is.”
“We should have come an hour ago while people were still eating dinner.” The skinny woman was irritated that the fat lady had been late.
Apologetically, “I just now got away. Frank's daughter from his first marriage has been visiting with her little girl.”
“Has she? Now who is she married to?”
“Well, she's not. The guy ditched out on her. You know how they are.”
“Of course I do. That's why Michael and I are so worried about our youngest living with this girl. Michael would absolutely die if one of our boys left a girl in a way. You know, that's how we got married.”
“Really? I hadn't known that.”
“Yes, I was two months pregnant before we even got married. No one knew.”
“Of course not.” Everyone had known, but it is important to protect yourself.
“But see, that’s just it. Michael stayed, and he married me. And I know that's what he'd have his boys do.” She would have added, “Damn fools that they are,” but her eyes landed on the coffin and her words got tangled in a gasp.
“That was the old days, and Frank's poor daughter just got left. She's doing all right, and really, from what I have heard, this guy wasn't too good for her anyway. Still, it's someone to watch the kid for an hour so you can get away. Now I wasn't pregnant when I got married, but I was still pretty young. Frank was so much older, and he'd already been married. My parents just had a fit.” The fat woman was licking the tissue and trying to fix her eye makeup. She noticed the red-haired woman wasn't really listening to her. “Well, anyway.”
“We're getting closer.”
“Yes.”
“Marion looks nice, doesn't she?”
“She’s a god damned angel.”
“That’s a bit extreme. All you see is the contrast. Without it, she’s nothing special. Just one of us. Look. It’s that dark hair she's got against her pale skin. It looks nice with the dark dress. She does have cute hair. I can never tell if it's brown or red.”
“It's lovely.”
“I couldn't wear my hair short. I would look like a chipmunk. I'd rather keep it long and put it up every day like I do.”
“She can get away with it because she’s got a slender face.”
“She does.”
“Marion.”
“Thank you so much for coming.”
“The flowers are gorgeous.”
“I have never seen so many flowers.”
“Most of my family is out west. They couldn't make it. Weather and holiday traffic at the airports. So the flowers are from them mostly.”
The red-haired woman wondered how many families from out west travel extensively on Valentine’s Day. “They’re gorgeous.”
Marion looked stunned. “Did you sign the guest book?”
The fat woman said, “I sure did.”
“I will as I leave.”
“Good.”
“They are beautiful.”
“So colorful.”
“Yes.”
The fat woman said, “Marion, we've both been praying so much. You will never be forgotten.”
And the red-haired woman, the one who lived over on Fourth Street after she left her husband, after the night she broke out his back window when she found out how much he’d lost at the OTB by the interstate, agreed, “Oh yes, I haven't stopped praying since I heard.”
“Well, thank you both so much. You know it really does help. It's so hard, but the thoughts are special and help so much.”
“The wood is very pretty. Is that cherry?”
“I am not sure. It's the one he had here that we liked best. The others seemed suited to old folks more, you know.”
“Well, good reason. You don't usually have teenagers dying at your house.”
The three women stood stock-still pretending no shotgun had gone off, pretending no high school kid’s mouth wrapped around any double-barreled shotgun, pretending no toe of his boot finally pressed the trigger back far enough, pretending that the back of his skull hadn’t gotten blown across the barn, pretending no fathers ever found any sons dead.
It was the redheaded woman’s responsibility to stop them all from thinking anything. She knew it. “It's nice that it’s a closed casket.”
Marion nodded. “They said it had to be. After we identified him, that was enough.”
“Oh.”
“Well. We will pray for you, Marion.”
“Thanks for coming. It means so much.”
The women fled down the aisle the same way the little girl and her brother had. Safe in the back of the parlor, they leaned in. The fat woman fumbled into her coat and the red-haired woman located her cigarettes and lighter in her purse.
“Oh shit, I can’t believe I said that.”
The fat woman tied a scarf under her chin. “I know. It was pretty bad, but don't worry about it. She is totally in shock.”
“Dear soul.” The lighter didn't work. She chucked it back into the purse and hoped for a forgotten book of matches at the bottom.
