“I don’t want to move with Dad. I don’t even know him.”
Another shrug. “We don’t get to say, that’s just how it is.”
“What would they do if we didn’t have a dad? Would we be orphans?”
Todd considered. “Yeah, I guess we’d be orphans.”
“So they’d put us in an orphan place?”
“Orphanage.”
Scott resmoothed the carpet and began tracing patterns again. “It’s weird being here. Uncle Bruce is strange.”
Todd made a face. “It’s just for a while.”
“I know.” He drew a crosshatch into the carpet and put a circle in the center square. “Tic-tac-toe. Your turn.”
They took turns making marks. “At least he tries. He brought home pizza.”
“Yeah. But he also made us eat those little tree things.”
“They weren’t trees; it was broccoli.”
“I know. He said they were little trees.”
Todd snorted. “He was trying to make it sound fun.”
“Yuck.” Scott made vomiting noises, and stuck his tongue out.
Todd took his last turn. “Three in a row. I win.”
The younger boy wiped the carpet smooth again. “Do you think our Cousin Corky will be at the funeral?”
Todd chewed his lip thoughtfully. “I guess so. Why?”
“Just wondered.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Todd grabbed a pillow off the bed and swatted his brother with it.
“If we stay here until summer, what’s his daughter going to do when she visits?”
“I dunno. I guess she’ll stay in here and we’ll be on the couch or the floor.”
Scott sprawled on the carpet. “You think Bruce brought our sleeping bags?”
“Maybe. Get up, try this shirt on.”
Ignoring his brother, Scott rolled over on his stomach. “Hey, there’s a sock under here.” He wriggled and stretched out his arm, and drew forth a small sock. “Damn, look how small it is.”
Todd took the sock. “Yeah. You used to have socks this size. I guess I did too.”
“They weren’t pink, though.”
“Shut up and try this on.” Todd stuffed the shirt into his brother’s hand.
Scott put the shirt on and Todd knelt in front of him, adjusting the collar. They were almost the same height when Todd knelt this way, and Scott could see the top of Todd’s ears. He laughed briefly.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Scott allowed his brother to turn him around and tug on the back of the shirt, then propel him to the mirror. He nodded and the reflection nodded back. He looked at his brother in the mirror. “Do you think Mom’s in heaven?”
Todd winced and his face reddened again. “Sure, I guess. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“She didn’t go to church all the time.”
“I don’t think that matters.”
“I saw a movie once where they said the guy couldn’t go to heaven ’cause he took a bottle of pills and killed himself.”
“This is different.” Todd sat down heavily on the floor behind his brother and watched him in the mirror. “She didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident. They said.”
“Why does God care if you take them on purpose?”
“Suicide’s a sin.”
“How come?”
“It just is.” Todd reached over and pulled Scott around to undo his buttons. “If everyone could just kill themselves and go to heaven, they’d all do it. To get to heaven you have to die by accident. Or be murdered or something.”
Scott nodded. “How can God tell if it was an accident? What if God thought it was on purpose but it wasn’t?”
“God doesn’t make mistakes like that, stupid. He’s God, so he knows.” Todd stood up and tossed his brother a t-shirt. “Shut up and get dressed. Forget about all that stuff. She’s in heaven, that’s all.”
Todd took a handful of clothes and left the room. Scott stood shirtless for a few moments, looking at himself in the mirror and wondering if it was true that God never got anything wrong.
Chapter 12
Corky slung her bag onto the bed. The room was very similar to the one she’d stayed in last time. She looked out the window; she could see her old room from here. It felt like no time had passed. Then Seth put his hands on her shoulders and her head swam; it was a new time, after all.
“So, is there anywhere good to eat?”
Corky shrugged. “There’s a diner down the street. It wasn’t too bad, I guess. I dunno. I’d kind of rather go somewhere else.”
“Diner’s fine with me. You think about it. I’m gonna hop in the shower.”
