At suppertime his mother asks, “Did you enjoy yourself, darling?” and he answers yes. His sisters don’t go to the races; they go to the ballet. He looks around the table where the family sits eating and knows there is constraint among them, a conspiracy of secrets, for he has secrets too. When his father dies in a car crash in the Adirondacks, David is only eight years old, but he knows not to discuss it from how everyone behaves—the way the neighbors focus on the floor or ceiling when they come to call, the way his sisters cease their whispering and Mother will not answer when he asks about the accident . . .
Alice had been protective, hidden and guarded by nature, and now that she was a widow her strict watchfulness increased. His mother would never remarry; her grief became a grievance and codified with time. She was dark and severe and beautiful, and there were doctors and lawyers and college professors who offered consolation, or attempted to, but none of them sufficed. His sisters left. He and his mother remained in the house, and she called him her companion and said, darling, you’re my heart’s delight, the only man I need. You won’t ever leave me the way
he
did, said Alice—not aloud, of course, never explicitly or in those words, but in the way she waited for him after school or drove him to karate practice or walked with him down Philo Street to buy a box of pastries, her hand on his shoulder or arm linked with his, the way those women at the racetrack had consorted with his father years before.
And when he went to Williams College—majoring in English, then art history, falling in love with the Clark Art Institute and its Botticelli and the Memling portraits and Renoirs—she came to see him often, driving down for lunch on Saturday or to see his roommate in a play or to help him move in and move out. “You can’t imagine,” Alice said, “how happy I am to be useful, how much it means to me to see you growing up this way, it’s the only thing I want.” This she did say in his hearing, often and out loud. He was proud and then embarrassed and then, finally, impatient;
Get a life,
he wanted to tell her.
Just leave me alone, will you please?
Well, now his mother has done so, and irrevocably. Now David is alone. While he packs he thinks of Adrienne and thinks he could call her and tell her what happened, but knows it would be a mistake. There’s the red-eye to Chicago, and then the flight to Albany, and then an hour’s drive. He puts his garbage outside in the can, the potted plants in the yard. He is practiced at departure, the one-step two-step dance-away, and he drops the blinds and double-locks the entrance door and leaves.
2003
“W
e’re here together. We’re all here.”
The sisters stand. David embraces them—Joanna first, then Claire. He kisses them both on both cheeks.
“You’re
here . . .
”
“How long has it been?” David asks. In the room the air is stale. “Since the last time the three of us . . .”
“Two years,” says Claire. “Almost three.”
“You look terrific.” Appraising him, Joanna tilts her head. “You do.”
“And
you. You
haven’t changed.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Mm-hm. You never change.” He drapes his coat over a chair. There are four of them: slat-backed and upright, with plaited rush seats. There are dried flowers and a mixing bowl on the Formica countertop. “How long ago did you two . . . ?”
“An hour maybe, maybe less. Not long.”
“
I
came this morning,” says Claire.
“No matter how often I do it,” he says, “the red-eye still gets me, a little. Gets
to
me, flying cross-country. And this direction is the hard one, this is the one where they don’t let you sleep.”
“Don Johnson,” says Joanna. “Bruce Willis. That’s the look.”
Above the sink, where moisture rises, the kitchen windows are wet. On the pantry door the February calendar—its first week crossed out with red
X
s—displays a log cabin in snow. Smoke curls from the tin chimney, and there are horses and sleighs and several dogs and roosters and women wearing mufflers and men with whips and hats.
“What I’m trying to say,” David says, “is it’s amazing to be in this kitchen together. The three of us. Alone, I mean.”
“Alone?”
“Without her. Mom,” he says.
Now there is silence between them. Beyond the window, light flakes fall. The chandelier above the table functions on a rheostat, and David increases the light.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you”—Claire turns to her sister—“how’s Leah?”
“Fine. Becky? Hannah?”
“Thank you for asking. They’re fine.”
“And Jim?”
“He’s fine,” says Claire. “He sends his best.”
“In Wellfleet,” says Joanna, sitting, “we had an ice storm last night. This morning, though, it wasn’t bad.”
