“Yes.” I nodded. “If it’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay, son.” My mother patted my back. “Do you want me to come up with you?”
“No, I’ll just be a minute.” I leaned to kiss her cheek and turned to walk down the aisle.
The casket was a solid mahogany, the dark wood polished to a gleaming finish. The rolling cart upon which it sat was draped in black cloth, just in case anyone were to forget that we were here for a solemn occasion. I laid my hand on the closed part of the lid that covered my father from the waist down, and I remembered the very first funeral I’d ever attended. It was one of my father’s uncles who lived in Philadelphia, and I’d driven up north with him because my mother and the girls had something going on. A Girl Scout camping trip? Maybe.
At any rate, I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. I’d sat in the church next to my father among all these ancient Irish, women who smelled like mothballs and men whose noses were perpetually red. There was loud weeping, although, Pop had told me, Uncle Emond had been a hundred years old.
I’d stared at the coffin, suddenly terrified. Reenie had pestered me before we left, reminding me that I was going to be in a church with areal dead body.And that dead body was right there. I fidgeted as fear gripped me.
“D’you think he’s wearin’ pants?” Pop’s brogue, which had softened over the years in this country, re-established itself whenever we were around his family. I turned wide eyes to look up at him.
“What do you mean?”
“They keep the lower lid closed, see, and I’m remembering old Uncle Emond didn’t much like to wear clothes. Seems to me he’d rather go on to his reward minus his trousers. Dare me to peek?”
“Pop, no! You can’t. Mom would have a fit.” I might’ve been young, but I was old enough to realize my mother had a way of knowing everything, even from almost a thousand miles away.
Pop’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “You’re not wrong, my boy. All right, then, we’ll just have go without satisfying that particular bit of curiosity.”
Now I smiled, thinking of that day and feeling my father’s hand on my back. “Dare me to look, Pop?” I took a deep breath and forced my eyes to the opened lid.
His dark hair, threaded with silver, lay on the ridiculous white tufted pillow. Seriously, how stupid were we humans that we thought dead people needed to be comfortable? His eyes were closed, and they’d arranged his mouth in what I guessed they’d thought was a natural pose. But anyone who knew my dad would know that his lips were perpetually curved into a teasing half-smile, not bunched up like he’d tasted something sour.
His hands were folded piously across his chest, a white rosary threaded between his fingers. I ventured to touch his wrist where it showed below the cuff of his sports coat. But although it looked like my father’s arm, it was not. The skin was icy against my fingertips and unnaturally firm. I recoiled, stifling a gag.
“Okay, then, Pop.” I drew in a deep breath through my nose. The cloying scent of the flowers that covered the altar threatened my stomach again, but I clenched my jaw and ignored it. “Okay. So I know you’re not really here, not in this box, but on the other hand, I can’t see you missing out on a party like today. I just wanted to tell you . . . no one ever had a better father than I did. What I learned from you . . . how you raised us . . .” My throat closed again, but this time it had nothing to do with the flowers or the body in front of me. “Well, you did good, Pop. Someday I’m going to have a kid, and if I can be half the father you were, I’ll be doing all right. I only wish I’d told you more. I wish I’d seen you more. I wish . . .” They were endless, the wishes and regrets, and when I glanced down, I was surprised to see splotches of wet on the edge of the white satin.
Behind me, the murmuring swelled, and I realized my time was dwindling. I looked down at his face one more time, and the tears in my eyes blurred my vision just enough that the contrived expression vanished, and for a flash of time, I could see him again, the grin, the twinkle and the light.
When I blinked, it was gone, and once again the cold body lay in front of me. I turned around and signaled to the funeral director.
“I’m ready. You can . . . close it.”
My mother came up behind me, leaning against my shoulder. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”
I managed a crooked smile. “Of course. I’ve got all my best girls here to keep me in line. How could I not be?” I caught Mr. Hughes’ eye and turned Mom, steering her away from the two men who were lowering the lid on the casket. “I think they’re about to open the church doors. You okay?”
She inhaled once, closing her eyes, and nodded. “Yes. We’ll get through this visitation, and then the Mass . . . and the wake. And then . . .” Her voice trailed off, and I knew what she was thinking.Yes, and then what?That was the million-dollar question.
My sisters joined us halfway up the aisle, and within a few moments, Mr. Hughes guided us back up front. Another man opened the doors and began to shepherd people toward us.
For two hours, we nodded, smiled, shook hands, hugged people we hardly knew and repeated the same words over and over.
“Thank you. Thank for you coming. We appreciate your kindness. Yes, we’re hanging in there.”
For me, of course, there were a few variations: “Yes, I got back into town about five days ago. No, I’m not sure how long I’m staying. Yes, it’s been a long time.”
At the start of the visitation, the people who passed through the line tended toward acquaintanceship: neighbors of my sister Iona and her husband, Maureen’s patients—well, their owners, anyway; Reenie was a veterinarian—and other people who couldn’t stay for the service. None of them spent more than a few minutes with us, expressing sympathy, offering condolences and getting the hell out. I didn’t blame them. As time went on, more family members showed up, including my dad’s brother and sister-in-law, who’d flown down from Philly, and of course my mother’s parents, who lived only about an hour south of us on the Florida coast. These encounters were longer and more emotional.
Interspersed between the two ends of the spectrum were people I hadn’t seen in years. Many of my father’s co-workers at the high school were also my old teachers, and there was more than a few teary hugs.
“Flynn Evans. Look at you.” Mrs. Pruitt had retired two years before, but she still managed to make me break out in a cold sweat with her snapping blue eyes. “You’re the image of your father.” She tugged a lace-edged hankie from her cleavage and dabbed at her nose. “God rest his soul.”
I swallowed back a new wave of unmanly tears. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Pruitt. You look great. How’s retirement?”
She waved her hand in front of her face. “What’s retirement? I’m still there at the high school, only now they call me a volunteer and don’t pay me.”