She nodded and turned to watch him gather up things for the shower. Shampoo, conditioner. Hair like his needed a lot of fancy care. She shook her head and sat on the edge of the bed, flipping through television channels.
Dinner at the diner. Well, why not? Everything else was the same. Same hotel, same funeral parlor. She blinked, looking at the suitcase. She’d brought the same black pantsuit. Same funeral, just a new cast of characters. In fact, not even that changed much. Just Pam. Pam instead of Moony, and a casket instead of an urn. A box.
Corky snorted and paced the room, listening to Seth’s shower go on and on. The longer his shower lasted, the less clean she felt. She popped open her overnight case and freshened her makeup. Deodorant. Hairspray. The little mirror glinted out at her and she picked it up, looking into it. The Corky that looked back was tired and sad. She always looked tired and sad in this mirror. Not for the first time, she regretted stealing it. Perhaps she’d regretted it a hundred times. Then again, perhaps she really had regretted it only once, for a very long time; one long regret that still held on.
Why had she taken it? Why? Every time her fingers found their way around the handle of it, she was reminded of her guilt. Thief. Thief. Thief. No wonder she looked sad and tired.
She remembered being in this hotel with this little mirror before, and looking at herself. Sad and tired then, too. She’d stood there, wearing nothing but Uncle Moony’s cross, and wondered if she was crazy to start believing in vampires. Then, wondering if the crazy thing would be not to. The cross had made her feel better, that day. She’d been glad Moony had given it to her.
She’d been glad. But now the cross was no relief. It was more like a burden, and so was the mirror. It looked smoky, dirty. She’d wiped it, but it remained foggy at the edges, as though it reflected something unclean.
Corky applied lipstick and rubbed her lips together, made kisses into the air. The sad, tired Corky kissed back. The bathroom door opened and she tilted the mirror to see Seth step out. She huffed a hot breath onto the mirror and then she saw only haze. A blur of foggy flesh tones.
The haze spoke. “I’ll be ready in a few.” He moved around behind her, toweling hair and putting on clothes. “You gonna change?”
She glanced down at her jeans. For the diner, they’d be fine; no need to change.
No need to change a thing.
Chapter 13
…have I never been here before? Have I ever been here at all?
Somehow, the funeral parlor seemed smaller this time than it had for Moony’s funeral. Corky wondered why, and decided it must be because there were more people in attendance. Or maybe it was the casket, taking up so much space.
“Is this, um… open-casket?” Seth asked as they made their way down the aisle.
Corky nodded, and they filtered down into seats.
“Are you gonna… you know?” He pointed forward. “View it?”
Another nod. “Yes,” she whispered back. “After, if they let us. I guess I will. I don’t think we’re supposed to go up there now.” She settled back against the hard seat and her eyes scanned around the room, looking for familiar faces. She saw Bruce up front, talking to a woman in a frilly black hat. The woman clutched her chest and bobbed her head up and down. Corky couldn’t hear what they were saying.
&nbs
p; She reached into her purse and shook out a mint. “I wonder if Pam’s boys are here,” she said. “I don’t see them. Maybe they got left at home.”
“That would suck. To miss your own mother’s funeral.”
“Well, wouldn’t it be traumatic? Maybe not for Todd, he’s older. But for the younger one.”
“I thought you said the younger one found the body to begin with. Right? So, what good would it do to pretend it doesn’t exist?”
Corky rubbed her shoulders and nodded. He was right; it wouldn’t do any good at all. She was about to say so, when she spotted the boys coming in from a side room. They moved through the group at the front and stood by Bruce, who put his hand on Todd’s shoulder. Scott looked out into the crowd.
Corky saw him looking at her and raised her hand in a small wave. “There they are. Both of them are here after all. You’re right; they can’t pretend. This is better.”
The pews filled up and the organ music got louder and the lady in the frilly hat bobbed her head up and down, up and down. Then the pastor moved to the lectern and the organ music drifted off to a low humming.
“If everyone will please take your seats… please take a seat.”
