My Mom's A Mortician

by Patricia Wiles

  President Carter leaned over to console her and was thanked by getting her arm, which was about the size of a tree trunk, whacked across his chest. President Carter staggered back and caught himself on the edge of the pew before he totally lost balance. With an arm like that, I figured she must have been the one to teach all her cousins how to fight.

  The more the tomato-haired lady rocked back and forth, the more the casket, and the stand, rocked back and forth too. That squealing-tires sound slipped up from Mom’s throat.

  “Arrrrrrlice,” she screeched, “do something!”

  Dad dashed down the aisle as dignified as one could dash in a suit and in the middle of a funeral chapel. He reached for Tomato Lady, hoping to back her away from the casket, but he was too late. The stand tilted and the whole enchilada hit the floor with a sickening thud. Every flower arrangement on the right side of the room somersaulted through the air. The casket tipped over on its side, and poor Oda Mae Pidcock was dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.

  Tomato Lady fainted. Mom and Dad stuffed Oda Mae back into her box, then they helped the paramedics haul Tomato Lady out to the ambulance.

  That afternoon, we ate Thanksgiving dinner in the motor home with Granddad and Grandma Kirk—turkey, gravy, dressing, mashed potatoes, the works. By the time evening rolled around, I’d finished off an entire pumpkin pie by myself. Mom was in bed by seven with a terrific headache. I don’t know if it was caused by the funeral or the jokes Dad and Granddad cracked about it all through dinner. The worst was when Granddad said he knew a good pharmacist if Mom needed something to “stop her coffin.”

  While Dad and Granddad cleaned up the Thanksgiving dishes that night, I took Grandma out behind the motor home to show her where I liked to sit and record animal sightings. She was impressed and told me she’d take lots of pictures of the wildlife at Fort Walton Beach and send them to me. The only wildlife I could imagine at a campground full of retired people would be the Saturday night bingo crowd. So I smiled and told her I’d like that a lot. Then she pulled a big brown envelope out of her jacket. It was the envelope she’d tried to give me earlier.

  “Kevin, I want to give you this,” Grandma said, and placed the envelope in my hands. “I hope to be able to give you more sometime, but this is all I have right now.”

  I opened the envelope and pulled the papers out. They looked like charts, but I had no idea what they were for.

  Grandma pointed to the first name on the top sheet. “This is a pedigree chart. This is you, and this is your family tree.” She let her fingers trace along the brackets. “This is Arlice, and your granddad, and your great-granddad, and your great-great-granddad. And below there’s me, your great-grandma, and your great-great grandma.” She slid the papers back in the envelope, bent the clasp, and put the envelope in my hands.

  “Thanks, Grandma.” I didn’t understand why she’d want to give me stuff like this, but I didn’t want to sound ungrateful.

  “Granddad and I aren’t getting any younger, Kevin,” Grandma said. She gazed out beyond the trees. “Someday we won’t be around anymore.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Grandma.”

  “It’s true. Sweetie. Not talking about it won’t make the truth go away. Over the last few months, I’ve been researching our family history. I’m recording as much as I can remember about all the old family stories. If I don’t write them down, they’ll be forgotten. People will be forgotten.” She caressed my cheek with her wrinkled hand. It was warm and soft, her skin paper thin. “And Kevin, a grandma doesn’t want to think that she’ll be forgotten.”

  I let Grandma pull me in for a hug. I didn’t say anything because I felt a sharp pain in my stomach and was afraid if I opened my mouth, the only thing to come out would be a squeak—or worse, a sob. Instead, I concentrated real hard, and wished Grandma could hear what was in my mind.

  I will never forget you. Grandma. Or Granddad. I promise.

  We heard a slight rustle a few feet away. Armadillos! Their clumsy, armored bodies looked like soldiers’ helmets with legs and snouts. They scampered in and out of the trees. It was the first time I’d seen live armadillos since we’d moved to Armadillo.

