Ever After

by William Wharton

  “Will, if there are any bodies to see, I don’t want to see them. They’re probably terribly crushed and burned. I don’t need that, neither do you. Why are we doing this to ourselves?”

  As usual, in her special way, she makes sense. I lie back, quietly, to see if she’s going to go on. She knows I hate both weddings and funerals. I went to an aunt’s wedding when I was eleven, then to my own, then to each of my daughters’, but their weddings were so wonderfully relaxed they could hardly count.

  I went to my grandmother’s funeral when I was nine, then to my grandfather’s when I was fifteen. I was a pallbearer. Then there were the funerals for my mother and father. That’s a pretty good record for a man over sixty years old. I’ve been avoiding weddings and funerals all my life. In fact, I don’t see much difference between the two. Rosemary knows this.

  “All right, you’re right, Rosemary. You know how I hate funerals. I’m sure if Kate and Bert can know what’s going on, they’d agree with us. We haven’t paid for any tickets so I’m sure we can cancel them. Tomorrow at six I’ll call off the limousine. I’ll tell Robert. I don’t think that’ll break his heart. I’ll contact Camille and Matt, and tell them we’re taking our own advice, staying home. If they want to go, that’s their business. What else? Boy, I feel better already.”

  I roll out of bed to tell Robert.

  “You’re so sweet, darling. Don’t. We must go. There’s no way out of it. But as long as we both know this entire farce is for others, then I feel better about it. I’m sorry if I got your hopes up.”

  I roll back onto my bed, take the glass of water, and pop three of those Valium. Maybe we’ll have a mass funeral. People who die together stay together.

  The pills don’t work at first and I can tell Rosemary is still awake when my watch “dedinks” midnight.

  But the pills must work finally because when I drop back on the bed, I’m out like a light. It seems much later when I wake to the phone ringing. I stagger across the foot of the bed. Rosemary is rolling out her side.

  “You go back to sleep, dear. I’ll get it. It’s probably one of the kids.”

  I dash past her and start down the steps. Rosemary is just behind me. I’m counting rings. It’s the fifth ring I’ve heard when I pick up the phone. I sit down on a chair beside the table near to the desk. Rosemary hovers over me.

  I’ve heard the little “dink” of a long-distance call but then that’s all, except somebody breathing heavily into the phone. Nobody makes long-distance obscene phone calls, do they?

  “Hello, who is this?”

  Then I hear a thick rumbling, a clearing of a throat, the sound of a sob. Even from those, I recognize it’s Jo Lancaster, my best friend.

  “Jo, is that you?”

  “I love you.”

  Then more hard sobbing. I can’t respond; I’m sobbing so myself. I hand the phone to Rosemary.

  “Jo, is that you?”

  There’s a long pause, then Rosemary walks over slowly to the table and puts the phone in its cradle.

  “He just said he was sorry and hung up.”

  We look at each other and then break down again. I hold her in my arms. She buries her head into my chin. I can feel her silken skin under her light, white nightgown. Even now, her hair is tickling my nose. I rub my nose into her hair, knowing she’ll know and not care. After almost forty years, she knows these things about me.

  Finally, we push each other away.

  “Rosemary, I think we ought to take a shower. Who knows when we’ll have a shower available to us again?”

  Without a word, she starts up the steps then turns back.

  “Would you wake up Robert, please? You know how hard it is getting him going in the morning. Make sure he’s out of bed. I know he slept because I could hear him snoring lightly last night.”

  She goes up the rest of the steps. I turn on the living-room light for the limo. Then I realize I’m stark naked and if any fool is up at this time, by Ocean Grove standards, I’m “exposing.” I hurry up the stairs.

  I wake Robert and wait until I’m sure he’s awake and out of bed. I know better than to carry on a conversation with him. He’s a slow starter but his heart’s in the right place.

  “I know, Dad. I’m up. Honest, I’m awake.”

  I go into the bedroom and dress myself in the clothes I laid out last night.

