He lifts me by the shoulders. My legs shake. I let him lead me to our house. As I walk down the hall to my bedroom, he says, “I heard there’s a service tomorrow at the funeral home by the bowling alley.”
In bed, I focus on the raw feeling of my lungs as I breathe. The pain from the toxic burn of nicotine dulls the image of Taylor on the side of the road, until all I can see is her one white sneaker on the double yellow lines, its laces still tied in a double-knotted bow.
* * *
The next morning, when my mother leaves to deliver food to the poor, I change into church clothes and walk into town. The air is so humid the back of my white dress shirt is soaked with sweat by the time I get to the funeral home.
The entrance is locked so I rap my knuckles against the door. A woman in a yellow bathrobe finally answers. Pink curlers cover her head; she smells like my mother’s synthetic Mary Kay rose scent. “We’re not open yet,” she says.
“What time is today’s service?” I ask.
The woman frowns. “It’s not until one, honey. It’s only ten.” She must sense that I’m coming undone, because she says, “Why don’t you come in and wait.”
Inside, the floral-print wallpaper feels oppressive, but the cold air from the vents works over my skin, cooling my pores. The woman leads me through the funeral home chapel into the resident’s section of the building where she must live. I recognize the woman from around town, though I’ve never spoken with her. I’ve only been to funerals at our church. She’s my parents’ age, maybe a bit older. In the kitchen, she picks up a burning cigarette from a plastic ashtray on the counter and says, “I’m making toast. Would you like some? You look like you should eat.”
It occurs to me that I didn’t eat yesterday. A sharp pain arises in my stomach. The smell of her cigarette makes me nauseous. “Yes, please,” I say.
The woman hums quietly as she scrapes butter across toast. My presence in her house doesn’t seem to bother her; people in my state must show up at her door every day. She cuts a slice of toast in half and places it in front of me on the table. She sits across from me and stubs out her cigarette. We eat without talking. When I finish my toast, she gets me a glass of tap water and lights another cigarette.
“Did you know her well?” the woman asks.
I nod but can’t speak.
“It’s okay, honey. You don’t have to talk about it. There’s nothing really to say about death anyway. It just happens and it’s never easy.” She smiles at me. “Especially not when it happens to someone so young. And the boy who was driving the car—his funeral’s at that Catholic church across town.”
I take a drink of water and clear my throat. “You don’t think things happen for a reason? Things like this? Do you?”
The woman laughs in a soft, kind way that tells me she must get asked this question often. She flicks gray ash from her cigarette into the plastic ashtray and sits back in her chair. “I’ve lived in this house my whole life,” she says. “I was raised around death. As far as I can tell, pain is doled out at random. The only thing that’s for certain is that it will be doled out to us all eventually.”
No adult has ever spoken to me so bluntly with words unbound from endless layers of dogma. The woman eyes me and her cheeks redden, as if she’s remembered how young I am.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Sometimes I just start talking.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
She presses her half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray and pats her pink curlers with her palm. “I need to put on my face for the service, honey,” she says. “You can sit in the chapel if you’d like. The girl’s family will be here soon with the flowers. But you’ll have some time to be alone with her. She’s been cremated.”
The woman smiles at me again and turns to leave the room, but I say, “Do you think God has a plan?”
She looks back at me and smiles. “I don’t know,” she says, “but it’s comforting to think so. Perhaps that’s why so many people do.” She leaves the room, and I finish my glass of water before drifting back into the chapel where I came in.
The ceramic urn sits on a white pedestal at the front of the room. Its cream surface contains a tree with roots spreading across its base. My tongue seems to swell in my mouth. I walk down the aisle between the rows of chairs until I’m only a few feet from the ashes. Unable to move any closer, I sit cross-legged on the rose-colored carpet. A pillar of sunlight cuts into the room through a window and washes over the urn. I stare at the glinting ceramic container as the numb ache of loss pulses in my head.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting there when I hear a car door close. Through a window at the back of the chapel, I see Taylor’s mother and her mother’s ex-boyfriend from the double-wide holding vases of white lilies. The ex-boyfriend peeks in through the window and looks around until his eyes set on me sitting on the carpet. He taps the glass and motions for me to let them in the locked door. I don’t move.
“Come on!” he yells through the windowpane. I turn and look back at the urn that holds all that’s left of Taylor. I consider grabbing the ashes and running away, but I’ve missed my chance to save her. The ex-boyfriend is gone from the window, and I hear him jiggling the locked door and yelling for me to let him in.
Before the woman who runs the funeral home can return to let Taylor’s mother and her ex-boyfriend into the chapel, I walk to the door marked Emergency Exit in the front of the chapel by the urn. When I push open the door, humid air rushes over me like the hot breath from some kind of god.
XX
We’re just sitting down for dinner when there’s a knock at the door. My father sighs. My mother touches his arm and says, “I’ll get it.”
We stare at the food in front of us. Steam rises from the lasagna resting on hotplates in the middle of the table. A bowl of green beans glistens with butter. A basket lined with a towel cradles warm garlic bread from the oven.
