by Janae Keyes
She motioned for me to get in her truck. I climbed inside as she took the driver’s seat. I glanced over at the beautiful woman who no one would believe was the mother of three kids. Olivia's dark brown skin was smooth, her dark curls bounced, and her chocolate eyes held so much light and promise.
“Where to first?” Olivia asked as she started the engine.
“The hospital I guess, I have to sign the release for the funeral home to be allowed to take the body.” I never expected I would be planning a funeral so soon. I always imagined dad living to a ripe old age, not dying at the young age of fifty-two.
I’d never been an emotional person and having to deal with pain, loss, and a broken heart was taking a toll on me. Glancing out the window of the moving vehicle, I sniffed my tears away. There wasn’t time for crying, I had important things to handle, and I would take care of them without being a blubbering mess throughout.
“It’s okay to cry,” Olivia expressed from the driver’s seat. There was a reason she was my best friend— and not just because we’d bonded with one another from that first moment in the playground when we were three.
“There’s just so much going on. Dad, Kevin…” I sighed. “Liam.”
“Always Liam,” Olivia commented. She didn’t need to say much, her tone of voice said it all. Olivia maintained that he and I were soulmates, but someone should have told him that, since he was the one who broke things off with me all those years ago.
“I don’t know why I let his presence affect me. I’m over him. It’s been over between us for years,” I concluded.
“And you’ve avoided this town for those years,” Olivia pointed out to my dismay.
“Not true! I’ve been home.”
“Once.”
“I didn’t have time. Life’s been busy if you haven’t noticed,” I contributed. Olivia laughed and shook her head. I’d been home once and only because Dad had begged me to visit before I went off to Venezuela for the two years I spent with Doctors Without Borders.
“Girl, I’ve been to this town so many times in the past however many years and life’s been busy for me too. I finished school, got a job, had a kid, got married, had two more kids. I also can’t stand this town as much as you. You have been avoiding Liam.” Olivia always got her point across and she was right. Liam was the number one reason I avoided Fort Shasta. The other reasons included the small minds of the inhabitants, and the girl Liam dumped me for.
Shockingly enough, I used to be best friends with the girl Liam knocked up. It was always Olivia, me, and Kayleigh, The Three Amigas. We did absolutely everything together until freshman year of high school. Kayleigh found a different crowd and changed before our eyes. Sweet and nerdy Kayleigh became the girl the guys whispered about as she became more interested in racking up sexual partners than keeping her grades up.
While Olivia and I graduated a year early, Kayleigh dropped out of school. Years later the girl I’d once considered one of my closest friends betrayed me and started sleeping with the guy I loved, eventually getting pregnant.
There was no more avoiding Fort Shasta, I was in the heart of it, and had to face a number of truths; including the fact my dad was no longer with me.
We pulled up at the nursing home dad had apparently called home for the past several weeks as he went through his final days. I knew the place, growing up I’d visited patients with my dad, and the last time I was in Fort Shasta I went to visit Ms. Odette, Olivia’s grandmother who had raised her and refused to leave town even when it became apparent she could no longer care for herself.
“While you do what you need, I’m going to see Granny,” Olivia said as we both exited the car and were greeted with the heat.
“Okay, I’ll come find you when I’m finished,” I said as we stepped inside the home.
Instantly, I was hit with that smell. With my job, I was accustomed to the smell of hospitals, but there was something slightly different about the air in a care home. It reeked of finality and forgotten dreams. It clogged your pores and clung to you like a lost toddler. Dad died here and the weight of it all drowned me.
Olivia signed the book for her visitor’s pass and waved before she disappeared down the hall toward her grandmother’s room. I, on the other hand, turned to the woman at the receptionist desk.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Bethany Cross, my father recently passed away here, and I need to find who I speak to, to coordinate the funeral home picking up his body.” Just having those words leave my mouth was an emotional experience I never expected, but I held onto my stone exterior.
“Your father was David Cross, correct?” the sweet woman asked me and I nodded. Speaking would allow the floodgates to open and it was too early for that. “Follow me to the Director’s office and she can help you with all of that.”
“Okay,” I whispered before the woman rounded her desk and motioned for me to follow her through a door that led to a long corridor. I followed alone until she stopped.
“You wait here, I’ll get him.” I watched as the receptionist disappeared through a door and I stood in the hallway. It gave me a moment to compose myself. I inhaled a deep breath and allowed it to go before the door to the office swung open and the receptionist had returned with a tall older man. “Here she is.” The receptionist introduced me to the director.
“Hello, Dr. Cross. I’m Martin Reed the director of Meadow’s Hope. I’m very sorry for the loss of your father. Join me in my office and we can do all the final paperwork. I can also take you to your father’s body in our morgue, but that is entirely up to you.” The thought of seeing my father was scary but comforting. I’d never gotten to say goodbye. It had all ended quicker than I expected.
I nodded and followed the man into his office. So much in my life had changed in a short amount of time, but I had to put on my big girl panties and face reality— no matter how hard it was.