Corky lost sight of the boys briefly but then they were there again, seated next to Bruce in the front pew. They were uncommonly still, like boys afraid.
“Hello, welcome to the service. I know these are hard times, but we must remember that we will get through these hard times, through all hard times, with the help of our Lord and Savior.” The pastor bowed his head. “Let us pray.”
Heads went down in unison and the pastor led the prayer. Corky peeked sideways at Seth, who had tied his hair back in a respectful ponytail. His eyes were closed and he seemed really to be praying. Was he praying for Pam? She couldn’t know. She hadn’t been, not really. She’d been thinking of other things. Her hair, her shoes. How thick her thighs looked in the pantsuit. Embarrassed, she turned forward again and closed her own eyes.
Why should we pray for her? Corky gritted her teeth and prayed anyway, not feeling it. Pam had been so horrible to her. What was it that made people suddenly adore the dead? Now she was a saint, a darling, an angel. That’s what people had been saying in the foyer: Pam was a selfless wonder, taken too early from the fold.
Corky knew better. Her fingers felt the cross under her slick black blouse as she recalled the last words Pam had ever said to her, and the horrible, hate-filled eyes she’d painted her with, first down, then up, then down again. Pam was no angel.
Pam was a bitch. Had been, anyway.
But then, Corky remembered something else. She sat there in the church while people prayed and wept and prayed again, and her mind went over the day Pam’s goldfish died.
They’d been visiting Moony, of course. This was another visit like the rest, and Corky had, as usual, not been enjoying her cousins much. Bruce was close to her age, just a year older, but they had very little in common. Pam was three years older, and on the day her goldfish died she’d been ten. Corky remembered that, because the fish had been a gift for Pam’s tenth birthday.
Pam had taken Corky in to see the fish, to show it off. “I named him ‘Diaz’,” she’d said. “Cause that’s for ‘ten’ in Spanish, and Mom says he looks like a Spanish dancer.”
Corky had nodded and followed Pam in, not much caring about the name, but curious to see a fish that looked like a dancer. But when they approached the bowl, the fish hadn’t looked like a dancer at all. Diaz was dead.
When Pam saw him floating in the water, her eyes had brimmed full of tears, and she’d stared at the bowl, all composure gone. Pam had pulled her fish out of the water and petted it, weeping as though her small heart could bear no more. Corky had put her arms around her waist and cried with her, tears of contagious grief.
Now, Corky felt tears prick her eyes again, and she wiped at them, irritated. She glanced around and saw a few people with tears in their eyes. She wondered how many of them were crying for the wrong reasons – not over Pam, but over long-ago memories: lost loves, lost fish. At least a few, probably. Maybe all of them.
No, not all of them. Pam’s boys would cry for her. Corky craned her neck but couldn’t see if they were crying now, but they would have, surely. They must have.
“The smallest sparrow is marked by the Lord. The smallest suffering is never unseen,” the pastor said, as the organ music faded down again. “It is through this suffering that we find our understanding. It is through God that we find Peace. We find that Peace because we know that the Believer is never truly gone. Pam will be with us always. She is in our hearts. We know that she is with God.” He spoke for a few more minutes, and then invited the family to take turns speaking about their memories.
Bruce moved forward and stood in front of the congregation. He glanced around nervously and then his eyes went to the floor and stayed there while he spoke.
“I haven’t had… well, I never thought I’d be standing here again so soon. Our father died last year. Mine and Pam’s. She handled all the arrangements. I remember… I remember she didn’t like my suit.” He looked up at the audience briefly and smiled a small, thin smile. “I guess it’s the same suit, today. I never learn. She always said that, too.
“I’m supposed to talk about memories now, they said. Memories of my sister, little things. I remember… I’m not very good at this… I’m sorry.” Bruce shook his head and when he spoke again his voice was thick, like frozen yogurt. “I remember that she was brave when I wasn’t, and that she was strong when I wasn’t. She always took care of everything. She taught me to tie my shoelaces. You know, with the bunnies?”
