by Amy Cross
Father says that I analyze people too much.
Even my father, whose hands have been shaking all morning, seems stiller now that Father Martin Wetterborne is preparing to start his performance. I study the priest intently, looking for any sign - in the way he walks, the way he talks, the way he looks about the room - that he knows this God stuff is all a load of baloney. So far: nothing.
"Laney, sit up straight," says my father.
"My back hurts," I say.
"Sit up straight," my father says again, as if that will help. "Your mother wouldn't want to see you slouching".
I sit up moodily, with all the pain the move entails. I won't forgive him that little dab of emotional blackmail about my mother, not any time soon.
The coffin is at the front, just a few feet from where I'm sitting, and it looks awfully narrow for a woman of my mother's bulk. I can't help wondering, as I stare at its beveled edges and polished handles, whether the undertakers – in an attempt to save space – maybe sliced off her arms and legs and threw them in on top of her, before sealing the lid. That would explain why there isn't an open casket.
The organ starts up, and I hear my brother David say "Here we go," with a petulant tone in his voice. I glance at my father, who stares resolutely ahead. He won't respond to any of David's provocations today, but there'll be hell to pay later, when all the guests have gone home.
Father Wetterborne gets up to speak. Yes, that's his real name. He opens his Bible. I stare at him and I think Come on, you know this is crap. Admit it. You know it. You know know know know know know know know know know it so why not say it?
"We are gathered here to say farewell to Martha Louise Hampton," he says (see!?!? I told you! I could do his job!) once the organ music has stopped. "Wife to Ralph, mother to David, Lanelle and Michael, daughter to Sarah and Edward, friend to so many of us who are here today to pay our respects".
Will he tell the congregation how she died? They all know, anyway: she slipped on a scoop of ice cream she'd dropped a couple of minutes earlier, and in her pill-addled state she fell down the stairs and got her neck broken.
"Her tragic and untimely death has touched us all in our own individual ways," Father Wetterborne says. So I guess he'll be skipping over the ignominy of the manner of my mother's passing. Yeah, I know the word 'ignominy'. Sometimes I think I'm a bit of a genius, but then my teachers keep handing back my assignments with F's and E's scrawled all over them. I'm doing something wrong, but I just don't know what...
I zoned out. I listen again to the priest. "...her beloved dog Tobias, who was her constant companion during her final years". Oh great, he's onto the dog. This should fill up an entertaining few minutes. The dog is, after all, the only member of this family who has shown any genuine emotion at my mother's death. "And just like Martha," the priest says, "Tobias was a rescue dog".
I fail to stifle a little laugh. And another. I lean forward a little, trying really hard not to laugh, but it's hard. Just like Martha, Tobias was a rescue dog. I'm cracking up here. I really hope no-one in the rows behind sees me laughing at my own mother's funeral.
Suddenly a hand alights on my shoulder from the row behind. I hear someone lean close and whisper to me: "It's okay to cry, sweetheart. Let it out".
That straightens me up a bit, but I still think it's pretty funny.
"It was very much typical of Martha to take in a poor abandoned stray dog and treat him as one of her own". Ha! Treat him as one of her own. She treated him better than one of her own!
Okay. Everyone's really into the priest's sermon, no-one's looking at me. So I casually reach into my pocket and pull out the little bottle of whiskey I borrowed from my father's liquor cabinet this morning. I quietly unscrew the lid and very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very slowly and discreetly lift the bottle to my lips to take a big swig -
"Damn it!" my father half-shouts, half-hisses, thrashing out and knocking the bottle out of my hands. It lands on the cold stone floor of the church. At least it's a plastic bottle, so it doesn't break, but all the whiskey has pretty much leaked out and I don't think now would be an opportune moment to lean down and save the rest. I mean, I could lick it off the floor like a dog, but in the circumstances that might not be too wise.
I look up. The priest, my father, my brothers, all the people I can see are staring at me, with varying degrees of shock on their faces.
My father gets up, grabs my arm and forces me to follow him. We walk quickly down the center aisle, with everyone either pretending like they aren't watching, or gawking like idiots. I smile at a few of them, but I can tell by how fast my father is walking and by how firmly he is dragging me along with him that I'm in some sort of trouble again.
I wonder what I've done this time.
II
“I get it, Laney! You want attention! You want everyone to tell you that you're the smartest girl they ever met, and do you know what? You probably are! But do you really need that kind of validation every single day? Do you really need it at your mother's funeral?”
“I don't know what you mean,” I reply, and suddenly there are tears in my eyes.
Where did they come from?
Why weren't they there earlier?
“Your mother indulged you,” he says with a sigh, turning away for a moment and looking toward the far end of the parking lot. He puts his hands on his face. “She trained you to act out.”
“No,” I whimper, and now my lips are trembling. I'm losing control of my face. “Daddy, please...”
“You're too smart for your own good. Do you realize that?” He turns to me again, and he looks absolutely exasperated. “You're eleven years old, Laney, but you act like...” His voice trails off for a moment. “You need to hold on a little bit,” he continues finally. “No matter how smart you might feel, you need to understand that you're still just a kid. You're a child.”