“Oh?”
The drive from the Cape, she continues, was dull, but at least it didn’t snow, and there had been no traffic at the bridge. Route 6 was empty as it gets; at Sagamore she’d filled the tank and made it in an hour to the Massachusetts Turnpike. The trip took five hours and ought to take more, but Trusty-Rusty’s not the sort of car policemen notice, and anyway she saw only one speed trap and the cop had bagged a Porsche . . .
“In Ann Arbor it was very cold. It was twelve, maybe twenty below . . .”
“You get more snow in the Midwest. We get all that moisture off the Atlantic but you get the lake effect . . .”
“Look,” David says. “We made it. We’re here together finally, so let’s not do weather, OK? Let’s talk about what
matters.
”
“Such as?”
“Death.” He spreads his hands. “She’s dead.”
They listen to house-noise: the hum of the furnace and tick of the clock.
“I hope she didn’t suffer,” says Joanna, “in the end.”
“I called our lawyer,” Claire offers. “Joseph Beakes. He expects us tomorrow morning.”
“In his office?”
“Bright and early. Well, nine-thirty. I didn’t want to make the meeting—he didn’t want to schedule it—until it was certain we all were in town. And this afternoon there’s the funeral home, the disposition of the body. We’re due there at three.” Claire stands. “Mom stipulated we three must be together when he reads the will.”
“Tonight”—David watches his sisters—“are we all staying here?”
“
I’m
planning to.”
“Are there sheets?” Joanna asks. “Fresh sheets upstairs, I mean. Or should we be making the beds?”
“I haven’t looked,” says Claire. “Not yet.”
“You haven’t gone upstairs?”
“You’re welcome to Mom’s room . . .”
Joanna shuts her eyes. “I’ll use the couch. I’ll stay down here.”
The second floor has three bedrooms: their mother’s, David’s, the one the girls shared. “Let’s check it out,” David says.
They climb the stairwell, David in front. The cuff of his left leg is frayed and the lining of his jacket hangs loose beneath the vent. The gray pile of the carpet too has frayed, and the photographs at the top of the stairs hang askew. Claire straightens them. In the hallway stands a wheelchair with a tag affixed to its handle:
Miller’s Medical Supply.
The hospital bed has been removed, and their mother’s room—the door ajar—seems empty and, since empty, small and airless and bereft.
They continue down the hall and open doors and turn on the ceiling fixtures and peer, room by room, inside. Wallpaper billows unglued. The beds, however, have been made; there are pillows and blankets and quilts. The rooms have been prepared for visitors, with washcloths and towels at the foot of each bed. As though their task has been accomplished, they descend to the first floor again.
“The place looks good,” Joanna says.
Claire shakes her head.
“What time did you say they expect us?”
“Three. We have to choose a casket and decide on funeral arrangements, and even though we know she wanted cremation we still have to give them permission. A signature’s required; it’s the law.”
“You know what?” David says. “I could use a drink.”
“Me too,” Joanna says. “What are you drinking?”
“Do you think Mom still keeps liquor?”
Claire gestures at the pantry. A key ring hangs from a hook on the shelf; she found it there this morning and hasn’t had the time, of course, to look at everything—but one of those keys, she supposes, is for the liquor cabinet. David locates the key and opens the sideboard in the dining room and, having examined its contents, asks his sisters what they want and returns with a bottle of J&B scotch and one of Tanqueray gin. He removes a tray of ice from the ice- encrusted freezer and finds a bottle of tonic water on the pantry shelf and selects three thick beveled glasses and measures out two gin and tonics and, for himself, a scotch. “To Mom,” he says. “To everything she went through and how well she handled it.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Joanna says.
“To her memory,” says Claire.
The three of them click glasses; then they drink. They have been hunting the right tone to take, the right mix of ease and solemnity. They remark on how little there does seem to do: there’s no one they know to invite to the house, nobody left from their mother’s old bridge club or . . . what was it called, the Friends of Ballet? We are, says Joanna wonderingly, the elder generation now, and I can’t get my mind around the way she lived here all alone—well, not
alone;
there had been hospice personnel.
