by Amber Smith
But that’s hard when there’s this elaborate foreign ritual of passing dishes and spooning sauces and picking the right utensils, and the stress of saying “please” and “thank you” and acting normal and polite, like we ever had dinners like this at our house. There are fresh biscuits Jackie made from scratch, steamed vegetables and roasted potatoes, salad with sliced strawberries and little wedges of mandarin orange, and grilled salmon that looks and smells expensive. They even have a white tablecloth that’s embroidered with flowers and lace, and a tall white candle lit in the center of the table. I know I’m going to spill something on the tablecloth. I try to make my movements as small and careful as possible, which is only making me feel clumsier—I accidentally drop my biscuit and I can feel Aaron tense up next to me.
I pick at the salmon with my fork. It’s pink. I’m sure this is how it’s supposed to be, but I’m scared to eat it. The only fish we ever had at home was in the form of sticks. I look over at Aaron to see if he’s as lost as I am. He’s eating normally, but maybe he has meals like this at Carmen’s all the time. I feel so uncivilized.
“Well, the whole point of our family dinnertime is to talk about our day,” Jackie begins, like this is something she’s rehearsed. “So I went over to the courthouse today for the arraignment. And I also had a chance to meet with Allison’s lawyer, Mr. Clarence.”
“When is she coming home?” I ask.
“Well,” she says, carefully setting her fork on the edge of her plate. “She’s not coming home, at least not for a little while, anyway. The judge denied bail.”
I look back and forth between Aaron and Jackie, but no one says anything. “What does that mean?” I finally say.
“It means she’s going to have to stay in the county jail until”—she pauses, looking up as if trying to locate her next words—“the next hearing, which will determine if they have enough evidence to move forward with a trial.”
“What are the charges, exactly?” Aaron asks, twisting up the cloth napkin in his lap.
“There are a number of factors coming into play.” Her words are precise, prepared. “The lawyer said that this could potentially be high profile. From his perspective, I guess it’s not as open and shut as we’d like it to be. It involves a police officer, minors, assault with a deadly weapon”—she ticks off the reasons on her fingers—“and the doctors say Callie doesn’t remember what happened, so as of right now there are no witnesses.”
“But what are the charges?” Aaron asks again, this time flattening his napkin and smoothing it out over his legs.
“This sounds bad, I know,” she cautions us. “It’s voluntary manslaughter, second-degree murder, and first-degree murder.”
“She didn’t murder . . . ,” I begin, but the word sticks in my throat, my voice catching on its jagged edges. “She was defending herself. It was an accident. I mean, it would be ridiculous to charge her with that.”
“I know, I agree with you. Her lawyer is fully aware of everything. We all know that, honey.” She exchanges a loaded glance with Ray before continuing. “The lawyer had to explain it to me, and so now I’m explaining it you. They always include more-serious charges, in hopes that we’ll plea down to one of the lesser ones to avoid a trial. It’s just how it’s done, apparently.”
Aaron remains silent. I wish he’d say something, anything. There’s a tightness taking hold of my insides, everything in me wanting to constrict. I try to breathe in deeply, but my lungs feel like they’re made of rusty metal.
When I turn to look at Aaron, he’s covering his face—I hear him mumble something through his hands, but the only word I can make out is “fucking.” Somehow, I manage to push away my own feelings and put my arm around him like I’m the big sister.
Jackie shakes her head slowly and brings her napkin to her face. “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t what anyone wants to hear.” Ray reaches out and places his hand on her shoulder and looks down at his half-eaten salmon.
FAMILY PORTRAIT
IT’S BEEN TEN DAYS. Callie stands in Jackie’s living room, clutching the handles of her oversize plastic hospital bag like she’s holding on to a roller coaster safety bar. They let her leave so she could attend the funeral, which we’ve had to reschedule three times while we waited for the police to “release the body.” A phrase that makes my stomach twist.
