The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [107]
A mournful final hymn begins, a recorded instrumental that wafts softly from the speakers amid the sound of sniffles, of noses being blown, dresses rustling as people stand up. This is the funeral director’s standard closing hymn. The muted, doleful melody almost makes the underlying silence more profound.
That’s when Iona and Julianne and Ginger and Andrea head toward the sound booth as Paisley asked them to do. At her instruction, they’ve done their research. They know they’re dealing with an antiquated sound system, requiring a technician to change the CDs. Julianne—“because you’re the prettiest,” Paisley had told her—gets the man’s attention and asks a question about the music. As they speak, Ginger and Iona crowd around as if to listen, blocking his view of the equipment. A foot away, Andrea plucks a CD from her purse and pops it into the player in place of the hymn. She turns up the volume as far as it will go.
And then—a blast of sound! “IF THERE’S A ROCK ’N’ ROLL HEAVEN . . .” Roaring from the loudspeakers! Eliciting a communal gasp! The EMTs might have arrived and jolted the entire crowd back to life. Shocked, palpitating hearts send a burst of laughter up dry throats, over parched lips and tongues.
If there’s a rock ’n’ roll heaven, they have a hell of a band. The crowd can’t help but pay attention. Iona knows the song well. The Righteous Brothers, not one of their biggest hits, but exactly the one Paisley would choose. A roll call of rock stars who died young. Roy Orbison, “who introduced us to his pretty woman.” Elvis, who loved us tender. John Lennon, who “cried give peace a chance.”
Paisley Lamm.
“Everyone’s a star,” the lyrics trill. Paisley always knew she was a star. It was a position she mostly tried not to abuse. She’d be perfectly comfortable, envisioning herself up there in that band.
If you believe in forever, the Righteous Brothers croon, then life is just a one-night stand.
A few people begin to move down the aisles, but most of them stay put, listening as the lyrics repeat.
If you believe in forever, then life is just a one-night stand.
Maybe so, Iona thinks. Maybe so.
Chapter 27
Christmas Vacation
In the weeks between the funeral and her departure for California, Andrea endures such a roller coaster of emotions that she comes to understand what it must be like to be manic-depressive. She’s excited! She’s hopeful! Imagine—a whole new world at the age of forty-six!
Then she’s so exhausted she can barely drag herself out of bed. Maybe she’s sick. She gets up primarily to set an example for Courtney, whose anxiety and fear are subdued but so close to the surface they almost shiver off her skin. Courtney leaves for school. Andrea sits on the living room floor, on the cold hardwood where the Oriental carpet used to be. She stares at the holes in the wall where the paintings have been taken down. The nearly empty house feels somehow . . . violated. Frightened. Sad. As if it senses that Andrea is abandoning it, which of course she is. The chill from the floor seeps through her. She feels frozen. Paralyzed. And no wonder. When she checks her watch, she sees that a full hour has passed.
With a colossal effort of will, she gets up from the floor, shakes out the numbness in her legs. There is no choice here. She reminds herself how gracefully Paisley embarked on her own journey, much farther and more daunting than this one. She begins once more to dismantle her old world, the known world, and pack it up. She can do this. It’s what Paisley would want. Paisley will hold her hand.
On the day the movers come, Andrea walks through her house and says goodbye to each empty room. The rooms of Courtney’s cancer. The rooms holding the chasm that separated her from John. She tells herself there is nothing here to regret.
And so here