We made eye contact. Her expression softened.
“You have a kind heart. But I hope it doesn’t backfire on you. This isn’t something you keep from someone.”
“I’ll tell him when he calls back.” A pain pierced my stomach. “I’m gonna have to get through it without him.”
“Is that what you want?”
“No. I just... I’m not going to do that to him.” I started toward the door. “I’ll get Mark. We’ll get your room set up before everyone gets here.”
“You know,” she said. “Life doesn’t always work that way.”
I turned around. What did she want from me? I thought I’d used wisdom for once.
“We can’t always protect the ones we love. Believe me, I try every day.” Her tone was poignant. “Sometimes, disappointment comes in the midst of victory. Your father’s death isn’t going to ruin the fact that Tyler won. But being gracious can cross into selfishness if you wait too long.” She shrugged. “Just sayin’.”
I held back a smile. She never borrowed teenage phrases.
“He’s busy.”
“I get that, but don’t wait until after the funeral. That’s not fair to him.”
She was right, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to wait until he called. Resigned to the facts, I headed down the hall and asked Mark to help me in the carport.
~ * ~
Around five p.m., my grandparents arrived. Grandpa came inside and gave me a hug. He smelled of pipe tobacco and Stetson. Mom had inherited his soft blue eyes, but his weathered skin had lines like the rows of crops he’d nurtured for years. He let me go without a word. Rarely did he take an interest in me. Mark was the chosen one.
Grandma stepped inside with pursed lips, casing the house with skeptical glances. She made little “humph” noises as she moved my way. A football helmet of light brown hair was set around her face. Soft wrinkles layered in milky white skin that hadn’t been in the sun for years.
Something about her. She scanned me from my feet all the way to my eyes.
“Hello, Elizabeth.” She pushed out red, pouty lips. “How are yoouu?”
I winced. So fake. “Okay.”
She put her arm around me, squeezing me close. She smelled like Chanel No. 5. The same perfume Mrs. Vaughn wore. I pulled away.
“You’ll be all right,” she sounded like she was pooh-poohing me. “Give it time.”
I held my tongue and walked with her to the kitchen.
Mom turned around from the stove and forced a smile. “Hello, Mother.”
Grandma waited for Mom to approach, held out her arms, and gave Mom a quick, cold hug. No tears. No “I’m sorry.” Not an ounce of love in her embrace. Just a frigid air of “Let’s get this the hell over with.”
Mrs. Vaughn. Goosebumps rose on my arms.
She and Grandma were carbon copies of each other. Long and slender, dressed in brand name clothing, not a light brown hair out of place even after travelling for seven hours. Plus, she’d insisted on calling me “Elizabeth” my entire life.
No wonder Mom knew how to ignore the old southern woman.
Mom gave Grandpa a hug, then all of us sat down at the table. Grandma chatted about the drive and the weather. I chewed on my lip and fiddled with my fingers. She didn’t ask about the services. I suppose she already knew the details. She didn’t ask what happened the night he died. I had to assume she’d been filled in there, too. To her, it seemed like nothing important had happened, with the exception of her generosity for sitting in the car for seven hours. Tiring as that was, she made a request to keep the evening moving and go to Savannah for dinner.
Grateful for an excuse to cruise, I excused myself to take a shower.
Twenty minutes later, I passed through the dining room wrapped in my robe, feeling completely exposed.
“How can you stand having one bathroom?” Grandma glanced my way.
“We just remodeled the master bath,” Grandpa said. “You’d love it, Claire.”
I hot-stepped it to my room and locked the door. Bathrooms? I pulled on a pair of jeans and grabbed my T-shirt. That’s what they wanted to talk about? Their daughter just lost her husband, and Grandpa wanted to share the joy of a remodeled bathroom. Jeez. Two whole days with those people. Could it get any worse? At least Uncle Travis and Aunt Gail were coming. They always helped balance the Germans.
I sat down on the bed and stared at the phone. I couldn’t wait another second. I had to talk to him. Snatching it up, I pressed “Tyler” in neon green. His voicemail answered after the fourth ring. The sound of his voice ripped another hole inside of me. I pressed END, tossed it down, and returned to the dining room.