And Gretchen Adams, Claire reminds them, who has been sleeping in the house and doing the cleaning and round-the-clock nursing and letting us know how things go. They agree that Mrs. Adams deserves their gratitude, an extra check, but she’d said that morning when Claire called the three of them would want some space, some privacy, and anyhow she had her own grandchildren to catch up on in New Jersey, and would be back by the weekend, when they could settle up . . .
“It’s nearly three,” Joanna says, and they collect their coats and walk out of the cottage again. Flourishing his rental car key, David announces he’ll drive; Claire locks the kitchen door. The funeral home on North Broadway is simple to find—a dark brick house with white wooden pillars and a portico, a sign saying “Becker & Bushing & Cunliffe” out front, a sign that reads “Deliveries” by the side entrance. A hearse has been stationed there also, and two black panel wagons with the monogram “B&B & C” on the doors. A gunmetal gray Chrysler Imperial and, surprisingly, a trail-bike are parked in the plowed lot.
“Well, here goes nothing,” David says.
His sisters do not respond.
Inside, a trim gray-haired man greets them, introducing himself as Bill Becker Jr., and it is less difficult than they’d expected—more comforting, less of a trial; he ushers them into his office, where three chairs have been positioned, and says it’s a great shame to see them gathered together for this occasion, but their mother—he glances down at his pad—has passed in the fullness of time. I knew her, he tells them, I won’t pretend I knew her well but everybody here admired your mother, in a small town like ours you know who’s a lady to reckon with, and if there ever was such a lady it was Alice. He hands them each a pamphlet outlining funeral procedures and says you might want to take a few minutes familiarizing yourself with its contents because, understandably enough —Bill Becker smiles—this isn’t a procedure with which most folks are familiar . . .
They do know, Claire tells him, their mother’s intentions; she had made it clear she planned to be cremated and did not want a service. I’m cognizant of that, he says, but anyhow there’s choices you three need to make. He smells strongly of cologne. What choices? David asks. The funeral director offers up a four-page sheet of “Full Service Selections” and says, please, take your time with this, and when you agree let me know; I do need to be cognizant beforehand, he says, if you want a single urn or possibly—many of our clients feel this way—you want the ash divided into equal containers; whatever you decide amongst yourselves is what we’re happy to do.
The wall behind his desk is covered with certificates, diplomas and attestations of excellence; there are framed photographs of children and ponies and children with ponies and an oil portrait of William Becker Sr. smiling down at his successor. It’s a family business, Becker explains, and it’s important it should stay that way because you get personal service; too many funeral homes in America, if you don’t mind me saying so, are run by franchise operations, and if you want or need satisfaction it’s pretty much like calling up Colonel Sanders and saying, excuse me, there was a fly in my Kentucky Fried Chicken or calling to complain to someone named Ronald McDonald that the hamburger was raw. There’s no one home, is what I mean, there’s nobody responsible, and we try to be very different that way; if my sons stay in the business—I myself have two sons, Jimmy and Joe, and they’ve told me they want to, they
plan
to—it will be the fourth generation of Beckers in Saratoga Springs working at this trade. Becker places his hands on the desktop and studies his manicured nails. Then he hands them a General Price List; the FTC requires this up front, he says, but we’ll discuss it all in detail in due course. The best time to discuss these things is now,
beforehand,
now’s the time for you to know your options and agree on which to choose . . .
They receive a brochure called “Funeral Facts” and one called “May We Help?” There’s a pamphlet titled “Planning the Funeral of Someone You Love” and a pamphlet he gives David titled “Handling Grief as a Man.” There are facts they need to know about “Procedures” and “Social Security” and “Insurance” and “Inheritance Tax”; there’s a pamphlet titled “Getting Through the First Weeks and Months After the Funeral.” They receive an “Authorization for Cremation” form, attesting that they have identified the human remains of the decedent and that the decedent does not possess any pacemakers or radioactive implants, and that they will indemnify, defend and hold harmless the officers and agents of the agency performing the procedure. “We haven’t
identified
the—what did you call it?—‘human remains,’” David says.