“We never meant to hide it, Kev,” Mom said. “But it’s hard to talk about. What hurts me most of all is that your father blames God for what happened. He says if God was as loving as the Church says He is, He would have never taken Kelsey away from us.”
This was the first time I’d ever heard either of my parents mention God or church when discussing our family. “When did you guys ever go to church? You’ve never taken me to church.”
“Shortly after we married, we met some missionaries. I had just become pregnant, and we were thrilled to find a church that taught families could be together not just on earth, but in heaven too.”
She paused. “We’re Mormons, Kev.”
I couldn’t believe my parents had, in all the years of my life, never, ever, not even once mentioned any of this. I’d been lied to again, just like when they didn’t tell me the whole story about the funeral home. Except this time it was worse, much worse. Now I questioned whether I really even knew my family at all. I got up to throw away my root beer can, but instead I threw it across the room.
“How can I believe anything you say to me, Mom? How many other major events have you avoided telling me about just because you thought I was a kid and didn’t need to know?”
I heard a sniff or two, then a full-blown sob. Mom dropped her head down on the table. She cried so hard the whole table wobbled.
Then I recalled the look on Dad’s face the night Mom casually mentioned President Carter’s offer to conduct funerals, and how she tried to make the offer sound as if it were no big deal.
“Now I know why Dad acted so funny when you told him President Carter wanted to help. You want Dad to have contact with the Church again. Is that why you agreed to let President Carter help? Or was it your idea, and you approached President Carter about it, hoping Dad would talk to someone about what happened?”
I gave Mom a moment to answer, but she didn’t. She just kept on sobbing. I turned my back to her. “I’m going back to bed.”
“Kevin, please wait,” Mom called out. “Let me finish.”
I didn’t want to be in the same room with her, and I was so mad I wanted to punch the wall. Even though she couldn’t quit sniffling, I didn’t feel sorry for her. Yet I stopped just short of the door. I guess I hoped she would say something that would help me make sense of the whole thing.
Mom hiccupped. She took a deep breath to control her tears, then continued. “After Kelsey died, your dad said he’d lost his job. But Mr. Barre told me later that Arlice had quit. When I confronted him about it, I realized he’d quit because of Kelsey. His job was to help families deal with death, but he didn’t know how to deal with it himself. He wasn’t prepared for the emotions we felt when Kelsey died.”
If Kelsey had lived, I thought, she’d be eighteen now. She’d probably have long black hair and eyes like Mom’s. “What made Dad agree to buy the Paramount, then?”
“I talked him into it. We needed to start a business. I knew this was our best chance. I thought—I hoped—enough time had gone by. And Arlice was never happy at the factory. He needs to work where he’s at his best, where he can care for others.
“Kevin, it would mean more to me than anything if your dad would soften his heart toward the Church. I know it’s not God’s fault that Kelsey died. I also know your dad still believes in God. But until he finds a way to cope with his grief, he’ll continue to stay away.”
“I can’t believe you never told me about this.”
“I’m sorry, Kevin.”
“Sorry doesn’t help, Mom,” I said. I pushed the door open. “I don’t understand why you couldn’t tell me this. I’ve had a sister all along and never knew it.”
“But she’s dead.”
“So? What did you say about Dad’s Aunt Juanita? You forgot that she was dead because you loved her so much, remember? So it’s OK to talk about Aunt Juanita but it’s not OK to talk about Kelsey? Not even to tell me about her?”
Mom choked on a sob. “It’s so hard, Kevin. You wouldn’t understand. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to talk about it.”
“You don’t know that I wouldn’t understand,” I shot back, so angry now that my stomach cramped and the veins in my neck throbbed. “You never give me the chance to understand anything!”
Mom shrunk down in the seat. “I didn’t know losing a child could still hurt after so long.”
I left my mother sitting at the table, alone, and went back to my room.
I crawled in bed and yanked the covers over my head, hoping the blackness would swallow me up and I could sleep. Instead, I rolled in the dark for a long time. I had a sister. A sister I never knew.