My mother is talking to a man with a boyish voice at the front door. The voice sounds familiar. My father must recognize it, because he stands and leaves my brother and me gazing at the food.
Now all three adult voices rise and the man laughs. The laughter makes the ringing noise come back in my ears. Decades later, the ringing still returns, faint but no less piercing, though I live in a city hundreds of miles away and have tried to shed the skin of my past. It comes when I catch the news of another godless war in the desert flickering on a television, Eden still burning, or when police lights appear in my rearview mirror—images of Taylor’s gray skin covered in red emergency lights flashing in my head. I have to steady myself before they vanish and the air snaps back into my lungs.
Across from me at the table now my brother’s eyes look tired—he must be coming down. The voices in the living room get louder until my parents walk into the kitchen with Father Brian. My mother gathers a plate and silverware and prepares another setting at the table.
My brother and I stare at Father Brian, who places the backpack he’s carrying on the floor beside his chair and sits. He’s not wearing his priest vestments and collar. The stubble of a beard is forming on his chin, and his hair is longer than it was in the spring when we last saw him. His button-up plaid shirt is open at the chest, and a ruffle of hair sticks out at the collar. A gold earring flashes in his left ear. He doesn’t look like a priest; he doesn’t even look like someone who would walk into our church.
“Father Brian, where have you been?” my brother blurts out.
“Don’t,” my father says.
Father Brian thanks my mother as she fills his glass with pink lemonade. He looks around the table, taking in our family. We must look different, too. My eyes swollen from thinking of Taylor as I lay awake at night. My brother’s eyes glassy from his high. My mother runs a hand through her hair that is beginning to slowly grow back. My father rubs the bags under his eyes, the bandage from the cut on his hand
that is just now healing specked with blood.
Father Brian smiles at us with the childlike grin that won over everyone in our church when he arrived last winter.
He looks at my brother and says, “It’s not Father Brian anymore. Just Brian. And to answer your question, I’ve been traveling on my journey through life. Or as Rimbaud put it, ‘I drifted on a river I could not control. No longer guided by the bargemen’s ropes.’”
When my brother opens his mouth to speak, my mother says, “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.” She takes my father’s plate and fills it with lasagna and green beans and a hunk of bread with a large pat of butter, continuing until all our plates are full.
Brian lifts his fork to eat, but my father clears his throat like a tired engine turning over. Brian looks up at my father and says, “Oh,” placing his fork down next to his plate. “It’s amazing how quickly one forgets the pageantry of religion.”
My father turns to him and says, “Would you do the honor of saying grace?”
Brian looks up from his plate. He turns to my mother. “I think that honor belongs to you,” he says.
My brother and I stare at our father to see what he’ll say, but my mother bows her head and begins to pray. “Thank You for the many blessings our family has received,” she says. “For health, for steady work—”
As she continues, I peek at Brian. His head isn’t bowed. Instead, he glances out the window at the late-summer evening. He smiles slightly as his eyes trace the way the light moves through the pine trees.
“—and for the wonderful surprise of Father Brian—I mean Brian—showing up at our house to eat this meal with us,” my mother finishes. “Amen,” she says, and we all whisper, “Amen.”
We eat in silence. At the head of the table, my father throws glances at Brian, eyeing his long hair and the gold stud dotting his ear.
“You gave up the priesthood?” my father finally says. “It’s that simple?”
Brian nods. “I fell in love with a woman I met in jail during the protests. She was a recovering drug addict, not a protester. She brought me closer to the truth than the church ever had. She told me about all the parts of the world she’s seen, gave me books to read.”
“And where is she now?” my father asks. “This woman?”
“It didn’t work out.” Brian pushes green beans around on his plate.
“So you’ve strayed from His flock for a woman and some books,” my father says. My mother grabs a piece of bread, slathers it with butter and places it on my father’s plate. But my father doesn’t notice.
“I guess that’s true,” Brian says, “but, you know, I feel no shame.”
My brother looks back and forth from my father to Brian, eyes wide, as if this exchange has brought him back from his sleepy haze.
Silent for a moment, Brian places his paper napkin on the table. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t be here ruining your beautiful meal. I didn’t come to offend you.”
When Brian stands, my father sighs and says in a quiet voice, “No, please stay and eat with us. Jesus wouldn’t turn anyone away, and I won’t, either.” My father’s shoulders slump from the immense weight that has been bracing down on him all summer.
Brian nods, returning to his seat.
“So what do you do now?” my mother asks, going through pains to not emphasize now, though her attempt only calls more attention to it.
“I’ve taken up photography,” he says. “I seek truth by looking through a lens. That’s how I talk to God now—if I talk to Him at all.” He motions to my father. “Just like you find truth by working with wood.”
We look down at the shiny gloss on our kitchen table. It is undoubtedly stunning. The wood grain moves in sharp lines under the heavy coats of polyurethane. There are no signs of imperfection, no scars on the surface from what it’s been through. And I should know—since it’s come into the house, I have studied it for any marks in the surface left from Taylor. So far I’ve found none.