I lower my head as tears flow more freely than before.
“And your mother's gone, and she was always better than me at dealing with you.” He steps closer and puts a hand on my shoulder. I want to shrug the hand away, but I don't want to be accused of being a drama queen. “I need you to just calm down for a while, Laney. I need you to moderate your behavior a little. Not forever, just while we're all dealing with what happened. Do you think you can do that?”
I don't answer.
What am I supposed to say, anyway?
Mum would know what to do right now. I look around, in case her ghost is somewhere nearby, but there's no sign of her. Shouldn't she be here by now? Shouldn't she have started haunting me? That's how ghosts work, they come back and they haunt us. We see them watching us, and then sometimes they come close. I watch the far end of the parking lot for a moment longer, and then I turn and look over my shoulder.
“Are you listening to me?”
Dad grabs my chin and forces me to look up at him.
I nod.
“What did I just say?” he asks.
“You said that I need to moderate my behavior a little.”
“What did I say after that?”
I think for a moment, and then I shrug.
“Damn it, Laney, you're off in your own world again, aren't you?” He sighs. How many times has he sighed today? A million? “This is your mother's funeral,” he adds finally.
“I know,” I tell him.
“And you're just a kid.”
“I'm -”
“This is really hard for you.”
I swallow hard. For some reason, my throat feels a little swollen, as if I've swallowed something that hasn't fully gone down. I want to go back inside now, but Dad isn't saying anything and I realize after a moment that there's still something I want to ask him.
“How long do you think it'll take her to come back?” I ask finally.
“What do you mean?”
“Mum promised she'd come back and give me a message,” I continue, “or at least a sign. She told me that one time, a while before she die
d. She promised that if it was at all possible, she'd come back and let me know that she's watching over me.”
“Laney...”
“Now, I understand that these things take time,” I tell him. “Wherever she is, she still has to learn the rope, that sort of thing. It can't be easy. There might be some kind of induction period, like a kind of school.”
“Laney, please...”
“But I was wondering how long it might take,” I continue, “and... I was wondering how I'll know. What kind of sign should I be expecting?”
“Laney, I think maybe you've misunderstood.”
“No,” I reply, “she was very clear. She just didn't know how she'd be able to do it, I suppose. But do you think time even exists in Heaven? I've been thinking about it and I don't see why it should.”
Sighing (again), he steps closer and puts his arms around me.
“Your mother loved you very much,” he tells me, “and she still does. And wherever she is, I'm sure she's looking down at you. It's just... I'm not sure that she's going to be able to come back and give you a clear, definite sign. That doesn't mean you should be sad, though. It just means you should understand that these things work mysteriously. Can you see that?”
“Yes,” I reply. “I think. Sort of.”
“You mustn't take things too literally.”
“Okay.”
“And you mustn't forget that your mother loved you so, so much.”
I can feel tears behind my eyes. I take a moment to hold them back.
“I know,” I say finally.
“So let's both be brave and go back into the church,” he continues, taking a step back and then taking hold of my right hand. “Instead of waiting for signs, let's remember all the good times we had with your mother. Is that a deal?”
I pause, before nodding.
“I can't believe you had that whiskey with you,” he adds. “Where did you find it, anyway?”
“I don't remember.”
“And Laney,” he adds, “one more thing.” He falls silent for a moment as we make our way back inside. “When people come back to the house later, after the funeral, you have to behave. Do you understand? You are absolutely, categorically, strictly not to do or say anything weird or out of place. Is that clear?”
“Totally,” I reply. “I promise, Dad. I won't do anything weird when we get back to the house.”
III
There's a seagull in the freezer.
I decide to close the door. My family members sometimes make it extremely difficult for me to judge things; at the best of times, the true state of affairs is not always apparent to me. I decide to open the freezer door. Once again, there's a seagull in the freezer. I decide to close the door. I decide now might not be a good time to think about this, although it occurs to me that of the three people in this house, I am by far the most likely to have put the seagull in the freezer. I sigh. It's Friday. I wish I could remember Thursday. I decide to look over at the window; it looks like a normal day outside. But it's not a normal day. It's the day of my mother's funeral, and there's a seagull in the freezer.
People are talking in the other room. When Dad said that we'd have guests coming back to the house after the funeral, he wasn't kidding. I've never seen so many people in our house before.
I decide to go out to the front garden, where David is playing with his car. He's washing it with a sponge. He looks up and smiles as I approach. I stop approaching. There's a seagull in the freezer. I decide it would be a good idea to talk to David about this; I remember David telling me to always talk to him about things that are worrying me, and the seagull in the freezer is worrying me.
"David," I say, "have you looked in the chest freezer?"
"No, Laney, I haven't. Why?"
"There's a seagull inside it."
"Is there really?"
"Yes."
He smiles, and then he stops smiling. Now he has that face that means he doesn't quite know whether or not to believe me. I know that face well. I see it a lot.
