“I’m sorry,” I said. “Real pants?”
“You know what I mean,” he said. “Pants pants.”
“Pants pants,” I mouthed to myself.
He grabbed the remote and turned off the television.
“And a nice shirt. Black if you have it.”
“I don’t,” I said.
But he was already walking out of the room. I had the shades pulled, and without the light from the television, the room was completely dark.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“I’ll wait for you in the car,” he said. “We’re going to a funeral.”
■ ■ ■
An hour later, I was wearing the realest pants I had, standing in the parking lot of Honey Creek Nature Preserve. I didn’t see a creek. Or any honey. But all around us were beautiful trees. Towering jack pines with gray-green needles and a few pale blue spruces—the names came back to me from Girl Scout Camp. I saw no sign of a funeral, though.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now,” said my father, “we hike.”
He set off walking ahead of me, and I followed a few steps behind.
In the car on the way over, he had pretended like nothing had happened in the last few days. He didn’t mention my brooding, or ask me what was going on, and for once, I was thankful for his self-absorption. Instead of prying, he briefed me on his situation. Essentially, he had been double-crossed. He was hired to do a funeral for someone named Maxine Harp, and now the client’s family had pulled out without ever telling him.
“Do you know what a pre-need deal is?” he asked me.
I shook my head.
“Basically, you meet with someone before they die and lock in costs for their funeral. The price of funeral real estate is always rising, so if you want to be buried, buying a plot early is a good idea. You can prepay for embalming liquid, mortician’s services, and even your burial gown. It’s a good way to get business ahead of time.”
“So, you had a pre-need deal with Maxine?” I asked.
He nodded.
“But you don’t have the money?”
He avoided my stare.
“They used an insurance company as a buffer. They have the money. We had an unspoken agreement.”
His voice was soft when he said this. It was clear he felt now like an unspoken ass.
“So, what kind of animal is Maxine. A lemur?” I asked.
“What?” said my dad. “She’s a human!”
“Oh,” I said. “Huh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I’m just surprised that an actual person wanted you to do a funeral. Did you get her wasted or something?”
My father tightened his grip on the wheel. His face was starting to redden. I tried to backtrack.
“I mean, I’m sure it’s similar to doing animals, right. Just like . . . less hairy.”
“Please stop talking,” said Dad.
I was surprised by the fragile tone of his voice.
“Dad,” I said.
“Enough,” he said.
A bug spattered against the windshield. Dad turned on the wipers, but all it did was smear a streak across the glass. He looked straight ahead.
“You think I want to bury pets for the rest of my life?” he said. “I just kind of fell into that when nothing else was happening. Give me a little credit, Tess.”
He sighed.
“This was supposed to be my first big break.”
We were walking down the trailhead now into some dense woods. The obituary in the paper said that both Maxine’s burial and service would take place here, but still, we saw no evidence of mourners. There were no markers or headstones along the path. No music in the air. Still we kept trudging forward, listening to the whirring of insects and the watery chirps of darting swallows. I watched my father’s disconsolate march, and somewhere in my frosty, shattered heart I felt a small pang of something.
“What were you going to do?” I asked.
“For the funeral?”
I nodded.
“If you’re just going to make fun of me,” he said, “I’d rather not discuss it.”
We tromped onward.
“I’m genuinely curious,” I said. “You’re famous for doing this crazy stuff, right? So lay it on me. What was your plan for Maxine the human?”
I could tell he was still pissed at me, but he smiled in spite of himself.
“It was going to be a marathon.”
He was quiet for a moment, but when he started talking again, it was in a fast, excited voice.
“Maxine Harp was a ninety-year-old runner. She started at the age of seventy, and kept at it. Each year she ran the New York Marathon and then she was interviewed by the Today Show. She always said she wanted to die in her running shoes. So, her service was going to be an honorary run.”
His eyes widened.
“I’m talking torches. Engraved medals. T-shirts. Starting pistols. And chauffeurs for people who wanted to watch from a limo. Then, at the end: another marathon. Of food this time. All her favorites to replace the calories burned in her honor! It was going to be epic! A trek to honor her life’s journey in the . . .”
He tripped suddenly and went stumbling shoulder-first into the dirt of the trail.
“Ow,” he said. “Dammit.”
“Whoa, Dad. Are you okay?”
He got up, wincing. The entire left side of his suit was wet and dirty. He tried his best to dust himself clean.
“What happened?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he just knelt down and pushed aside some brush from the side of the trail. Underneath it was a cream-colored stone with something engraved on it. I knelt beside him. It read, Ella Olson, 1965–2012. A gravestone. Beneath Ella’s name it read: “From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.”
“Edvard Munch,” I said right away.
My dad looked at me, surprised.
“I studied him in art class.”