She was talking at the hospital but still doesn’t remember anything about what happened. The doctor said that’s not unusual. She hasn’t spoken a word to us, though. She’s given us no indication that she intends to go to the funeral, and in fact, she hasn’t moved from this spot for about ten minutes.
“Nice house, huh?” I ask stupidly, trying to find any words that will mask how weird this feels, how much of a stranger she suddenly seems to me.
She doesn’t answer. Instead she walks over to Jackie’s fireplace and picks up one of the picture frames that sit on the mantel. It’s silver and has elaborate molded edges. It looks expensive. More expensive than any five-by-seven picture frame has a right to be. She holds it close to her, then at arm’s length, as if it’s multidimensional and will somehow change its appearance if she holds it at different angles. Silently she sets it back down on the mantel where she found it, except she places it facedown. Then she walks away, drifting down the hall and into the guest bedroom that we’ll be sharing, even though we haven’t shared a room in years.
I look over my shoulder to see if Jackie was watching us from the kitchen. She wasn’t. She’s sitting at the dining room table with Aaron, who’s already wearing his black suit and black tie, and they’re talking in hushed tones, being too obvious about trying to conceal the topic of conversation. Which is Mom. Or Dad. Or Mom and Dad. Or me and Callie—what they’re going to do with us. I pick up the frame and unfold the arm that’s attached to its back with a thin satin ribbon. As I set it back in its place, I look at the picture itself, standing there, perched among the other photos that line the narrow shelf. It’s a family. A family that could be any family—a mother, a father, and three kids, their heights measured in perfect increments, smallest to tallest.
The smallest could be a boy or a girl. It’s that toddler age where it’s hard to tell. There’s a messy mass of wild hair sticking out in all directions, a smile that looks like a film still of a belly laugh, the face slightly blurred from the motion. And the boy, the tallest—while still small—has a shyness about him, a quietness, a stillness with his hands clasped together, his arms somehow twisted in front of him at impossible angles as he glances backward at the mother and father, who stand behind all three kids and exchange a knowing look. A familiar, easy smile, a gaze of love and admiration. The one in the middle, she holds her arms out at her sides, as if saying, Ta-da! and her smile is real and her eyes are closed. Not a single one of them looks at the camera.
It could be any happy family.
Except it’s not. It’s us. And the one in middle, that’s me. Eyes closed. And maybe my eyes are still closed, because I’ve been in this house for ten days and I swear I’ve even looked at these pictures, but I never really saw this one until now.
My fingers leave tiny smudges on the glass. I can hold it in my hands, see it with my own eyes, yet I can’t quite believe there was ever a time when this family existed. But the digitally printed date in the lower right-hand corner is evidence, that on New Year’s Eve, ten years ago, they were here—the people in this picture, this family—they existed. I quickly do the math: I had just turned seven, Aaron was nine, Callie was two, and our parents hadn’t destroyed everything good in each other yet. I don’t know these people. They are all strangers.
Maybe we were all only playing parts; we just didn’t know it at the time.
“Great picture, isn’t it?” Jackie says, standing right next to me all of a sudden. “One of my favorites.” She sighs, gently touching the surface of the glass with her index finger. “Well, we probably need to start getting ready, don’t you think?” She has this way of framing statement
s as questions, and I can’t tell if it’s annoying or endearing. Or annoyingly endearing.
“Yeah,” I agree, unable to decide. “Jackie, do you think we can see her this week?”
“Let’s just get through today, all right?”
“All right.”
Soundlessly, Callie reenters the room and stands in front of us. Sans plastic bag, she holds on to herself instead, arms folded tightly one over the other. Then she goes and sinks down into the couch cushions, pulling a pillow onto her lap, and stares out the window.
“Callie, you should probably start getting ready too,” I say to her, but she only glares in response.
Aaron sits next to her and says something to her, softly. I can’t tell what.
She lowers her chin, almost a nod—a half nod.
“I’m going to get in the shower,” I announce, though no one seems to hear me.