We go into the chest freezer and he opens the freezer door. I don't look into the freezer, but I can tell that he has seen the seagull. This is a relief: I was worried I might have imagined the seagull, but the look on David's face is all the confirmation I need that this is really happening. That there really is a seagull in the freezer.
"Laney,” he says cautiously, “did you put this here?"
"David, I don't know."
“How can you not know?”
“I get confused sometimes.”
“This seems like something that someone would remember.”
“I agree, but here we are.”
“Are you crazy, Laney?”
“I'm eleven years old,” I point out. “I haven't had time to go crazy.”
“But this does seem like something you'd do,” he points out, not unreasonably. “For, you know...”
“For attention?”
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“Well, I agree,” I tell him. “Wouldn't I remember doing it, though?”
“It's not something that'd be easy to forget.”
“Exactly.” I pause, and I feel a flicker of concern in my chest. “David,” I continue, “I have to tell you, I don't feel entirely in control of myself today. I'm worried about that.”
He reaches into the freezer and takes out the frozen seagull. It's a magnificent bird, with its wings outstretched. Frankly, it's not something that would fit into most freezers, but of course Mum wanted a really big freezer. Maybe she was thinking ahead; maybe she guessed that maybe something like this would happen. Then again, how could she?
David puts the seagull on the work surface and stares at it. I think he's having a hard time believing it's real. I don't blame him. It's truly, truly the most magnificent thing I've ever seen, and I can't help staring at it in awe.
“This doesn't happen every day, does it?” I said finally.
“No, it doesn't.”
“Should we tell Dad?”
“Dad has a lot on his mind at the moment,” he replies, “and he'd probably freak out about the freezer being dirty. Let's wait and tell him after everyone's gone.”
“But -”
“Trust me, Laney.”
I think about this for a moment, and then I nod.
“David!” Dad calls out from the next room. “Can you bring some more plates through?”
“I have to go,” David tells me. “Take the frozen seagull outside and put it where no-one'll see it. For Dad.”
“Okay.”
“Please don't turn this into a big scene,” he adds. “You always do that, Laney.”
“I do not!”
“Yes, you do, and you know it! But not this time, okay? It's Mum's funeral, and we don't need any weirdness.”
“David!” Dad shouts.
“Coming!” He leans closer to me. “Just get that ridiculous thing out of here!”
Once he's gone, I realize that he might have a point. Dad specifically asked me to not do anything weird this afternoon, and I know that he'd blame me if he saw the seagull. Obviously there's no way I could ever be responsible for this thing, but I doubt Dad would keep a cool head. Right now, I have to do what David said and get the seagull out of the house before anyone finds out about it.
I take a towel and wrap it around the seagull, and then I carry it out into the garden. It's heavy, but I can just about manage. After a moment, however, I look around as I try to work out where exactly I can put the seagull for now.
Finally, having no better idea, I hurry toward the forest at the far end of the garden. I glance over my shoulder, to make sure that no-one can see me, and then I quicken my pace. I have no idea who put the seagull in the freezer, but I suppose there'll be time to figure that out later. For now, I can only assume that it was put there as a joke, or for scientific purposes, or -
Suddenly I come to a halt on the lawn, and I stare down at the frozen seagull in my arms.
“Or,” I whis
per, with a sense of wonder in my chest, “as a message.”
IV
“Mum?”
I stay stock still, on my knees in the forest, staring at the frozen face of the frozen seagull.
I wait.
Silence.
“Mum?” I say again, a little louder this time. “Is... Is that you?”
This whole situation is ridiculous. I know that, I don't need to be told. At the same time, I can't shake the feeling that maybe this seagull was put here as a kind of message. After all, if you were trying to get a message to someone, if you were reaching out all the way from somewhere like Heaven, you'd want to make absolutely certain that the message would be noticed. And a seagull in the freezer is something that no-one would ever be able to miss.
“Mum,” I say for a third time, still staring at the frozen seagull. “It's me. It's Laney. I'm right here.”
The seagull doesn't look like Mum, of course. Not remotely. With its beak wide open and its beady little eyes, it looks as if it died mid-squawk. When I first found the seagull, there were little ice crystals all over its eyes, but now those seem to have started melting away, and I suppose the seagull must be thawing out here in the forest. That'll be a long process, of course, but it might be completely necessary. After all, Mum can't communicate through a seagull when it's frozen. That would be stupid. She'll need it to thaw first.
Which is why I've placed it in this patch of sun.
“I don't know if you're in there,” I continue, “and I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm going to wait until you've thawed out. People have come back to the house after your funeral and, well, they probably won't notice that I'm missing. Even if they do, they'll probably think that I'm off playing somewhere. I doubt anyone will get worried, which means that I have plenty of time to wait for the seagull to thaw. I just wish I could think of some way to speed things along a little.
“I was really sad after you died,” I explain, hoping that somehow she can hear me. “I tried not to let Dad and David see. I tried to hide it from everyone. I only cried at night, when they couldn't see me, and I taught myself how to cry without making any noise. That was really hard, but I managed it. And I still miss you, even though I try to keep it really well hidden. That's not wrong, is it?”