  CHAPTER 7

  WE’RE READY and on the porch when the limo arrives. It’s a real limo with a dark blue, plush interior and strap-in seats, the kind that fold down from behind the front seat. Robert sits in front because he has such long legs. The driver is good, and we feel confident. I’m reminded of a funeral. I’ve rarely driven in a limo except for the few funerals I’ve been to.

  The flight is long and boring. I’m torn between mourning and fatigue. Rosemary falls asleep until we get to Chicago where we change planes. Robert drops off to sleep immediately. I try not watching the film.

  Chicago to Portland is even longer. Robert drops right off to sleep again, but Rosemary is just staring at the ceiling of the plane with tears running down her face. I don’t feel I can interrupt her thinking. I know she’s with Kate. I intrude only when the food arrives. I eat. I can always eat. Usually Rosemary can, too, but this time she only plays with the food, pushing most of it aside. She drinks a cup of tea.

  At Portland, Steve and Wills are waiting for us. We give big hugs to Wills and try not to cry too much. Our Robert holds his ground. He never hugs anybody, hasn’t since he was twelve years old.

  Steve is tall and thin. It’s hard to believe he’s Bert’s brother, but then I remember he has diabetes. He’s been giving himself shots for over twenty years. His weight is an important part of his survival.

  His eyes are red; we hug and shake hands. We’re all trying hard to hold it in. He goes to pick up the car and brings it right to the curb. We throw the baggage in back and climb in. Robert is in front with Steve, and Wills is in back with us. Rosemary is hunting for a seat belt, but there isn’t one.

  Steve works his way out of the airport confusion and onto the highway. He tells us it’s the same highway, I-5, on which Kate, Bert, Dayiel, and Mia were killed.

  The traffic is horrendous. Steve drives carefully and stays to the right but it seems that just about every vehicle is towing something. I’ve never been on a highway like this, not even in Los Angeles, and they drive like kids playing bumper cars, constantly cutting in and out, ducking between the gigantic trucks and semi-trailers steaming along at over seventy miles an hour.

  I thought, after what had happened to us in the past twenty-four hours, I’d never be scared to die again, but I am. I look over at Rosemary. She’s white and white-knuckled. We turn our attention to Wills who’s been rattling away about some horses they have at the Woodmans’ and how this is “neat” or that is “neat.” I begin to wonder if anyone’s told him what’s happened, or is he just so childish he can’t comprehend? Then he puts his head on Rosemary’s chest and in a choked voice says: “It was their nap time, Dayiel and Mia. They were probably asleep, weren’t they? They just didn’t wake up.”

  Rosemary looks over toward me and we both breathe deeply, trying to hold it down. She leans her head down so her face is in his hair.

  “That’s right, Wills. They just went to sleep and never knew what happened. It’s terrible that they’re gone, but I don’t think they felt a thing.”

  He’s quiet and so are the rest of us. Steve is trying to concentrate on his driving, but tears are rolling down his face. Wills looks over at me.

  “Will anybody ever call me Wilzer again? I really like that name. Bert made it up you know.”

  “I’ll call you Wilzer if you like, and I’m sure anybody you want to call you Wilzer, will.”

  He’s quiet for several minutes. He looks back at me.

  “I think I want only men to call me Wilzer. It’s my man’s name. I’d like you and Robert and Matt and Sam and Steve to call me Wilzer. Those are the only ones I
can think of right now.”

  Soon after, Steve turns off the I-5 and we’re on small roads. I lean back and try to let things flow by. Wills is asleep against Rosemary. He’s got to be beat. He’s been inside all the strain since the beginning.

  I begin to dread arriving at this house where I’ve never been, meeting on such intimate and difficult terms people I hardly know. It’s worse than any wedding.

  We twist around a few dirt roads and then pull up in front of a rambling house newly painted, a sort of dark earth-pink. It looks good.

  Claire Woodman is coming down from the front porch. Wills runs to meet her.

  She pulls him to her as he’s babbling away.

  “See, they came. I told you they would. These are Mom’s Mom and Dad. They’d be sure to come.”

  Just then, at this slightly embarrassing moment, I hear the sound of heavy, wide-track tires on the gravel driveway. It’s a big, new, American car. Danny’s driving it and he’s alone.

