“He’s in his room,” I said. “He seems okay. But he was the one who found her. He called the police. They told me they think—”
“It’s okay,” he said. “You can tell me in a few minutes.”
But he didn’t move. He stood in the living room looking around the house. I couldn’t tell what he was doing. Absorbing the scene? Remembering Mom? He looked lost. Confused. Overwhelmed, I guess, would be the best word. I reached out to touch his arm, to tell him he didn’t have to stay if he didn’t want to, but just as I did, he went down the hall and into Ronnie’s bedroom.
While Paul was in there, I gathered my wits. Like most twenty-six-year-olds, I had never planned a funeral. I’d only attended a few, and one of them was my dad’s. Mom planned that one, and I assumed hers would be similar—simple, small, low-key. Dad didn’t even have a viewing. We just went to the church and then to the cemetery. Some relatives came back to the house with us and ate cold cuts and cake. That was it. Ashes to ashes and all that.
I sat on the couch and used my phone to send a few e-mails. I had just started my second year of graduate school, studying American urban history. Cities and immigrants and neighborhoods. I had always imagined myself learning about the topic somewhere else—New York or Chicago—but we had an excellent program right here in little Dover, Ohio. And Columbus was just an hour away if I really needed to see a city. I wrote to my advisor and told him what happened. I also wrote to a few friends at school. I didn’t stay in touch with a lot of people from Dover. I occasionally ran into them around town, and when I saw them I didn’t know what to say. A lot of them were married already and having children. Things went that way in Dover, but not for me. I might get married someday, but not before I was thirty-five. Hell, maybe I’d wait for forty.
Once my messages were sent, I didn’t know what to do. I looked around the room. The order, the neatness. The plan. There had to be a plan. My mother always had a plan.
I took a slow walk down the hallway. When I passed Ronnie’s room, I looked in. Paul was talking to Ronnie in a low voice, soothing him. Ronnie looked tired, his eyes half closed. They seemed so close—my mom, Paul, Ronnie. But not me. I always felt like the outsider, and I knew it was by choice. I had opted for a different life, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel the loss of that closeness sometimes. I hadn’t planned to move back after I received my undergraduate degree in Illinois. I worked for two years, and then when it was time for graduate school I applied to Dalton only as a backup plan, my safety school. As the fates would have it, they offered me the best graduate assistantship and tuition waiver. I moved back to Dover, Ohio, with my teeth clenched. But, privately, I hoped it would work out. I hoped I’d get along with Mom better, that we’d become closer somehow as adults. What’s the word for that—doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result? Insanity?
I went into the bedroom. The death room, as I suddenly thought of it. My dad had died in there after a two-year fight with stomach cancer. And Mom died there too. Enough of that, I thought.
I went to the bedside table, the one on Mom’s side of the bed. A dark, dusty powder covered the handle on the drawer. I looked around. It was on all the drawer pulls in the room. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. Fingerprint powder? I got it all over my fingers as I opened the little drawer. It held some pens, another crossword book, a Bible, and a manila envelope. I saw Mom’s neat handwriting across the front.
To be opened in the event of Leslie Hampton’s death.
I knew it. The plan. And of course Mom had made sure it was easy to find.
I slid my finger under the flap and pulled out the papers inside. The top sheet informed me—or whoever might have found it first—that Mom had, indeed, prepaid for a funeral with the Myers-Davis Funeral Home in downtown Dover. The phone number was listed at the bottom of the page, as well as a contact person’s name. Myers-Davis had handled my father’s funeral as well, so it was no surprise that it would handle Mom’s. Knowing Mom, she probably paid for her funeral at the same time she paid for Dad’s, using the funeral insurance they had purchased. I set that paper aside, making a mental note to call the funeral home in the morning.
Then I turned to the small packet of stapled papers. Mom’s will. Across the top I saw the name and address of Mom’s attorneys—Allison and Burns, who were located downtown. They had handled Mom and Dad’s minor legal affairs over the years. I had never met Mr. Allison, but I remembered seeing him in church when I was a child. He seemed like somebody’s grandfather, the kind of man who would probably ruffle your hair with a big callused hand when he saw you.
I skimmed the first page of the document. Legal jargon written in tortured and convoluted sentences danced past my eyes. I turned the page and skimmed the rest. I knew what it said. Mom had once, offhandedly, mentioned that she intended to leave everything to Ronnie and me. She didn’t have much—just the house, a ten-year-old Toyota Corolla, and the life insurance. I didn’t expect to see much. I figured whatever there was would go to Ronnie’s care, and I was fine with that despite my life as an impoverished graduate student.
“Are you… ?” Paul looked like he thought he was interrupting something private and personal. He stood at the doorway of Mom’s room as though an invisible barrier were keeping him out.
I looked at him and held the paper up. “The plan,” I said. “Information about the funeral home. And Mom’s will.”
“The will’s there?” he said. He still didn’t come into the room. He looked around again, just as he had in the living room. Absorbing? Remembering?
“It looks pretty standard,” I said. “Ronnie and I get everything.”
“Good.”
“And it names you Ronnie’s guardian,” I said. “But I guess you knew that.”
I felt emotion welling in me again. I clamped my lips tight, biting against it. Everything seemed so final, so certain. So finished. I looked up at Paul. His face was ashen, his lips slightly parted. For a moment, I thought he might faint or fall over. Was he sick?
“Paul?” I said.
I dropped the will and started to get up. But he waved me back.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Really. Things are just sinking in, that’s all.” He let his body sag against the doorjamb. He lifted his hand to his head and rubbed his temple. “Ronnie went to sleep.”
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“He’s okay. He didn’t say much. I think he’s wiped out.”
“Me too,” I said. I picked up the will again. I stared at the stupid papers. My vision started to swim. “Paul, I hadn’t talked to her in six weeks.”
“I know.”
“The last time we talked we had a huge fight.”
“Don’t do this to yourself,” he said. His voice sounded weary and hollow. “She knew.”
“Knew what?” I asked.
“That you love her. That you love Ronnie. She knew that.”
“Are you sure she did? I never said it. Not since I was a little kid. I probably didn’t even tell her when Dad died.”
“She knew. Mothers know these things.”
“You know what we fought about, right?”
“About Ronnie?”
“She wanted me to promise that I would take care of him if anything happened to her. She wanted me to promise he would live with family and never have to go to an institution or a home. She was adamant, more adamant than ever.”
“She always worried about that,” he said.
“Why couldn’t I just say it, Paul?” I asked. “Why couldn’t I just tell her what she wanted to hear?”
“Stubbornness,” he said.
“What?”