If I didn’t know her, why did it hurt so bad?
When I woke up the next morning, I found a paper on my nightstand. It was Kelsey’s birth certificate. Kelsey Lizabeth Kirk. Six pounds, eight and one-half ounces. Eighteen inches long. Her birth and death date were listed as the same day, with a tiny set of footprints like exclamation points underneath as if to say, I was here!
The goose bumps I got from Cletus McCulley’s words erupted again.
There’s more to life than what you see.
There was no funeral for baby Gretchen. Her parents followed us to the cemetery in a beat-up station wagon. Her plot was in the far west corner, her tiny grave marked by a small piece of polished granite no wider across than a dinner plate. I found out later that it had taken all the money the couple had to buy the baby’s plot and headstone. My parents had not only dressed and buried Gretchen at no charge, but gave her parents some money to help them get back to their family in Texas.
Late that afternoon, I sat out in the back lot with my new binoculars. The wind was light but cold. Powdered-sugar snow floated down from the gray sky, clung to the evergreens, and spread across the ground like vanilla frosting. There were no animals out, just an occasional bird, so I filled up the last page of Volume IV with observations about the trees.
Using my new binoculars, I focused on a distant pine branch that had two cones hanging underneath. I mentally traced the outlines of the needles, the cones, and the downy snow as it piled on top. Though hundreds of feet away, I felt close enough to the branch to touch its smallest needle.
I studied that branch for so long that my elbows stiffened and my fingers froze into an icy grip on the binoculars. I lowered them and saw the sky had descended into a deep lavender haze. The single branch I’d studied was now lost, now one of many secrets hidden within the shadows of the trees.
I gathered my stuff and went back to my room. I stacked the newly completed Volume IV on top of Volumes III, II, and I. I pulled a new notebook out of my desk, wrote Volume V on the cover, and promoted it to its new place among my research supplies. Then I took my photo album off the shelf. I stretched out across the bed and began flipping through the pages of me as a baby, then a toddler, then a preschooler. Mom, or Dad, or both, were in every picture. Then there were school pictures and class pictures, pictures with my old friends outside my old house, pictures of birthday parties and Halloween parties and Christmases at Grandma Kirk’s.
I remembered the envelope Grandma had given me on Thanksgiving. I pulled the trunk of junk from under my bed and began rummaging. The envelope was buried underneath my box of old baseball cards and the bag of one hundred fifty plastic insects I’d bought at the Dollar Store when I was in second grade. I pulled out the papers. The first one was a pedigree chart. My name was number one, Kevin Andrew Kirk. Dad’s name was number two: Arlice Theobald Kirk. Yuck! Any parent who would name his son Theobald might as well slap a Kick Me sign on the kid’s back. A name like that is an open invitation to get pummeled by guys like Stiller.
Granddad was number three: James Theobald Kirk. I’d always thought it was cool to have a grandfather named James T Kirk. Dad told me once that when he was in elementary school, he always made sure Granddad was the one who signed his report cards. He’d take them back to school and show the signature to his friends. Because his family
moved around so much, Dad always told his new classmates his father was in a top secret army space program. Once his friends saw Granddad’s signature, Dad never confirmed—or denied—the rumors that his dad was the captain of the starship Enterprise.
I picked up Kelsey’s birth certificate—Kelsey Lizabeth Kirk, daughter of Arlice Theobald Kirk and Freda Jean Killough. I laid it on top of Grandma’s papers and slid them all into the envelope, bent the clasp back into place, and put it back in my trunk in its spot underneath the baseball cards.
I got up and walked to the window. Now it was dark, but the sky had cleared and the moon was full. The snow-covered pine boughs sparkled, competing with the stars overhead. The soft sounds of my parents’ conversation drifted up from the den and through the slightly open door. I could see them sitting on opposite ends of the couch, legs stretched out, Mom’s resting on top of Dad’s. They were totally focused on each other.