He got up and started walking again.
“I guess this is a cemetery after all,” he said.
Now that we were looking down, we spotted stones in other places. They were flat and unobtrusive, scattered here and there like the last remains of an old civilization.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
My dad broke his stare at the ground.
“For what?” he said, his voice a little shaky.
“Your funeral. It sounded cool. I’m sure it would have been great.”
He took a long breath and then nodded.
“Thanks,” he said.
And as we made our way through the grass, and over a small dribbling creek, we eventually caught the sound of a voice coming from the top of a hill. When we looked up, there were a few wisps of white smoke in the air. We could just make out a sparse crowd, their heads all cocked in the same direction. My dad looked at me with a “what now?” kind of glance.
“Now we hike,” I said.
13
No one was dressed in black.
That’s what I noticed first. Instead the mourners wore earth tones. Loose khaki pants. Gortex hiking boots. Like they were on a death safari or something. And they were all gathered around a simple hole in the ground.
The dirt was piled to the side, and surrounding the opening there were wildflowers scattered in a loose border. Just to the right of the grave was a body wrapped in a bright white shroud. Maxine was small and tied up like a birthday present with more flowers under one of the lowering straps.
We made our way to the back of the crowd. No one paid us much notice. The service was coming to an end. A man in a tweed coat burned sage while an older woman in a billowy cotton dress spoke in a lilting voice.
“. .
. although she has created a rupture in our lives, she is nourishing the trees and the grasses and the flowers the way she nourished her family. And just as she preserved the optimism of so many women of advanced age, she will now preserve wildlife with the nutrients of her body.”
Two younger guys walked over to the body.
“Her sons,” my dad whispered to me.
They lifted their mother’s shroud over the grave’s opening. She hovered beneath their strained wrists like she was levitating.
“Earth to earth,” began the woman in the robe. “Ashes to ashes.”
Hand-over-hand, a foot at a time, the boys slowly lowered the shroud-enclosed body into the ground until Maxine Harp disappeared.
“Dust to dust.”
Nobody moved. Except one of the Harp boys, who walked solemnly over to the pile of dirt and unearthed a digging shovel. He stuck it into the small hill and pulled up a shovelful. Then he carried it back to the grave, and let the soil tumble back into the place where it came from.
He wasn’t crying, but it looked like he might start any minute. His brother came up behind him and took the shovel from his hands. He, too, walked to the pile, scooped and unloaded his dirt. A sister came next, and one by one, all Maxine’s children and grandchildren took turns filling in the grave. When the last shovelful of dirt hit home, my dad turned away from the ceremony and began to walk away.
“Where are you going?” I asked. “Don’t you want to talk to these guys?”
He picked up his pace.
“We’re not supposed to be here,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I said. “These people screwed you over.”
He shook his head.
“I was hired to do a job,” he said. “And then I was fired. This is a service industry. We’re not here for the right reasons.”
We were almost back over the hill when a voice came from behind us.
“Duncan,” it said. “Is that you?”
It was one of the Harp boys, jogging toward us, his large hand reaching out like he was flagging a cab.
“I thought it was you,” he said.
“Yeah,” said my dad, “I just . . .”
“It was big of you to come,” said the large guy. Up close, he looked like a giant, though he was probably only an inch or two taller than my dad.
“That was a lovely ceremony,” my dad said.
And I was surprised to hear his voice give out at the end. The Harp boy clapped a hand down on my dad’s shoulder.
“I wanted to invite you,” he said, “but my brother said we shouldn’t since we . . . went in another direction.”
He looked down and his grin fell away.
“Look, Duncan, I’m not going to tell you that the news about your deal in Nantucket didn’t have an effect on our decision. But, Mom loved the outdoors. And then she met this woman with a green burial company, who told her about this place. No coffins. No embalming. No chemicals. Just nature and stuff. Mom changed everything at the last minute. This was what she wanted.”
“I see,” said Dad.
“That’s her by the way,” said the giant, squinting into the sun. “The gal in the beige.”
I looked up toward the grave and felt something in me drop.
“That’s . . . who?” I asked.
He looked down at me, startled. I’m not sure he had even seen me until now.
“The lady with the company. Greener Pastures. That’s her.”
“Greener Pastures,” I said.
She was waving to us now, the woman in beige. Her light blond hair was pulled up into a clip, loose strands spilling down her neck. Her nose and forehead, even at this distance, were darkened with freckles and flushed from the sun.
“Her name’s Grace,” he said. “Would you like to meet her?”
I looked at my dad. He looked back at me. We started walking straight toward her. At the last minute, she caught sight of us and smiled.
“Duncan,” she said. “Tess! I wondered if I might see you again. Welcome to Maxine’s planting.”
Grace the Traitor.