  He pulls up behind Steve’s car and comes over. His eyes are red and his face puffed up. We give each other a big hug after a false start at a handshake. Danny and Rosemary kiss. He shakes hands with Steve and Claire. Wills can’t wait any longer. He jumps into his dad’s arms and breaks down. Danny nods to all of us and puts his arm around the almost hysterical, sobbing Wills, leads him off around the side of the house. I hate to admit it but I’m almost glad to see such an outburst. I didn’t know how much he’d been holding in. Claire motions us inside.

  During the course of the next hours, as people keep coming with more and more food, country style, we learn about what happened. They show us the newspapers. For the past two days it’s been the headline event in the two Oregon newspapers. The faded, poor-quality color pictures are gruesome. I can’t put it together with our family. It’s like seeing the news about some drug-crazed nut in Dallas going up in a tower and shooting people, or the National Guard shooting students at Kent State.

  It turns out a farmer named Paul Thompkins started the fire with what he thought was the approval of the Department of Environmental Quality. The DEQ, as it’s called, keeps surveillance on the valley by air from light planes.

  Mr. Thompkins won’t speak to anyone and his son has told the reporters to go away.

  Diane is Steve’s fiancée. Diane’s the one who first realized that Bert, Kate, and the little girls might be involved in the accident.

  It was the next morning, after the accident, after watching the pictures on television all evening. She was listening to a portable radio in the shower when it was announced that two unidentified small children were found burned in a van with two adults. She came dashing out of the shower with a towel around her, and called Doug. Doug is Bert’s best buddy, the friend from whom he’d borrowed the van. She told him what she’d heard and asked if he would be willing to go and try identifying the vehicle.

  When he got there, he found his van, smashed halfway to the ground, with the license plate burned to a point where he could scarcely make out the registration number.

  After that, the identification of Bert was made from dental X-rays. Kate’s followed. There was no other way to identify the bodies.

  I realize we should have stayed in Ocean Grove and spent the day at an isolated beach and talked to each other. We don’t need this.

  They’ve arranged for the mortician in the next town—which, oddly enough, is named Dallas—to have the bodies cremated. Claire is Catholic, but somewhere along the line, without my noticing, the Catholic church has let up on the temple of the Holy Ghost business.

  For my own reasons, I’d rather they not be cremated but it’s a bit late to stop this. I only insist that the members of the family not be cremated separately, as planned, but together. After a phone call to the mortuary in Dallas, this is confirmed. I find myself hoping the town was named before the TV show.

  Jo Ellen and Diane come home from work. In America, it turns out you’re only given one day off, the day of the funeral. Nothing more. We Americans are a hard-nosed bunch. There is pressure on me, as writer, to come up with something appropriate for the announcement (or whatever it is) that will be distributed at the funeral ceremony. This gets worse every moment.

  But I have no trouble. They find me a pencil and paper. I don’t even have to think about it. The thought just flows out the end of this dull pencil. It isn’t even the kind of thing I’d usually write. I’m more of a mystical poet. I write:

  THEY CAME TOGETHER

  BECAME TOGETHER

  LIVED TOGETHER

  LEFT TOGETHER.

  Everybody seems satisfied with this. Then they want me to design a monument for them. Again I know in my mind, as if I’m being prompted, exactly what it should be. It’s like magic writing.

  I take another piece of paper and design a slant-topped sundial with each of their names at the cardinal points. Around the sides I write the above poem. At least I have something to do. I want to carve a model of it in wax for the monument-maker. We melt all the sealing-wax they use for preserves and I put it in a number ten can. When it’s hard, I pound it on the bottom and knock it out. I figure I’ll work some more on it in the morning.

  We start receiving telegrams and telephone calls from our friends all over the world. Several friends of ours and several of Kate’s from Paris and in Munich are actually flying here for the funeral. Camille, Sam, and Matt phone from Boston to say they’re on their way. So much for the fourth commandment.