I flopped back on the bed and pulled the fishing worm out of my pocket. I held it up to the light and the silver specks in it glittered like the snow outside. I thought about Kelsey as I twirled it around in my fingers. I wondered how the worm would look to a fish if he saw it hanging from a hook in the middle of a big lake. How could he see it floating in front of him if his eyes were in the sides of his head?
An artist visited our school once. He painted old barns and snow-topped mountains, log cabins, and whitewashed country churches nestled in autumn leaves. Someone asked how he knew the colors and shapes would end up like the scene he had in mind. He said that as he worked, he liked to step back from his paintings and observe them from across the room. If you’re always in the same spot, always too close, he said, you can’t see how the shapes, the light, and the shadows blend together. Sometimes you have to back up to see how each element becomes part of the whole picture.
I put the worm on my desk and changed into my pajamas. I brushed my teeth, then as I washed my hands I looked at myself in the mirror, moving my face so close to it that my breath fogged the glass. I could have counted each eyelash if I’d wanted to. Then I slowly backed away and watched my cheeks, chin, forehead, ears, and hair all come together to make my face. A few more backward steps and my surroundings—the shower curtain, shelves, and seashell wallpaper—came into view, telling the story of where I was at that moment.
Mom’s giggle made its way from the den to my ears, interrupting my concentration. “Oh Arlice,” she teased, “you’re so kooky.” Dad’s familiar cackle followed, which meant he’d zinged Mom with one of his corny one-liners.
Isn’t it funny how you can live with your parents for so long and not really know them at all?
Chapter Thirteen
We started out the new year with a new apprentice. The Paramount was getting to be too much for Mom and Dad to handle alone, so Marcy moved into the small efficiency apartment above the hearse garage. She was finishing her degree at the same school Mom had attended. The home she worked at was closing, so she needed to find an apprentice position somewhere else.
Marcy was the kind of person who didn’t just arrive somewhere—she made an entrance. It wasn’t because Marcy was arrogant—in fact, she was so unpretentious you felt like she’d enjoy a barn dance as much as the Metropolitan Opera. She was born elegant, the same way some people are born with perfect teeth.
On the day she came for her interview, she wore a tailored wool suit with matching pink pumps. She flowed through the front door like a pale pink breeze, her long slender braids brushing across her shoulders as she glided down the hall to the office. I’d never seen anyone with such excellent posture. I wondered if she was the descendant of an African queen.
I liked Marcy from the minute she shook my hand, which she did as if I were twenty-six, like her. Mom was even more impressed with Marcy. Her fifteen-minute interview ended up taking three hours. When Dad came home from running errands in town, he and Mom spent another two hours in the office with Marcy. Afterward, Dad took us all to the Cow Palace to celebrate the hiring of the Paramount’s new apprentice.
I’d heard people talk about starving college students. Marcy must have been famished. She inhaled two Bacon and Cheese Double Cow Patties, an order of Onion Lassos, a side salad with extra ranch dressing, and three soda refills. Marcy was built like a beanpole, but she could eat enough to feed the entire Sherman County High football team, plus the mascot. By the time she’d scraped the last bit of hot fudge brownie sundae from her plate, she was calling Mom and Dad “Mr. and Mrs. K,” and the three acted like they’d known each other forever.
Marcy was also athletic, which explained why her back was as straight as a ruler. Every weekday she was up at 5:30 A.M. for a three-mile run, and every other day she did a thirty-minute workout with free weights. I found this out when I went out to the back lot one morning shortly after she’d moved in. The lights were on in the hearse garage, and when I peeked in the window, there was Marcy doing chin-ups on a bar hanging from the ceiling. I’d never seen anyone do so many chin-ups before.
She saw me and let go of the bar. “Come on in.”
I opened the side door and stepped in. A Tina Turner CD played low in the background.
“Do you lift weights, Kevin?”
I didn’t even think I could do a chin-up.
“I love lifting weights.” Marcy exhaled and sat down on the bench, wiping the sweat from her forehead with an old towel. “Makes me feel like I can do anything. Try it.” She handed me a dumbbell. “I’ll show you how to do a bicep curl. Sit on the bench and support your elbow on this pad. Extend your arm and pull the weight up toward your shoulder. See?” She put her hand on my bicep and squeezed. “You can feel your muscle working.”
