts.

The funeral therefore marks more than the end of Roy’s life. His public image is preserved in the photographs over his heart and in the town’s retelling of his final stare, while Delphine’s less idealized grief gives that image a complicated human counterpoint. In the immediate aftermath, she turns the loss into a plea that Mazarine not leave love unexpressed.