  “You guys had better not be here in the morning if you don’t want to end up like your cousins,” Grandma said. The armadillos stopped their game of tag and studied her. I wondered what they thought about this orange, pumpkin-shaped human who was trying to give them advice.

  We tried intimidating them by staring them down, but Grandma got tickled and let out a loud snort. The armadillos turned their backs to us and retreated into the safety of the trees, their pointy tails dragging through the brittle autumn leaves.

  Chapter Eleven

  Stiller came back to school after Thanksgiving break with a broken arm. He was always coming to school bruised up. Since he never stopped looking for a fight, I figured the bruises meant he wasn’t having trouble finding one.

  He still hated my guts, but he stopped his verbal attacks against me for a while. As long as I kept plenty of space between us, I could avoid getting tripped, shoved, or spit on. And I covered the books in my locker with sheets of plastic wrap. That kept my stuff from getting gunky when he used my locker for a trash can.

  I puzzled a lot over what happened that day when Stiller wanted to beat me up after school. I’d never felt rage like that before, and I wasn’t proud of myself for it. I wanted to believe my anger was justified, that I had every right in the world to break his skull open. But something kept nagging at me, telling me that forcing him to kiss the concrete would not resolve the problem.

  I’ve never believed in rabbit’s feet, lucky coins, or four-leaf clovers. But when I touched that purple plastic fishing worm, it distracted me enough to make me think twice about annihilating Stiller. I’d kept that worm in my pocket since Cletus McCulley’s funeral. I wasn’t sure why. Herb Conrad said that he and Cletus always carried bait in their pockets. But it was December, too cold to fish, and I still couldn’t leave for school in the mornings without checking to make sure I hadn’t forgotten the worm.

  Why was I carrying something that helped me remember a dead man, a man I’d never met while he was alive? I could see his face in my mind, as clear as in the portrait that stood beside his casket. And I couldn’t forget the dream I’d had about him.

  That dream had seemed so real. I’d read his thoughts as clear as if he’d been speaking, but I didn’t hear his voice—not until he looked at me and said, “There’s more to life than what you see.” How could something—or someone—be living if you couldn’t see it living? I understood that things like electricity or radio waves or wind couldn’t be seen but still existed. Once the graveyard became your permanent address, though, you were out to lunch for good. Right?

  The first week of December, Mom decorated the funeral home for Christmas. When she brought up the idea, Dad winced and I told her that happy blinking lights and snowmen would look weird in a funeral home. And you sure couldn’t have any life-size replicas of the Big Red Guy. All it would take would be for one little kid to see a stiff Santa lying in repose at the Paramount, and all residents of Sherman County less than eight years old would be traumatized for life.

  Fortunately, the effect Mom had in mind was peaceful and dignified instead of mistletoe and ho-ho-ho. She set up a tall artificial tree in the front hall and covered it in white midget lights, doves, satin balls, and plastic icicle ornaments. Then she draped garlands of gold beads on the branch tips and surrounded the base with pots of red and white poinsettias. Outside the front entrance, she wrapped pine boughs around the columns and encircled them with more poinsettias. Upstairs, in the living area, we had our old tree with all the ornaments I’d made in kindergarten, grade school, and Cub Scouts, finished off with the twinkle lights that flashed like the multicolored sign over the Cow Palace.

  Business was too good. We were doing three funerals a week, and it was hard for Mom and Dad to keep up with everything. Even during the breaks betwee
n services, there were still chores to be done, supplies to buy, and the upstairs to care for. And Dad had been warning Mom since early fall that the public restrooms would have to be renovated in the spring. They tossed around the idea of bringing in an apprentice, but they couldn’t afford to do that until after the first of the year. So when school let out for Christmas break, Mom greeted me with a list of major jobs. Within a few days we were able to finish all the big tasks, which gave us a chance to get our Christmas shopping done in time for the holidays.

  Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were quiet. I got up early both mornings and sat out in the back lot. Snow covered the ground, making it easy to see rabbit, deer, and bird tracks. I drew pictures of them in my notebook. I liked to call my notebooks volumes, and the current one was Volume IV. Sometimes I fantasized about finding a new subspecies and getting an award from the National Geographic Society. My name would be in all the scientific journals as Kevin Kirk, the bright young amateur biologist who discovered what for years more experienced researchers had been looking for. Mom and Dad were impressed with my hobby—so impressed that they gave me a pair of binoculars and some books on animal, plant, and insect identification for Christmas.

  The day after Christmas, Dad went to the hospital to pick up a body while Mom and I hit the post-holiday sales. When we got home, I went upstairs to my room and Mom went downstairs to help Dad. I messed around on the computer, flipped through my new books, and before I knew it, I’d fallen asleep—rare for me, because I never take naps. I woke up about six. Mom and Dad still hadn’t come upstairs. It was odd for both of them to be downstairs for this long without taking a break.

  I went to the refrigerator and took a swig of orange juice—out of the jug, since I was by myself—to take the taste of sleep out of my mouth. There was a note on the table from Mom:

  Arlice,

  Gone to Walmart. I forgot to buy

  more panty hose.

  Be right back.

  Love u, Freda

  I went downstairs to look for Dad and found him in the chapel. He was standing beside a small blue casket, and he was crying.

  I had never seen my father cry.

  I stepped back quietly and slipped upstairs. I’d seen Dad act goofy, mad, worried, and frustrated, but I’d never heard him sob as if his heart were breaking. It was an unfamiliar, frightening sound, like the sickening pop when two cars collide.

  That night after my parents were asleep, I snuck down to the chapel. I flipped on the front lights and walked up to the casket. I lifted the lid and inside, nestled in the palest blue satin, was the body of a baby girl.

  She couldn’t have been more than three months old. She wore a white cotton gown spotted with white satin rosebuds, a white lace cap on her head, and white knit booties on her feet. Inside the lid of the casket, someone had pinned a blue card to the lining. The baby’s name, Gretchen, was on the card, written in calligraphy. And below that, the definition: “Little Pearl.”

  At first glance, Gretchen would have appeared to be more at home on a toy store shelf, peek-a-booing through the clear plastic window of a cheerfully colored cardboard box. But she had once been a living child; her body was definitely flesh, not plastic. I touched the tip of my finger to her forehead, in the same spot where her mother and father had probably kissed her many times. Then it would have been warm and soft. Now it was cool and lifeless, unresponsive to contact.

  All the funerals we’d had at the Paramount so far were for people who had lived so long their bodies wore out from years and years of use. But this was a baby—a new body, a new life, a new promise. It didn’t seem fair. Gretchen had died before she was even old enough to learn to say Mommy or Daddy. Before she could learn to read or write. Before she could learn how to cross the street alone or ride a bike. Before she could go to school, win a spelling bee, hit a home run, drive a car, graduate from college. Before she could marry and have a baby of her own.

  A blanket of sadness draped over my chest. I could understand why Dad had been so distressed. I wondered about Mom’s reaction.

  I slowly lowered the lid, shut off the lights, and left the chapel. I eased the double doors closed and started down the hall to the stairs.

  “What are you doing, Kevin?”

  I’d been caught. The light was off in the guest kitchen, but Mom was in there. She popped the top on a can of diet soda and poured it over a glass of ice. How long had she been down here? She was wearing a pair of Dad’s old sweats and a Habitat for Humanity T-shirt. Her furry frog slippers stared at me from under the table. “I thought you didn’t like having dead bodies in the house at night.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.” Well, at least it wasn’t a lie.

  “Grab a drink and sit down,” she gestured to the chair across from her. “There’s some ice in the freezer. And hit the light switch.”

  I turned on the light, then got the key from the cabinet and opened the vending machine. There was one cold root beer, so I sat down and drank it straight from the can. I was halfway through when Mom finally spoke.

  “I saw you touch the baby.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with the bodies.”