Ten minutes later, we piled into two cars and headed to Savannah. We waited for them to check in to the hotel, and then they followed us to a Buck’s restaurant.
Everyone settled in at a long table in the center of room. Taxidermy all over the walls. Moose, deer, and elk, rabbits and fish – all looking down with glossy, angry eyes. Oak wainscoting covered the lower half – white wallpaper with pink and blue flowers – too soft and feminine to be the background for the kill zone of trophies.
I focused on the menu and tried to forget the animals’ resentful glances. Grandpa waved his hand in the air to get the waitress’s attention. He was thirsty. She took all our drink orders, but he asked her to get his pronto. Within a minute, she had brought him a sweaty Coors Light in a can.
“So, Mark, how’s it going?” he barked across the table, then took a long drink.
“Pretty good. Well, until yesterday.”
Grandma wiped the table with her napkin. “Have you found work, dear?”
“I’ve been helping this guy at his shop.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to get locked in to anything, though.”
“Good,” Grandma said.
I gaped at her. Whatever. Sure, Mark shouldn’t work.
“There’s so much more out there than this.” She glanced around the room. “You’ll love it when you come home. There are plenty of jobs in Illinois.”
No, there weren’t. I’d just read in history class that people were fleeing Illinois at unprecedented rates, heading for Florida and Texas, even Indiana.
Mom excused herself from the table. Where was she going? She couldn’t leave me alone. She was my buffer around these people. Fawning all over Mark kept them occupied, but I needed Mom to cope. After several minutes, I excused myself, avoiding eye contact with my grandparents, and casually walked across the restaurant. Quickening my step, I hurried around the corner to the bathroom.
When I walked in, Mom’s voice echoed off the walls. She stood in front of the sink, talking on the phone. “Yes, that would be fantastic.” She made eye contact through the mirror. “Okay, I have to go now. Elsie’s here. Thank you so much. Have a good fli—night.”
She put her phone in her pocket and started washing her hands.
“Who was—”
“So, what do you think of your grandmother?” she interrupted.
“That’s why I came in here,” I said. “She’s Mrs. Vaughn, all day long.”
Mom gave me an amused smile. “Yeah. I can see that.” She chuckled and turned on the hand dryer. “It’s only for a few days, right?”
“Right.”
I felt terrible for her. I could dodge them. She had to accept they were her parents.
After we returned to the table, everyone ordered as Grandpa finish his third beer. Tired and starving, I regretted leaving my phone at home. How could I have forgotten it? I wanted to asked Mom for hers, but I still hadn’t memorized his number. Stupid phone. It made me lazy.
Grandpa took another long swig of beer.
“George, take it easy,” Grandma snapped, then she turned to Mom. “So, the Donnelly house is up for rent. You know, the one two miles south of us on 400 North? You’d be close. And since Elsie will graduate early, it won’t matter what district you settle in.” She looked at Mark, then me. “Your babies are all grown up no
w.”
“Yes, they are.” Mom pressed her lips in a tense smile.
Mark elbowed me. I elbowed back.
Grandma frowned. “Well, I can look into it when I get back,” she said.
“We’ll see.” Mom took a sip of water. “This isn’t the time to talk about moving.”
Our server arrived with our dinners, interrupting the purposed topic.
Thank God. It would’ve been a shame to ruin dinner by screaming, “I don’t want to go to Illinois!”
“The university is hiring,” Grandma said.
“Olivia,” Grandpa snapped. “Cut it out. We’re trying to eat here.”
He went back to salting his vegetables, and then he shoved a big forkful in his mouth. Mark and I snickered. Grandma huffed and tossed her napkin on the table. Mom’s foot cracked my shin. I winced, and sat up straighter.
After we finished eating, Grandpa’s fourth beer had pushed him down memory lane. He babbled on for the next two hours. Story after story about relatives and Mom as a young girl. The more he talked, the more I could feel Mom’s tension. She was going to blow.