A chill struck my body as I stood waiting for Director Reed to get me from the hallway outside of the morgue. I’d signed all the papers and the funeral home was open to pick-up Dad’s body at any time. I was also provided with a bag with his belongings. The things that were dearest to my dad for him to bring were in a brown paper bag on my lap.
“Dr. Cross, you may enter,” a voice called from the doorway.
Standing, I took what felt like the millionth deep breath of the day. By the time everything was dealt with, I would be an expert in deep breathing, since it felt like everything I did required me to do so. I entered the morgue of the care home facility. I’d been around bodies before, in medical school, but this time was different.
The director led me to one of the refrigeration doors. He nodded to another man nearby. I watched as he clicked the door open and pulled out the table.
There he was, my dad, but not quite. I didn’t know the man who laid lifeless on the table. He looked nothing like the man I’d seen three years prior. He was skin and bones. His skin was dark, faded, and defeated. The body they showed me was a stranger–not my father. That wasn’t the man with a beer belly and loud laugh. That wasn’t the man who tucked me in at night and read me bedtime stories.
“Dad?” I whispered as if this stranger could hear and speak to me. Hell, I only wished I knew why he never told me he was sick sooner. I was a fucking doctor for Christ’s sake, I could have gotten him the best possible care.
My sadness and anger ricocheted through my body. I felt betrayed by my only blood. He hadn’t made things easy for me. Seeing that body wasn’t the closure I was hoping for, it only made my heart hurt more.
After what felt like ages, a sob escaped me. I was shocked by my sudden eruption of emotion, but I couldn’t stop it. I was jolted with my heart wrenching sobs in the silence of the morgue.
Quickly, I took my hand and wiped my tears away as best I could and took a breath to stop the cries. Crying wouldn’t bring him back. Same as crying didn’t heal the sad little girl I once was whose mother had abandoned her. Crying didn’t help the woman I later was
who found herself heartbroken by the man she thought loved her. Crying surely didn’t stop the bleeding and pain as I miscarried my child.
Crying was a goddamned waste of my time.
“Thank you, Mr. Reed, for everything. I think I should get going.” I tried to sound as composed and put together as I could.
I didn’t give the man a chance to respond before I hightailed it out of there. I rushed to retrace my steps and get out into the lobby as quickly as possible. Making it to the open lobby, I cradled the bag of dad’s belongings in my arms.
Why couldn’t Liam have told me things were that bad? I knew I hadn’t spoken to him in seven years, but he could have gotten my number and given me a call. Was he too selfish to pick up a phone and let me know my dad’s condition? It was just another way I thought I knew him, but apparently, I didn’t.
I navigated the halls of the care home until I reached Ms. Odette’s room. I could already hear her voice and Olivia’s before I entered the room the old woman had transformed into her own.
As soon as I entered, the attention of the old woman turned from her granddaughter to me standing in the doorway. I’d known Ms. Odette forever. She used to run the best diner in Fort Shasta. Everyone called that diner home, and Ms. Odette made the best food for miles. Dad and I would never miss a Saturday morning at the diner.
“Looky there. Lil’ Miss Bethie is here and lookin’ sharp,” Ms. Odette’s frail voice didn’t waiver as I approached her bed.
The sound from the TV blared in the background, it was none other than Judge Judy, Ms. Odette’s favorite show. Though her dark skin had wrinkled over the years and she’d lost her mobility skills along the way, she was still one sharp woman. Even after raising Olivia after her daughter’s death.
“Thank you, Ms. Odette, you’re looking good, too.” The old woman beamed at me as she motioned for me to take a seat next to Olivia.
“I’m so sorry for your loss baby. David was a good man and the whole town knew it. When is his Homegoing service?” I paused at the expectant look on her face.
“Homegoing service?” I asked confused.
“Well, some may call it a funeral, but many of us black folks call it a homegoing ‘cause he’s going home to be with his Lord,” she explained to me before she started to hum. “I’m goin’ up yonder,” she sang her voice as beautiful as always. I remembered going to church some Sunday’s with Olivia and her grandma. Dad wasn't the religious type.
The tune she sang was joyful and somehow brought a sense of peace to me that swallowed the dread I’d felt before. Maybe I could survive it all.
A Homegoing. I liked that better than the dreary funeral I had in mind. Dad loved happiness and when those around him were filled with joy. I knew he wouldn’t want tears to be shed at his service, but he’d want those who knew and cared for him to be happy he was free of pain and worries.
“You stayin’ at your dad’s house?” she asked.
“I haven’t been yet. Right now, I’m at the Shasta Inn,” I explained in an ashamed tone.
“Livy, where are you stayin’?” Ms. Odette was her usual self, wanting to have every single detail. She kept Olivia and me in line as girls. I credit her with keeping us in a straight line, and not veering off as others did.
“I’m staying with Uncle Carl and Aunt Shelly, but I think I will get a room at the Inn when Jacob comes down with the kids,” I was excited to see my Godchildren soon. I hated I lived so far away and couldn’t watch them grow up.
“That’s good. I won’t keep you girls. I know you have things to take care of.” Ms. Odette was the kindest person I’d ever met, and I’d like to think she would always be.