  I remembered Dad’s promise before we moved, that I’d never have to touch a dead body. He’d said it in a joking way, but here I’d just gone and touched one without anyone making me do it. “I don’t know,” I said. I studied my can so I wouldn’t have to look at Mom. “It seemed like . . . well, it doesn’t seem right for a baby to be dead like that. She was only a baby. I could see why Dad was so upset.”

  Mom raised her eyebrows. “Your father was upset?”

  I wished I hadn’t said anything. “Well, yeah, a little. I mean, well, I saw him earlier and he seemed kind of sad.”

  “How sad?”

  “He was crying.

  “Crying,” Mom echoed, her voice flat. The color drained from her skin, like it does when you have the flu and you’re just about to throw up.

  “Well, more like bawling, actually. Sobbing, really.”

  Mom put her elbows on the table and dropped her face into her hands. She was quiet for a minute, and then she looked up to the ceiling, like Dad did when we had our talk at the Cow Palace. “Oh Arlice,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I got up to go to bed. This funeral home business was making us all crazy: me hearing voices and carrying a worm in my pocket to remind me of a dead man, Dad crying over somebody else’s dead baby, and Mom talking to the ceiling. Maybe we could still get out of the Paramount and go back to the way things used to be, back before Stiller and moving and living with death every day. Back to when the toughest thing to digest was Mom’s cooking.

  Mom looked down at the table and shook her head. “It’s Kelsey. He’s still upset about Kelsey.”

  “The baby’s name was Gretchen, Mom,” I said over my shoulder as I started out the door.

  “I’m not talking about the baby in the chapel, Kevin. I’m talking about Kelsey. She was your sister.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I just stood there in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity, my body frozen smack in the middle of the motion of walking away.

  “I think you should know about your sister, Kev,” Mom said. Her voice was low and quivery. “Come back and sit down.”

  Even my mouth felt numb. “OK.”

  Mom grabbed a napkin from the holder on the table and dabbed her eyes. “About five years before you were born, I was pregnant with our first child. Everything seemed fine—no problems or complications. But the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck during labor. The doctor didn’t know it until it was too late. She was born dead.”

  Mom dabbed her eyes again. “She was so perfect—her fingers and toes, her tiny ringlets of black hair—but she was dead. People said, ‘Don’t take it so hard. You can have another one.’ But how could there be another Kelsey?

  “Arlice had just finished his apprenticeship at Barre Fam
ily Mortuary. They had offered him a chance to become a partner in the business. Everything seemed to be going so perfect for us. He had the promise of steady work; we were starting a family—a family we hoped would last forever. We never dreamed anything would go wrong. We had Kelsey’s nursery ready and a closet full of little dresses and diapers just waiting for her. But she died. After that, Arlice quit his job at the mortuary and went to the factory.”

  A closet full of little dresses.

  I remembered the shoebox—the one I’d found when we were packing. Mom had yelled at me because she thought I was going to throw it away. It had a white cotton dress with white silk rosebuds in it. And a white lace cap. And white knit booties. Those weren’t doll clothes. Those were Kelsey’s clothes.

  “Remember when we packed and you screamed at me over that shoebox?”

  “Yes, that was Kelsey’s dress. We were going to have her blessed in it.”

  Gretchen was wearing the same kind of dress. Then I had a thought so bizarre I was sure Mom would say I was wrong. “You put Kelsey’s dress on Gretchen, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I dressed that baby in Kelsey’s clothes.”

  I stared at Mom in disbelief. “You yelled at me because I was going to throw away the dress, but if you decide to bury it in the ground that’s OK?”

  “Kevin, Gretchen’s parents don’t even have enough money to pay us. I can’t turn them away. They don’t even have a decent dress to bury Gretchen in. Kelsey’s dress isn’t doing anyone any good hidden in the closet. Besides, I think this could help us put the past where it belongs.”

  “You think the past should be buried? Well, I don’t think it’s working. The way Dad was bawling, it’s not working for him, either.” I should have felt sorry for my parents. Instead, I was mad. “Why did you hide this from me?”