When we’re trying to leave, Callie refuses to move. When I try to convince her to stand up and come with us, Jackie pulls me aside and says, “Maybe it’s for the best she doesn’t come,” as if she somehow knows my sister better than I do. “Ray can stay home with her. It’ll be fine.”
JUST IN CASE
JACKIE TOOK ME TO the mall to shop for a black dress yesterday. I didn’t try it on. I wish I had now, though, because it sticks to me around the hips and it’s too loose in the stomach. The fabric is thin, and it’s sleeveless. It doesn’t look like anything I’d ever allow to be anywhere remotely near my body, but I didn’t care enough to look any farther than the first rack of clothes.
I was sweating on the car ride here, but inside it’s freezing. A deeper shiver runs through my entire body when I realize why. A place that houses dead bodies would need to be cold. I linger behind Jackie and Aaron as we walk down the wide hall plastered in the most depressing wallpaper imaginable: sick, pale peach and pink flowers against a deep-navy-blue background. Everything about this place screams death. It shouts it from every inch, every corner. From the dark, heavy drapes that block out all the sunlight in the world. Death, it whispers as we pass empty rooms on either side. The hard floor, covered in a carpet that’s so thin there can’t possibly be any padding underneath. Death-death, it seems to squeak under my footsteps. The carpet feels more like what I would imagine the green felt on a pool table would be like if you walked on it. I guess there’s no real reason for a funeral home to have any luxuries or comforts. Like my dress, it doesn’t matter.
I hold my breath as we near the last room—our room. I know because each room has a frame affixed to the wall outside the door, and in it, behind the glass, a sheet of marbleized paper with an unfamiliar name printed in calligraphy.
Until we reach the last one: PAUL WINTERS.
Aaron stops short when we reach the doorway.
Jackie enters first. When Aaron follows, his steps take on a zigzag path, walking like he’s drunk, like he doesn’t know which way to go, like his feet are arguing with his brain.
I exhale slowly, then suck in another deep gulp of air as I cross the threshold for myself. My eyes are immediately pulled to the opposite end of the room. The casket is laid out like a centerpiece, surrounded by flowers, some kind of morbid banquet. Immediately to the left of the door stands a podium that holds the guest book; I turn around and grip on to it with both hands, my thumbs making imprints in the crisp paper. I can’t do this, I realize, I don’t want to. I wish I had stayed home with Callie.
I glance over my shoulder, nearly losing my balance completely. Jackie’s standing in front of the casket. Aaron stands in the very center of the empty room, craning his neck like he’s trying to see, at a safe distance, how bad this is. As I’m watching him, waiting for some sign to tell me how bad it is, he turns to look at me. Like he can read my thoughts, he holds his hand out. Carefully I release my grip on the podium one finger at a time. Force my feet to move toward him, left-right, death-death. I force my eyes not to look anywhere except at my brother. He reaches for my hand the way he used to when we were kids, crossing the street. That small gesture makes me feel a little safer, like maybe he’ll be my big brother again. Starting now.
We walk together, slowly, cautiously. I can’t tell if it’s his hands that are shaking or mine. I look down at my feet until I have no choice, until there is nothing left to do but raise my eyes.
We weren’t brought up with any kind of religion. So maybe that’s why I’ve never thought too much about the soul. Never knew how to define it, how to recognize it. But looking down at my dad’s face, I know exactly what a soul is, and I know for sure that it exists, because I can see that his is gone. He doesn’t look real. Like whatever made him him, whatever made him a person, a human being, is no longer there.
As I stare, I keep thinking he’s about to open his eyes. I keep thinking that he moves, just slightly, that I can see him breathing. I blink hard, trying to reset my vision. But it happens again. And again.
“Aaron?” I whisper. I want to ask what he looks like to him. Do you see him breathing? Do you notice his soul is gone? Are you scared?
“Yeah?” Aaron answers, not taking his eyes off our father either.
But I can’t utter any of those questions. And he doesn’t ask me again. So we just stand there. It seems too surreal even to cry.