Some members of the congregation tittered at this, and nodded.
“I don’t… I’m sorry. I can’t say anything else now. It’s just too… too much, for me. I miss her, we all do. Her boys are here.” He gestured down toward Todd and Scott. “We all miss her, don’t we?”
Todd and Scott nodded quietly.
When the services were over, people broke into small groups. Some went to the front to view the body, some moved out to the foyer where refreshments were being offered. Bruce and the boys stood near the back, accepting hugs and condolences.
Corky hugged Bruce, then Todd. She knelt in front of Scott.
“Hi, Scott. Remember me? I’m your cousin Corky.”
Scott looked at her but said nothing.
“I’m sorry to hear about your mother.” She looked up at Bruce. “How’re they doing?”
“Oh. They’re doing well. As well as they can, you know. It’s a rough thing. Thank you for coming, Corky. It would have meant something to her, you know. She would have been glad you were here.”
Corky blinked, knowing better. “Of course, Bruce. Of course. Is there anything I can do, to help?”
“Oh. No. No, we’ll manage. Won’t we, boys? We’re doing fine. We’re doing just fine. It’s a hard thing for everyone, but we’ll manage.”
She hugged him again and went to find Seth. He was sitting in a pew, his head down, making a paper airplane out of one of the memorial pamphlets.
He stood and stretched, his eye on Corky. “So. You going to view the body?”
“I think so.”
He bobbed his head and waited for her to make her move, but she didn’t. She only stood there, her eyes on the viewing area and her hand tracing the cross she wore under her shirt. The casket was dark, and there was a table next to it. A photograph there, and more of the pamphlets. A guest book. She’d have to sign the book. She had to go up there eventually.
Of course she would view the body. Of course she would.
Seth cleared his throat. “I’m going to get some punch. OK?”
He hugged her and moved off, and she made her way to the coffin and looked inside. There was Pam, rosy-cheeked and peaceful, looking not like herself but like some sort of bad copy job. A forgery of Pam, a stuffed, uncanny thing.
“Pam-in-the-Box,” Corky joked quietly, then clapped her hand ov
er her mouth to stifle the laughter that wanted to escape. She signed the guest book and looked at the photograph. Pam in her youth. A youth which hadn’t been that very long ago, Corky reminded herself, picking up a pamphlet and looking at the dates. Pam had been just thirty-nine. From the looks of it, this picture was only a few years old.
Our beloved Pamela, taken from us early by God… a kind and giving mother of two… called to her eternal reward… Rest in Peace, Pamela.
Corky read all this, wondering who wrote it. Bruce? Surely not. One of the church people, most likely. Someone who didn’t know Pam very well, or maybe not at all. What did they really have to know? She was dead, and someone loved her. Someone must have loved her.
“But it wasn’t me,” Corky said softly, looking into the coffin again at the painted, bloodless woman inside. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t hate you, not like you hated me. But I never loved you, either.”
She shifted her eyes sideways; she was alone. She drew the mirror out of her jacket pocket and slid it into the coffin. “I shouldn’t have taken this. I’m sorry.”
Her whisper was so quiet she barely heard herself speak.
“Rest in peace, Pamela.”
Chapter 14
In the foyer, the lady with the black feather hat moved from group to group, talking soft and low as though someone was asleep and she didn’t want to wake them up.
“We have some cookies over here, everybody. Please help yourself. Thanks go to Mrs. Tremain for her help with the food… did you all get some punch?”
Scott and Todd sipped punch and watched the activity as people chit-chatted around and over them. About the weather, about their mother, about the feathers in the lady’s hat; it was all in the same hushed tones.
…the lemon curd is delicious, I think she…
…poor woman, prime of her life. And those boys…
…such a beautiful outfit…
…how such a thing could happen…
…doctors handing out pills like candy…
Todd tugged Scott by the shoulder. “C’mon.”
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