I’d been up since four in the morning and could hardly keep my eyes open. Then Grandpa started in about a guy named Bob.
Bam! Mom smacked the table with her palm. Everyone flinched.
“It’s late, Daddy,” she stated. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
By eleven-thirty, we finally walked into our quiet house.
I went straight to my room and collapsed on top of the covers.
What felt like minutes later, I woke up and shot out of bed. Daylight filled the window, offering a gray clouded sky. I grabbed my phone. Five missed calls, and one text at 10:17 p.m.
My heart sank. I’d totally crashed out. Why hadn’t I looked at my phone?
I opened the text message.
Tyler: I really wish I could talk to you.
I pressed his name. Voicemail.
“I’m sorry I missed your call.” I said to the recording. “I really need to talk to you, too.”
END.
I slumped on the bed. My face felt tight and swollen from the constant tears. I’d screwed up. There was no way he could get here by four. I dreaded going to the church to look at Dad inside a coffin, then lowering him in the ground without Tyler next to me.
I heard a knock on the door. Mom stepped inside and sat beside me on the bed. She didn’t say a word, like a radar had alerted that her kid was in need, she arrived just so I could cry on her shoulder. After a few minutes, she spotted my sketchpad lying on the floor. Dad’s eighteen-year-old face stared up at us.
“That’s the picture of your dad right after we met. May I look?”
“Sure. I’ve been drawing his portrait from different ages.”
She sat down on the floor and started turning the pages. Each picture showed Dad progressively growing older. I sat next to her.
“I hope it’s okay that I borrowed all the photos,” I said.
“Of course.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes. “Elsie, these are amazing. Is there any way you can bring them to the church?”
“Sure. I have some matte board I can attach them to.”
“Please. I want everyone to see him through your eyes. You’ve captured him in a way that’s almost painful. Did you ever send your application for school?”
“I applied to the Memphis College of Art before Tyler left. He helped me do it online.”
“He really is a good kid. Is that the only place?”
“We looked at some other schools – a couple in Chicago. I don’t know... I’ve been waiting to see what happened with Dad.”
She looked at the next drawing with a pained expression. “I’m sorry I haven’t helped you look for schools.” She broke down and cried. “I’ve been so oblivious.”
“Mom, it’s okay. You’ve been great. You’re the strongest person I know.”
“I don’t feel very strong.” She sniffled and wiped her cheeks. “Travis and Gail will be here soon.”
She stood up and walked out. I didn’t know how to help her. Guilt assaulted her everywhere she turned, and she blamed herself for everything. Without Dad, she wasn’t the same.
I pulled the pages out of the binding and started attaching them to matte boards. The task helped distract my thoughts from Tyler. I worked for a few hours, putting everything together, and then I heard voices outside my room. I set the pictures aside and changed out of my sweats, feeling indifferent to the rest of the day. I just wanted it to be over. All romantic notions of death had been wiped from my mind. My one comfort was that Dad wasn’t suffering anymore.
When I walked into the kitchen, Uncle Travis met me with a big hug, lifting me off the floor. I hadn’t seen him in two years, but he still smelled like his black leather jacket and Marlboros. His chin was covered in a salt-and-pepper goatee, and leathered skin accompanied his rough, cigarette-scarred voice. Every other word out of his mouth was a cuss word, but he had a genuine heart, something a person could see only if they were willing to look past his rough exterior. He reminded me of Dad when I met his gaze. They had the same blue eyes, but Travis had long hair pulled into a low ponytail. And if I knew my uncle, he had a flask in his back pocket. What I loved most was how easy it was to be around him. Nothing about Uncle Travis was fake.
His girlfriend, Jenny, stood in the background, looking annoyed, her head cocked to the side, pushing all her weight on one leg.
Maybe it wasn’t Jenny.
She looked a lot like the girl I’d met a few years ago, but she hadn’t aged a day if so. She chomped on her gum and rolled her eyes when he set me down.
“Girl, look at you. You’re all grown up. Damn, I’m getting old.” He laughed, and then he reached out and pulled the blonde girl close to him. “This is Krissie.” He laid a kiss on her cheek. She jerked away.