“That’s actually why I’m back in town,” Brian says. “I’m going door-to-door offering my services to families who would like a portrait.” He takes a slow drink of lemonade, before adding, “I didn’t know where else to start.”
“We’ll take one,” my father declares. “A family portrait would be nice.”
My mother lowers her fork, clanging it against her plate, shocked that my father would want to pay for a photograph when money is this tight. He is still only doing contract work in Tennessee. My father smiles, and my mother sees what I see in that smile: this is the right thing to do, so we’re going to do it.
Brian lifts his backpack onto the table and removes a black camera with a wide-angle lens and a mounted flash at the top. It’s so striking I can’t help but smile as I examine it. He sets it on the table and I stare at it as if he’s placed the Holy Chalice in front of us.
“The light outside will be perfect soon,” Brian says. “After we eat we can start.”
* * *
There’s a chill in the evening air, as if any day now the leaves on the maple trees in our backyard will turn gold. My mother’s lilies are still in full bloom behind us. Their large petals open to the sky; yellow pollen spots the green stems. Their sweet perfume fills the air.
Brian sets up his tripod on our back lawn, and I see that he’s grown older since he disappeared.
My mother frowns at my white dress shirt that’s missing a button at the chest. She positions my father’s clip-on tie at my collar to cover the missing button.
“When school starts we’ll have to buy you a new dress shirt,” she says. By the way she looks away as she speaks, I know there won’t be money for it.
My brother protests as my mother pushes strands of hair off his forehead. It’s been months since she’s fussed over the way we look. My brother doesn’t fight her too hard as she smooths his hair to the side. He even smiles.
My father wears one of his work shirts, a short-sleeved button up. Though she’s gained back some weight, the blue blouse my mother wears looks too big on her frame. Her doctors are so confident the radiation treatments are working, they are beginning to murmur the word remission at her appointments. My mother pushes my brother and me closer together and positions our father next to my brother. Standing back, she considers the three of us. She shakes her head at our threadbare appearance.
“It will have to do,” she says, taking her place next to my father.
Brian makes a box with his thumbs and forefingers. Holding it out at arm’s length, he closes one eye and peers through the square he’s made. The ringing sound pierces my ears again—I squeeze my eyes shut to make it stop. My brother shuffles next to me.
“Move closer together and turn so the light hits your faces at an angle,” Brian says. We do as we’re told, turning until he exclaims, “Stop. That’s perfect—Rembrandt lighting.”
I can smell the deodorant my brother wears now that he’s about to enter high school. On his lip I make out the beginnings of a mustache. It’s getting harder to remember the kid he was.
“There it is,” Brian says, nodding his head as he takes us in with a smile. “The perfect image of a family on a summer’s day.”
“You have no idea,” my brother laughs.
My father starts to reprimand him but stops.
Brian presses his eye against the camera’s viewfinder. “Say cheese,” he says.
After snapping off a half dozen photos, Brian lifts the camera from its tripod. He begins circling around us, clicking photos as his shutter blinks, his movements forcing us closer to each other. We remain frozen as he kneels in front of us on the grass and angles the camera lens up, positioning our family in the viewfinder, desperate, as we all are, to talk to God.
* * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost a debt of gratitude to my mother and father—a
nd to Russ, Andy and Tom. This is a love letter written in the only way I know how.
I owe my obsession with stories to so many people. David Huddle, Patricia Powell, John Elder and the entire Bread Loaf community where my stories grew. To my Stonecoast mentors, Suzanne Strempek Shea, Elizabeth Searle, Sarah Braunstein, Aaron Hamburger, and to the original Rick Bass workshop crew, Devin Gaither, Peter Maskaluk, Shawn McGregor, Maggie Cushman, Connie McKee. To the St. Michael’s College family who taught me how to see: Christina Root, Carey Kaplan, Nathaniel Lewis, Will Marquess, the Onion River Review.
The Gorham School District for generously supporting my journey over the years—especially the C Lunch crew. My students for keeping the original fire alive. Kerry Herlihy, the one with the wisdom and the words. Josh MacLearn for generously reading early drafts. Emily Young and Dani LeBlanc at Word Portland for giving me a microphone to amplify my stories. Matt Delamater who sits with me for hours, dreaming the arts to life while drinking great beer. Big thanks to the Lake Winnipesaukee Arts Alliance and the Alteri family for an open door when I need solitude. And to Patrice Leary-Forrey at Vintage Maine Vacations for lending me a 1967 Airstream where the bulk of this manuscript was written.
The Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance is a godsend with their undying commitment to Maine writers.
My editor, John Glynn, took a chance on this story and brought his surgical eyes for storytelling every step of the way. I am ever grateful. Also to the entire Hanover Square Press and HarperCollins crew for doing everything it takes to breathe a book to life.
To my agent, Claire Anderson-Wheeler, whose steady belief in my stories continues to buoy me. She’s a brilliant reader, a listener and a badass.
And to my children, Otis and Alice, who have shown me the furthest depths of the heart.
Finally to Anna, again and again.
Soon the Light Will Be Perfect Page 17