I tried a bicep curl with my other arm. Marcy then asked if I wanted to try chin-ups. She picked me up just enough so I could grab the bar, then she let go. I dangled in the air, the tips of my toes nowhere near the concrete floor.
“Pull up with your biceps,” she encouraged. I strained, feeling the muscles tingle as I pulled my weight up. “Pull. . . pull. . . pull. . . that’s it!” She clapped and jumped when my chin went over for the first time. “Now lower yourself slowly . . . now pull up again . . .”
Dad came in just as my chin made it over the second time. “Look, Mr. K. Kevin’s done two chin-ups!”
Dad gave Marcy a high five. “Way to go! You may put some muscles on this kid yet.”
“My father used to lift weights,” Marcy said. “That’s how I learned to count when I was little. I helped him count his reps.”
I let go of the bar. “He doesn’t lift anymore?”
“He was killed by a drunk driver when I was eight,” Marcy said. “On his way home from work.”
Dad put his arm around Marcy’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Marcy.”
“My daddy was a good person. I miss him so much, even now.”
That afternoon Dad bought an extra set of weights and a rowing machine to add to Marcy’s makeshift gym, which surprised me since he was always worried about money. But Mom was thrilled because Marcy cried and thanked them over and over again, saying she knew she’d love working for them and buying that equipment made her feel like she’d found a home instead of a job. Soon we were all working out, and Marcy became our personal trainer. By the middle of the month I could do five chin-ups, which made me feel like I could handle five Stillers if I had to.
One night, while Mom and Dad were out on a date, Marcy challenged me to a game of Go Fish in the guest kitchen. I’d just put down my first set when there was a knock at the French doors leading out to the sitting area. A tall, flabby man in an overcoat had his face pressed to the glass. He waved, trying to get our attention. The last time I’d ever seen anything so pathetic was at the big pet store in the mall at Memphis, where the puppies peered out at you from behind bars with hopeful, yet pitiful, expressions.
Marcy groaned and threw her cards down. She got up and, instead of her usual grace, shuffled to the door on weighted feet.
�
��Marshall, what are you doing here?”
“I had to see you, Marcy. We have to talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Marcy said. “I told you I need more time.”
Marshall reached over and put his hands on her shoulders. “But baby, I love you. I’ve known it from the first time I heard you say my name. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Please don’t turn me away again.”
“Marshall, this is Kevin.” She tilted her head toward me, her hands perched on her narrow hips. “I work for his parents.”
“Hey.” Marshall nodded, and then resumed his quest for true love. “Marcy, I promise if you’ll just listen to me, if you’ll just be reasonable—”
“Reasonable? Me, be reasonable? You’re the one who needs to be reasonable!” She stepped back and Marshall’s arms fell to his sides. He shrunk at least a foot and his shoulders drooped, making his already-round waistline even rounder. I heard a button on the front of his coat pop from the strain. His black eyes searched her face for any sign of compromise.
Marcy stood, her arms crossed, for what seemed like hours. Then she sighed. “OK. Tomorrow night. Pick me up at eight. You can take me out to dinner, and then you can tell me what’s on your mind. But I refuse to listen to anything you have to say right now.”
“But Marcy—”
“Good night, Marshall.” She sat down and asked if I had any eights. Marshall stared at her for a minute, and then slouched his way back to the doors. He’d been dismissed. So like any guy guilty of the third out in the bottom of the ninth, he walked away—alone—into the cold, cold night.
The door clicked shut. “He doesn’t know what he wants.” She jerked the eights from my hand, put them with hers to make a set, and slapped them down on the table. She turned to the ceiling. “What does he want?” she said to the fluorescent light, as if it had all the answers and wasn’t sharing any with her. Now I understood why she got along so well with my parents, since they talked to ceilings too. Or maybe it was just another quirky mortician’s habit?
My Mom's A Mortician Page 7