Pure white trash, wearing skintight jeans and a low-cut Harley Davidson T-shirt with a faded blob of an unidentifiable tattoo on her breast. Anorexic, sunken cheeks with stringy, bleached-blonde hair that needed a haircut. She was way too young for my uncle. Gross.
Aunt Gail stepped around her brother. Quiet as a mouse, she reached out to give me a gentle hug. I hadn’t even noticed her.
She stroked my hair. “Elsie, you’re so beautiful.”
Gail suffered from old hippie syndrome. Too young to be a true “Summer of Love” child, however, her bohemian style and love for Jerry Garcia reinforced the fact that she should’ve been born a generation earlier. She always looked tired, lean and slender, toned like she did yoga every day. Certainly, she didn’t look like she was nearing fifty. Not with her sandy blonde hair and big, blue eyes. She and Travis sounded like Dad when they spoke, but Gail was soft and gentle, compared to the manly brothers whom she helped raise.
The worst part was, I’d never been around them without Dad. I resisted the urge to look for him. He should’ve been standing there with us.
When Mark joined us, the volume in the room cranked another octave. I slipped into the background. Travis joked about his midlife crisis. I couldn’t help but chuckle at them. I was different than Dad’s family. I couldn’t jump in and demand to be heard. Mom and I were more alike, but after twenty years, she’d conditioned herself to know her people. Uncle Travis shifted into a high tale about meeting Krissie. The girl ignored him, chomping her gum like a horse.
Uncle Travis started the next story with, “Remember when... ”
That was my cue. Time to get out of storyland. I headed to my room to change clothes.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. No calls. I set it down and went to my closet to grab my black sweater dress. Picking up my red-bottomed heels, I considered wearing them for a second. I put them back. Don’t taint them. I’d never wear the sweater dress again. Don’t ruin the shoes, too.
Brushing my hair, I gazed out the window at the looming, hazy gray clouds. Cold and wet, the air would reek of sulfur and burnt broccoli when we went to the cemet
ery. Damn paper mill. Damn autumn. The shifting colors of fall would forever remind me of death from now on. Dead trees, dead flowers, dead fathers.
At two-thirty, I rejoined the crowd. Grandma and Grandpa had returned. They hated Travis and Gail. Judgmental of anything that came from Dad’s gene pool, Mark was the one exception. He and Grandpa sat on the couch, looking at a sports magazine together. Grandma waited in the recliner, staring out the window. Travis and Gail were at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, ignoring my arrogant grandparents. The only one I couldn’t find was Mom.
I headed down the hallway and knocked on her door. Pushing it open before she could answer, I found her sitting on the edge of her bed.
“Hey,” I said.
She looked at me with red, swollen eyes. “Hi.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “No. I don’t want to go back out there. I don’t want to say goodbye to your dad. Most of all, after today, my husband’s not only dead, he’s buried.”
Tears fell down her face. Lost for words, I sat beside her and gave her a hug.
She only held on for a second, unable to accept the affection for too long. Taking a deep breath, she composed herself and wiped her face.
“We have to be at the church in twenty minutes.” She smacked her legs with both hands. “Let’s get going.”
Chapter 33
Twenty minutes later, Mark drove Mom and me through Savannah while the rest of the family followed in separate cars. The closer we came to the white church with its tall, pointy steeple, tucked in the woodland near the river, the tighter my throat closed. I took a deep breath. My stomach flipped.
Mom pointed at the front door and quietly said, “Drop us off, please.”
Pastor Larry waited at the top of the steps. I watched Mom move up the first two before I opened the car door. Mark huffed like, Get the hell out already. I grabbed the drawings and started up the stairs leading to my dead Dad. Walking slowly, I climbed the steps covered in worn Astroturf, wet and mossy-looking. Juniper pine added just enough cat-piss sting in the air to burn at my nose, competing against the stinky smell of the paper mill. My heel scraped the spongy carpet. One more step closer.
Life Happens on the Stairs Page 27