One second it’s only us and the next there are tons of people filling in the empty space behind us, the air crowded with chatter, with signs of life that only accentuate all the nonlife, making all those markers of death scream louder, more dead somehow.
I hear Carmen’s voice close by, whispering, “Sweetie?” As Aaron turns to her, they pull each other into an embrace. Carmen faces me, her chin propped on Aaron’s shoulder. We’re the exact same height, so as we stand eye to eye, I can see it clearly now, living there inside of her the way it lives inside of me. Fear. That Aaron won’t be able to handle this, that she won’t know the right thing to do or the right thing to say. That he’ll go off the deep end again. I want to tap him on the shoulder and spin him around and look him in the eye and tell him: For once just be here for me, Aaron. Because I’m afraid I might be the one to go over the edge this time.
But I don’t say that. I don’t do anything. Because Carmen’s mother is suddenly there, pulling me into a hug so tight my lungs don’t have room to expand. I start to feel dizzy as I extract myself from the vise of her arms.
Most of the people are Dad’s police friends. I recognize the captain and Dad’s partner, and Tony is there, of course. There’s Carmen and her mom and Aaron’s friend Mark. Three of Callie’s friends come with their parents. Callie’s JV soccer coach comes with a man I assume is her husband. I take a good look around. That’s when I realize that no one is here for me. Not a single person.
I’m caught, all alone, in this whirlwind of comments and declarations that swirl around me like a cloud of fog moving through the room, accompanied by hugs and shoulder squeezes and pats on the back: “He was a great guy . . . generous . . . hardworking . . . loved his family . . . so sorry . . . so sorry . . . so sorry,” they say. I guess it’s natural that when people die, when they’re no longer here to defend themselves, the temptation to idealize them is stronger than the pull of reality. That acute desire to pretend they didn’t have a single flaw—I feel it too. No one mentions the way he died, as if there are unspoken rules dictating what you can and cannot say at a funeral.
It’s like in Peter Pan, how Peter’s shadow separates from him, and Wendy has to sew it back on. Here we pretend my father was divorced from his shadow. And it’s nice. I wish I could make the shadow of him stay separate, like it is right now, forever. I want to throw it away, or lock it up and make it disappear inside a dark dresser drawer where no light can reach it. I want to destroy it altogether. But that’s not how real life is. In real life there’s no way to tear that seam that kept it tethered.
I want to play along, because it would make me feel so much better to pretend that the person they’re talking about is the real, the one and only,
Paul Winters. But there are two different people. There’s Paul, the hard worker, the generous great guy who loved his family, in his way. The one who was a cop and protected other people. But then there’s his shadow. The part that no one here ever knew, the one that I never understood—that was the part of him I wanted gone, his shadow that could take over in an instant.
I’m thinking about how I shouldn’t be thinking about this when I see someone new, this old woman standing in the doorway, surveying everything. Or rather, a woman who may not be all that old but looks like life has beaten her down, aged her prematurely. Tall and thin, her face sharp angles, she wears a navy-blue pantsuit that matches the wallpaper and looks like something that would’ve been on sale several decades ago. Her movements are rigid and jerky as she enters the room, as if each step is painful.
She has a long gray braid that swings back and forth with her footsteps as she makes her way through the room, drawing the attention of every last person here. She walks up beside me and places both hands on the edge of the casket. She looks down into my father’s face. She nods, as if he addressed her somehow.
“Had to see it for myself,” she mumbles. Then she takes a sniff of air through her nose. “You don’t know me; she never wanted you to know me,” she says, still looking down at my dad. “Your mother.” She slides her gaze to me then. I motion for Aaron to get over here because she’s making me nervous. “All because I didn’t approve of him. Well, can you blame me?” she says, coughing as she loses her breath by the end of the sentence.
I look at Aaron. Though we’ve never so much as seen a picture of her, we know who she is—I see a flash of something familiar, something that I can’t quite name but that reminds me of Mom, reminds me of myself, even. She’s our grandmother.
