And the viewing, he asks, one night or two? Open or closed casket? Of course, immediate family will have an opportunity to view the deceased regardless of the decision.
Open? Closed? My claustrophobia dictates my decision. Open, of course. Don’t cheat her of any precious moments of air and light.
The death notice needs to be placed. The Gaston Gazette, of course. What about the Charlotte papers?
I think back to Christmas and my amazement at learning how many lives she touched.
Merry Christmas, Nathaniel. Was Santa good to you?
Oh, the best, Miz Nocera, the very best.
Yes, the Charlotte Observer too.
Sweeney the Son is every bit as efficient as his late father. He takes me in hand and walks me through every detail, answers every question, resolves every problem. Gratitude and exhaustion and the whiskey overwhelm me. Without thinking, I embrace him, thanking him for making this so easy. It’s impossible to imagine such intimacy with his austere father. Sweeney the Son, being a different breed, pats my back. He doesn’t need to speak; his touch conveys his empathy and sympathy. For one fleeting second, I consider burying my face in his neck and sobbing. But I resist. This is professional intimacy, with definite limitations and boundaries that cannot be crossed.
“Were you close?” he asks, withdrawing from my bear hug, careful not to convey discomfort and rejection.
“Yes,” I say, sounding uncertain.
I think so.
Were we?
Did she still feel close to me or did my selfishness and self-absorption, my unwillingness to feign interest in her anxiety and fears, disappoint her? I kept my distance, letting her words drop in the space between us, depriving her of the easy, intimate conversations of my childhood and youth. I couldn’t comfort her. I was constitutionally incapable of thinking of anything but my own misery. And worse yet, what will be impossible to live with, is that I made her last months more difficult, that I compounded the strain. My mother, bravely facing painful therapies and bleak outcomes, feared only one thing in the end.
Me.
I’m afraid to speak to him anymore. He gets angry at everything I say.
I assume it’s a lie, another pathetic effort by my sister to hurt me, revenge taken for my mother’s unconditional love for me. But there was no satisfaction in my sister’s eyes when she betrayed my mother’s confidence and broke her solemn promise to say nothing to me.
My sister is telling the truth.
Some essential part is missing in me. I know I have a heart, but it seems incapable of kindness. Sweeney the Son steps forward again, anticipating tears. He’s ready to offer a clean handkerchief and a palm on the shoulder. How easy it comes to him. I’d like to strap him to the embalming table behind those thick doors. I’d crack open his breastplate and search and probe until I found the little generator that pumps empathy and compassion into his soul. I’d snip it with the scalpel and bury it in ice and race to the emergency room, demanding a transplant. And when the sutures healed, I’d emerge a different person, whole, able to experience a full range of emotions.
“May I have the dress?” he asks.
“Yes, here,” I say, handing him the garment bag.
“Can I see her?” I ask.
“She’s not prepared,” he says.
“Please. I wasn’t with her when she died.”
He relents and, against his professional wisdom, agrees to allow me a few moments alone in the embalming room. He hovers on the other side of the door, wary, ready to spring into action at the first sign of rage or inconsolable grief. So I stand quietly, barely whispering, telling my mother I love her and begging for one last gift, mercy.
Maybe it’s lack of sleep. Maybe it’s the whiskey. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me. Maybe it’s a miracle. I can never tell anyone. They’d think I was crazy. But my mother hears me and takes my hand and squeezes it, telling me to make my peace with the world.
Antibiotic
LAURA WAY BREWER, M.D.
PRACTICE LIMITED TO PSYCHIATRY
The address is smack in the heart of one of those leafy suburbs where the oak trees are older than the nation. So private, so quiet. Volvos for daytime errands and a Mercedes for a night on the town. Two children…no, no, it would be highly irresponsible of Laura Way Brewer, M.D., to contribute to the global overpopulation straining our exhausted planet. One-point-five children. A son and half-a-daughter, eviscerated at the midsection.
There’ll be a discreet side entrance. Dr. Brewer? I presume. So stylishly unstylish. A simple haircut with a light rinse that set you back a cool hundred fifty after tip. A silk blouse, single strand of pearls, wool crepe skirt, and European leather pumps, softer than skin. Bric-a-brac from the Asian continent scattered around the office, booty from her journeys. (God knows Dr. Brewer would never deign to do something as mundane as vacation.) Plush oriental carpets and ethnic wall hangings to soak up the interminable silences that are broken only by the sound of the half-a-daughter several rooms away, practicing piano. Pardon me, Dr. Brewer. Can you spare me your undivided attention? I’m not paying you to be distracted by your darling child as she fumbles her way through “Für Elise.” Don’t you want to know how salty a mechanic’s cock tastes at three in the morning in a shit-stinking rest stop on the interstate?
I made the appointment but didn’t keep it.
And God knows how I hate you. Sorry, not you, Dr. Brewer. We’ve never even met.
You, Reverend Matthew McGinley, S.J., M.D.
Or is it M.D., S.J.?
We never did get that sorted out.
How’s tricks up in the good old D. of C.? Hail the conquering hero. The whole town must have turned out to celebrate your triumphant return from exile in Mayberry and your liberation from us po’ bucktooth yokels with bad haircuts and cornmeal between our toes.
Oh, God, did I forget to tell you I’ve accepted the academic appointment at Georgetown? I’m referring you to Dr. Brewer. I’m sure you’ll enjoy working with her.
Maybe your announcement wasn’t that harsh, but it felt that way.
Adios, amigo. Yeah, you got your problems, but the chairman of the Department of Psychiatry is wheezing close to seventy and they’re searching for young blood and there’s no blood younger and fresher and more deserving than mine.
Maybe those weren’t your exact words, but it’s exactly what you meant.
That’s terrific, Matt. I’m so happy for you. Maybe we can do dinner some night when I’m in D.C. We’ll catch up. You can ask me how things are going.
Great. Things are going great. You know my mother’s dead. My sister’s a bitch. She’s selling the house. I’m a gentleman of leisure now. My throat has been sore for weeks now, since the night my mother died. Staph, strep, gonorrhea, syphilis, maybe just postnasal drip? Who knows? Maybe I should get it checked out, but I refuse to set foot in one more doctor’s office, flipping through ancient copies of People and reading about forgotten celebrities whose moment has passed. Not that I don’t have time to spare. I haven’t worked since my mother died. I got fired or quit. I’m not sure which. My Born Again National Sales Manager sent flowers and a sugary sympathy note and left a holier-than-thou condolence on the answering machine. He waited a respectable seven days and left another message with my itinerary along the California coast. He sounded so pleased with himself, telling me how he’d chosen the trip with the gorgeous weather in mind, knowing how much I’d appreciate a break after the past few months. I never returned the call or any of the others he made in the following days. Finally, he left an angry message, demanding I return the company laptop, calling me irresponsible and threatening me with ugly references.