We said our goodbyes and went outside in the fresh air, and I couldn’t be happier, even with the heat. There was so much on my to-do list that needed to be checked off.
Stepping into Dad’s house for the first time in three years was almost cathartic. Everything was exactly as he had always kept it. His pickup truck was still parked in the driveway when we pulled up. I almost expected him to greet me with a bear hug the moment Olivia and I entered the house.
The only difference? The air was stale. There wasn’t a speck of dust in sight though as Mrs. Stevens, along with Liam, had kept the house up. A stack of mail waited on the coffee table for him to come home, light up a cigarette, and get to work.
“It’s so quiet,” Olivia whispered as she came in behind me.
Dad always had the radio on. He played his favorite radio station, it only played classic rock and roll. Our house was constantly filled with music and good times, but now it sat desolate.
“I’m going to start in the office,” I began walking down the hallway but paused for a brief moment as the row of photos started.
My school photos from every year were lined up perfectly on the wall. They ranged from my curly blonde pigtails in pre-school to plait braids and braces in the sixth grade. My three years of high school ended with my green and yellow cap and gown photo. Then three more photos finished the line, my undergraduate graduation photo, a photo of Dad and me when I graduated medical school, and a photo of me when I completed my residency.
I smiled at what I had accomplished and how good it felt to make my dad proud of me. I grew up in a town desecrated with drug abuse, filled with under educated and unwilling minds, and without my mother in my life. Through leaps and bounds I told society to shove the statistics up its ass, and I gave my dad a reason to be proud.
At the end of the photos was Dad’s home office. I figured that’s where he’d likely have his insurance documents. I needed to get in contact with his agent to cash out the policies to pay for his service and begin to tackle the mountain of debt he was in.
Olivia and I spent two hours in the house, not leaving a stone unturned and yet, I couldn’t find anything about his insurance policies. The next place to check would be the bar. Olivia dropped me at the hotel to get my car since she had to get back to her aunt and uncle’s place to have a skype meeting with a client.
As I drove, something just didn’t seem quite right with my car. When I would come to a stop, it would clunk about and the sound coming from my normally smooth engine was rough. My car was my gift to myself after I started bringing in money as a doctor. I remembered sending Dad a picture and he was so excited about my first big purchase.
I reached a stop sign and at once my car immediately stalled on me. I cursed and tried to fire up the engine, but it only stuttered with no luck.
“Fuck!” I cursed as I banged my hands on the steering wheel.
Once again, I tried to start my car and to my surprise it started. I made it across the intersection before it started to lose power again. This time, I was able to pull over to the curb before the engine completely stopped once more.
With a huff, I wasn’t going to let the situation get to me. Life was already shit for the moment and I wouldn’t play into the hands of the universe. I knew Mr. Howard’s shop was only a few blocks away and he would definitely help me. Though Mr. Howard meant Liam. He was only Liam’s dad after all.
“Whatever, he’s your ex. That was a long time ago and you’re an adult.” I thought giving myself a pep talk before I left the car was a good idea.
Still though, I pulled a tube of lip gloss from my purse and applied a new layer before fluffing my blonde curls.
I stepped from my car and onto the main street of town. I smoothed my dress, grabbed my purse, and locked my car before starting the walk toward the only auto repair shop in the town.
Fort Shasta hadn’t changed much over the years. It was still the small town it once was. What made me sad was the number of businesses that had closed over the years from Ms. Odette’s diner, to the little tea shop where dad bought my first china set. The middle of town was no longer thriving as it once had but gutted and left soulless.
After three hot and sweaty blocks, Mr. Howard’s auto repair shop came into view and I was already rejoicing in my mind. I approached the place I’d spe
nt so much of my time as a teenager. Before Liam and I became an item, even at a year younger than him, I was his tutor. I would bike over to the shop to study with him. Once together, the shop was my second home, and the Howards were my other family— outside of dad and Olivia’s family.
The sounds of the shop were heard all around. The blaring music coupled with banging parts and loud pieces of equipment. The smell of oils and gas entered my nose and it was almost like my first time reentering the bar; it was home.
“Hello,” I called into the garage that had cars parked everywhere.
“Just a minute!” a voice called from under a car. I spotted the legs of someone right away and in moments he rolled from under the car.
Mr. Howard looked exactly the same. The only difference in the middle-aged man was his dark brown hair was turning a light shade of gray. He still had a homely smile and bright eyes.
“Look at that, come over here Beth and give me a hug,” he threw his gloves off and opened his arms for me to be embraced.
My heels clicked on the hard floor as I approached the man and allowed him to wrap his arms around me. He rubbed and patted my back before he pulled away and looked me over. His bright grin turned to sorrow though as it seemed to do with everyone I came across.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he expressed to me.
I managed a weak smile. “Thanks.”
“What brings you here?” he asked before a loud piece of equipment started up and interrupted us. “Liam! Liam!” he shouted over the noise before it stopped.
My head snapped in the direction of an old car. It was a beautiful blue convertible. It had to be from the late fifties or early sixties. It was definitely a classic and I’m sure it was the prized possession of the owner.