“Just sign the guest book. Let's get out of here.”
“Sign for me. I need a cigarette.”
“I signed when we came in and had no idea what to say. Plus, the pen wouldn’t hardly work. Just leave it.” Out of what was meant to be taken for a high-end crystal ashtray the fat woman picked up a gold book of matches with the name of the funeral home stamped on it in black and handed it to the red-haired woman. “All right then. It’s been so good to see you. Sorry it’s been so long. I know you called.”
“Don’t worry about it. We had a nice little chat right here tonight, huh?” She grabbed the matches and lit her cigarette on the threshold.
The fat woman held the door for her. “Sure.”
“Say hello to Frank for me, would you?” The red-haired woman took a few thankful drags and looked up at the gray sky. She stamped her heels on the sidewalk to warm up a little. The red pickup was waiting at the curb. The fat woman was already making her way toward it.
“Of course. Same to Jim.”
“Jim and I broke up twenty-five years ago. You know that. It’s Michael now. But. Will do.”
“I knew that. Sorry.”
“It’s not like we’ve been out much. Don’t apologize.”
“Why not? It’s the only thing I’m good at.” The fat woman laughed and opened the door of the truck carefully and climbed in. The truck leaned toward the curb. She closed the door quickly before it got stuck. She cracked the window of the truck and said to the woman on the sidewalk with a smile, “And keep those socks clean.”
The red-haired woman waved back. She tried to think of something to say. She could not. The tears came instead. No real reason. They had good lives. Worthwhile lives. She wanted to yell at that stupid kid, and then she wanted to join him. Such a shitty small little nothing nowhere town. No one would miss her, really. Her kids didn’t give a shit. Couple of pains in the ass after all she’d been through for them. But. No. Muster that smile for your friend. Don’t flinch when you see her husband’s arm reach out behind her back. Don’t stop breathing when the pickup truck eases off on its way with the fat lady grinning and waving out the window. Don’t get bitter. Just let the cigarette fall into the wet gutter from the height of a tall-as-you-can-ever-extend redheaded hand-wave.
PIETA
Solutions come easily when you cradle your dead son on your lap. More strict less strict understanding tolerant easygoing lots of hugs. There aren't any gray areas anymore. I know what I should have done for Jason, what I could have done for him. But it wasn't so easy when he came home drunk, so self-righteous, and so full of hard-edged life. I’d never admit it. Not even to my husband, Dan, but in my mind I called my son Genghis Khan. Because to have this massively disrespectful adult-sized child in my kitchen, with my collections of Longaberger baskets and antique swan figurines, was just beyond comprehension. I got so sick of his back talk. I wanted to beat the insolent belligerence out of him. Don't get me wrong; I never hi
t my child, but I did as much with words. Well not me, exactly. My husband was the enforcer.
I never questioned it. Because other people's children tiptoe in and try to sleep off their beers. Not my son. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, curfews didn’t matter. He’d come into the house with an armload of empty beer bottles and dump them in my kitchen trash can. He never got sick; just wanted to eat. Invariably he’d cook something. Two in the morning and he’d have half the kitchen torn apart trying to make scrambled eggs or grilled cheese and bacon. Never anything simple like a bowl of cereal.
Upstairs I’d roll over and fret. My mind was in a constant tizzy about whether we should have done more of this or that. Everything that seemed like it might have been a mistake replayed to haunt me. Regret is not a strong enough word. I was dismantled. Night after night the world I tried to build came down. And it was never meant to be a dungeon for him, never a cell he was sentenced to as punishment. I wanted a fortress just to protect him, to keep him safe, to give him a chance. Because I knew no one would understand. People wouldn’t love him like I did if they knew the truth. Maybe we’d been keeping secrets from him about some part of life he should have understood. But how could he know anything about what I did? He wasn’t even born.
But that kid picked up on something. When he’d come home all clattering beer bottles like that, it’s not that Dan and I weren't already awake waiting for him every time. We were usually in bed each pretending the other might be sound asleep. After twenty minutes of listening to dishes break and cans of corned beef hash fall on the tile, to the faucet running to overflowing and him banging around into