  Claire’s in a dither. As I suspected, there’s no hotel within twenty miles. We start pulling out quilts, blankets, sheets, sleeping-bags, blow-up mats, everything we can find. It’s going to be a camping funeral. Some people will have to sleep on the lawn. There’s no space at Steve’s apartment. Jim, Bert’s youngest brother, has space for horses but not people.

  It turns out, as guests of honor, we’re going to sleep in Bert’s room. It’s the room he had when he lived at home and where he and Kate spent their last night. The cribs are still up in there. Claire volunteers to take them down but we say it’ll be OK. We’re so frazzled, not tired, just frazzled, nerves on edge: we can sleep anywhere; that is, if we can sleep at all.

  We go to bed early. Each of us, I know, is trying not to think about or mention the fact that the sheets we’re sleeping on, the blankets we’re under, were last slept on and, under by Bert and Kate. I can even smell Kate’s perfume, Magie Noire, chosen for her by Bert. I know Rosemary can, too.

  We grab hold of each other and can’t stop crying. It’s the whole compilation of things, the actual knowing of how they died, how gruesome it was, the discussion of the cremation, the formalities. And we’re absolutely dead tired. Rosemary’s little snooze on the plane and mine in our bed in Ocean Grove last night weren’t enough to support us.

  For hours we cry intermittently, with long silences, and very little talk. There isn’t much to talk about. How does one discuss such a thing?

  Finally, sometime after midnight, Rosemary drops off. I can tell by her regular breathing, sometimes interrupted by a pitiful mewing sound or a sob, but, thank God, she’s asleep. I carefully untangle myself and stretch out on the bed beside her, on top of the covers.

  I must have gone to sleep rather quickly because I have no memory of a long wait for sleep. This would be real sleep without chemical assistance. I’m gone.

  Sometime before morning, I wake. I don’t need to use the toilet down by the front door. I wake naturally. I’m surprised at my inner calm. I know what has happened but it’s somehow all inside me, integrated, accepted, in some astonishing way. I lie awake in the dark, in this strange, yet not-quite-strange bed, smelling the slight fragrance of Kate’s perfume. I feel enormously comforted and comfortable. I begin to think I might be having some kind of psychic or psychotic experience. It isn’t natural to feel so absolutely absolved, or separate, in such a circumstance. I fall back to sleep with this thought.

  The event I’m going to tell next is out of most people’s experience. It can b
e regarded as true by none of the criteria listed in the foreword. If you have not read the foreword, or have forgotten it, please go back and reread it.

  This whole tale would be easier to write and more “true”—in the sense of “believable”—without this next part. However, if I am trying to represent truth, it is necessary to recount this experience as well.

  I wake in the morning still in this state of unbelievable calm. I even entertain the idea I might have died in the night and this could be what death is, a totally involving peace.

  I turn my head slowly, just enough to see that Rosemary is still asleep. I have no desire whatsoever to move. I stay like that, in some form of suspended animation, for an undefined length of time, watching the sun pass across the low window beside the bed.

  Then, the concerns of what must be done this day invade my inner quiet. I carefully slide to the side of the bed, rise to a sitting position. I stay there several minutes looking out the window into the yard.

  Then I stand up. Immediately, it’s if I am struck hard in the back from behind. I fall to my knees. As I land, my hands are in fists on the worn, shag rug. It’s as if I’ve been knocked down in a football game, clipped. I can’t catch my breath for several seconds. Then I can, and begin to sob with such violence I almost throw up. I fight for breath between sobs, but that is only the outside.

  Inside I’m knowing things I have no way of knowing. My head is spinning. I’m on the verge of fainting. I feel Rosemary behind me, hovering over me, her hands on my shaking shoulders. I feel her tears rolling on my bare back.

  “What is it, dear? Are you all right? Should I go get someone?”

  I have just enough contact, strength, to shake my head no. I stay like that on my knees, not able to stand. Rosemary eases herself onto the rug beside me, her arm over my shoulder, her hand on my quivering wrist. It’s as if we’re in the starting position of the second period in a college wrestling match. That image, that memory passes through my head, but they are then smothered by other images, strong images, images more powerfully imprinted than anything I’ve ever experienced.