Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [98]
She jumps when she realizes that the old man is standing just behind them.
“Your father put a new roof on my house ten years ago. Good man. Good roof, too.”
They exchange a glance and then Alice and Angie and Ellie step away from the coffin. He turns to let them pass before him to the doorway.
“We’d like to stay until you close the coffin.”
He has to stand on tiptoe to reach and close the lid. The hinges are silent.
Angie takes both of her girls by the hand and walks through the building to the door, to the sidewalk, to the night air, to Gram and Uncle Eddie, heading for home.
May 10th
It’s four o’clock in the morning when Alice wakes up to find that Ellie has climbed into bed with her. She crawls over her to get up, sees Ellie’s pajamas and underpants discarded on the floor, and realizes she must have wet the bed.
She pads quietly down the hall and pushes the door to her parents’ room open. She is startled to see another head on the pillow next to her mom until she remembers that Lillian is staying with them.
“Mom?”
Angie sits up immediately; she has not slept. She grabs her bathrobe and follows Alice down the stairs and into the kitchen. Alice puts the kettle on though she’s not sure she really wants anything. Angie finds the Drambuie and pours herself a glass.
“You want to try it?”
“Sure.”
She passes Alice her glass.
“Ellie wet the bed.”
“Poor kid.”
“She got herself into clean PJs and she’s in my bed now.”
“Is that what woke you up?”
“I guess.”
Alice tastes the Drambuie.
“Mom . . .”
She hesitates.
“We can’t bury him.”
“What are you talking about?
“It’s not right for Dad. He can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
“What?”
“Put him in the ground.”
“Where do you want to put him? The backyard?”
“No. The ocean, a boat, maybe . . .”
“And never be able to visit him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Never be able to go to where he is?”
“I just can’t think of Dad trapped under the ground. I can imagine scattering his ashes from a rooftop, or by the ocean, or—”
“Daddy thought about cremation,” Angie says.
“He did?”
“But I asked him for a burial. I wanted a headstone, somewhere to go.”
“Why?”
“I need to know where he is. And I want to be buried beside him.”
“But maybe—”
“Do you really want to have your father cremated?”
“I don’t know. I just—”
Alice turns to look out the window.
“I don’t think I can stand there and let them put him in a hole in the ground and cover him with dirt.”
“That’s what’s going to happen, honey. I can try to help you, but you’re going to have to accept this.”
“Did you and Daddy talk about it?”
“Some. Not as much as we should have.”
“What do you believe, Mom?”
“What do you mean?”
“About heaven or an afterlife or the soul . . .”
“It’s hard to say.”
Angie pulls her robe close around her.
Alice stands there looking at her, needing her mother to know things. Angie hears Matt’s voice inside her head, Try, Angie.
“I always thought holy rollers were ridiculous, and I never put my faith in any church.”
“And . . .” Alice waits.
There’s Matt’s voice again: Keep trying.
“But now I realize I had a lucky life. I had the luxury of not needing to believe in anything. Now that Daddy’s gone I wish I believed in all of it.”
“Really?”
“Yes and no. I’m trying to figure that out.”
“And Daddy?”
“Oh, honey, you know Daddy . . . He was a pragmatist; he liked facts and figures. But this, this is a whole new ballgame.”
Alice pushes the glass away.
“When I wake up,” Alice says, “at first I don’t remember. Every day I wake up and I have to find out he’s gone all over again.”
“Me, too.”
“Really?”
“That’s part of why we go through all of this. It seems so strange and bizarre even, but the rituals—saying the words, touching his body, putting him in the ground, remembering him with friends—all of it starts to make it real for us.”
“I don’t want it to be real, Mom.”
“I know.”
There is a pause.
“What have they told you about what happened to Dad?”
“Very little.”
“I need to know.”
“Alice . . .”
“I have nightmares. I keep seeing him.”