This time she was wearing a tunic dress over tights, with a shawl draped across her shoulders. No makeup. In her earth tones, she looked like a forest nymph. A traitorous forest nymph.
“Planting?” I said.
“That’s what we call them, Tess.”
“Is her body going to grow into a field of corn?”
Grace looked around to see if anyone was in earshot.
“You’re upset about something.”
My dad stared at the ground.
“You’re right,” I said. “We’re just a teensy bit upset about the fact that you poached a goddamn funeral from us, Grace. You double-crossing hippie!”
“I didn’t even know you were in the business,” my dad said, more to himself than to her.
Grace looked at me for a minute. Her voice shifted to a stressed whisper.
“I didn’t poach anything. I met a family that needed my services, and I happily provided them. I assume that’s a lot like what your dad does.”
I took a step toward Grace.
“And I’m sure you had no idea that someone else had already agreed to plant Ms. Harp.”
Grace adjusted her shawl and swept a lock of hair away from her eyes.
“They might have mentioned something. . . .”
The crowd was dispersing around us, friends and family members tromping over the preserve, pointing out the pastoral beauty to one another.
“I’ve met enough liars lately,” I said, “to know when I’m looking at one.”
I grabbed my dad’s arm.
“C’mon, Dad,” I said. “Grace, enjoy your planting. I hope the harvest is bountiful.”
I managed to yank him forward, and we started to walk away.
“Hold on,” said Grace. “Wait a second. Will you, Tess?”
I don’t know why I turned back, but when I did, she looked chastened.
“What?” I said. “What is it?”
Her lips were slightly pursed.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
My hands flexed in my pockets. I thought about my last week, the way I had been duped and crushed over and over again.
“I’ve been watching a lot of television,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”
Grace fiddled with a button on her dress.
“Duncan,” she said, “can you give us a minute?”
My dad didn’t protest. He turned around and looked out over the preserve, taking it all in.
“Have you told your father yet?” Grace asked.
“Told him what?”
“How bad things really were that day?”
“How bad were they?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Grace. “Only you can answer that. . . .”
I looked at her face, and beneath the tan and the freckles, there were rings under her eyes.
“. . . but it seemed pretty bad.”
“Really? And what would you know about it?” I asked. “Are you a high school guidance counselor? Have you read some really good self-help books that you want to recommend to me?”
“No,” said Grace. “Nothing like that.”
For a moment it seemed like this was maybe going to be the end of our conversation. Then she spoke again.
“But I have been so depressed that I didn’t leave my house for a month. So there’s that. And I’ve ruined a marriage because of my own personal misery. And I’ve thought of doing things much more irrational than jumping off a dock. It’s okay if you don’t want to hear this from me. I get it. But the reason I know about you, Tess, is that I’ve been you.”
I wanted to yell at her, to flip her off and leave. But I was rooted in place.
“I’m sorry I lied,�
� she said. “I didn’t know your father was the competition. If you ever want to talk to me when you’re not so angry, you can contact me here.”
She handed me a card, and I held it between my thumb and forefinger. My instinct was to drop it on the ground, let it biodegrade the way it was probably meant to. But, I didn’t do that. Instead, I slipped it into the pocket of my real pants, and then I walked back to the car and drove home with my sulking father.
14
I saw this news story a couple years ago about a guy who loved someone for ten years and then discovered she didn’t exist. For an entire decade he thought he was dating a fitness model in LA, this spandex-clad girl next door with a blond ponytail and perky boobs. In reality, he was being duped by a bored housewife in West Virginia. His true love was just a digital collage of images from posters and videos, fused into a Facebook Frankenstein’s monster.
In the news segment I watched, they showed all his e-mails: thousands of pages piled on his desk like the longest romance novel ever written. There were boxes, too, stacked crates of gifts, photos, and tokens from their relationship. He even had a tattoo of her face on his right shoulder.
I still remember the look on his face when the reporter asked him how he could have possibly fallen for the scam. How could he really not have known it was a hoax all that time? Ten years! His face had turned red at first, but then he looked defiant, his wet eyes full of life.
“I was in love,” he said.
And what could the reporter really say after that?
I understand that look now.
Since my contact with Daniel the fake, I’d pretty much felt all of the feelings there are to feel. Rage and self-pity? Check. Astonishment with a hint of denial? Check. Short bouts of hopelessness ending with the occasional manic laughing fit? Yep.
There was so much that I had to rethink. So many moments that weren’t what I thought they were. It felt like I was living them all over again. Memories came back and I had to completely reevaluate them.
The video of the starlings, for instance. Even something small like that. Just a snippet of footage with tiny black birds flying in pulsing patterns over a pastel sky. A “murmuration” it’s called. Along with this video file, there was accompanying text.
Things I'm Seeing Without You Page 6
