by Kelly Rimmer
needed to do, and she had seemed quite sure that if she had gone
ahead with the pregnancy, we’d have been burying her anyway.
This was the start of me making peace with her loss, and when
these thoughts struck me, I finally started to cry.
The priest was reading bible verses now and talking about
“everlasting peace” and Grace’s new home of heaven. This, the
children seemed to understand, and I saw the shift in them.
Timmy especially held himself so stiffly, refusing to spill the
tears in his eyes. That beautiful boy stood there in one of my
mother’s expensive outfits, his hair freshly combed, with the
weight of the world on his shoulders. When I looked past him,
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I saw that Patrick was doing much the same, clenching his jaw
in order to keep the tears at bay. I crouched next to Tim, ig-
noring my mother’s questioning look, and I caught his shoul-
ders in my hands.
“You can cry, Tim. You don’t have to be brave.”
“But…” He looked from the grave to his siblings and then
back to me helplessly. “I want to be a big boy for…”
“Big boys cry sometimes,” I promised him. Tim glanced up
at Patrick skeptically, and Patrick looked down at us, frown-
ing. “In fact, sometimes even men cry. This is very unfair and
it’s very hard, so it’s okay to feel sad and scared, especially when
you’re with your family.”
Patrick swallowed, then closed his eyes. Two heavy tears ran
down his cheeks. When Tim looked up and saw his father cry-
ing his little face crumpled. He turned back to me, threw his
arms around my neck and started to sob. Soon Ruth and Jeremy
were crying too, and I sat on the grass so I could hold the three
of them at once. The priest kept looking over at us, and Mother
was still staring at us as if we were tarnishing the precious for-
mality of the funeral service by openly grieving the deceased.
But we didn’t do anything really scandalous until Patrick also
dropped to sit cross-legged on the grass, too.
“Come here,” he choked, and the twins and Tim ran at their
father, the four of them sobbing audibly against the backdrop
to the priest’s ongoing monologue.
“Momma,” Beth said, and she climbed onto my lap and
wrapped her arms around my neck then patted my back ever so
gently. “Momma sad.”
I’d suspected it the previous day, but here at the worst possible
time was undeniable proof that Beth really was confusing me
up with Grace. I knew that at least in this I had nothing to feel guilty about, but I did feel very guilty indeed. What if someone
heard and assumed that I’d encouraged her to do such a thing?
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“Yes,” I said, for the purposes of anyone who might have
overheard her. “It is sad that Momma is in heaven.”
“So very sad,” Mrs. Hills agreed behind us. “It’s all so very sad.”
The wake was held back at my mother and father’s house—
also known now by the children as “the castle”—and my par-
ents’ caterers had set out enough food and top-shelf liquor to
fell an elephant. I helped myself to a generous glass of sherry,
but when I glanced at Patrick, he was sipping water.
It was a dull function—more perfunctory than celebratory
of my sister’s life—and I could see the children were all bored
and exhausted after the emotional moments at the cemetery. It
wasn’t long before Patrick and I exchanged a glance, and then
by mutual, unspoken agreement, we made our farewells and
left. All four children had fallen asleep before we were even out
of Father’s street, leaning into one another in a way that made
my heart ache.
“You didn’t drink today,” I remarked to Patrick.
“Your parents would have loved it if I drank myself into a
stupor,” he said, dragging a heavy hand over his face. “I still
don’t know how I stop them from taking the kids, but I figure
a good place to start is to get my act together.”
“Good,” I said, nodding. “That’s good.” There was a pause,
then Patrick added, “If you have any other ideas, now would
be a good time to share them.”
“I don’t know if today is the day to talk about this,” I admit-
ted. I was utterly exhausted, already hoping the conversation
would fade so I could nap as Patrick drove home.
“I don’t have the luxury of time, Maryanne. If you have ideas,
spit them out.”
I sighed and sat back up, then rubbed at my temples.
“I think the first obstacle is childcare. Timmy will go to
school in a few months, but there’s the matter of the little ones
to worry about, and your work hours are much longer than a
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school day anyway. But if we can figure out a solution for child-
care, then that’s surely half the battle.”
“I was thinking I’d ask Mrs. Hills,” Patrick said. I coughed
delicately.
“She’s not going to be able to help.”
“How do you know?”
“I already suggested it.” I cleared my throat again. “She was
most unenthused about the idea.”
“Okay. Then I was thinking about asking Aunt Nina to move
down here.”
“Your aunt Nina?” I repeated, horrified. “Patrick, no. That
isn’t going to work, either.”
“I know she’s frail, but—”
“She’s more than frail. She couldn’t even stand up long enough
for the graveside ceremony.”
“And she’s lived in her house for sixty years,” Patrick admit-
ted, sighing. “Dragging her out of her home in Bellevue might
literally kill her. The problem is that anything else is going to
cost money I don’t have yet. It’s going to take me a while to
catch up on the bills even after I’m back at work next week.”
I closed my eyes, then swallowed the lump in my throat. I
still hadn’t found Grace’s notes, and I knew that I couldn’t leave until I did. I could almost feel my escape to California slipping
through my fingers.
“I’ll call my supervisor and ask for leave until the end of the
semester.”
“How long is that?”
“Six weeks. I could stay six more weeks to care for the kids.
You can try to catch up on your bills, and we can try to find a
long-term solution for the kids.”
“And if your parents come for the children in the meantime?”
“Then we find a lawyer.”
“With what money?”
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“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess we have to hope they
see sense before it gets that far.”
“Mommy?”
“I’m Aunt Maryanne, Beth.”
I had no baseline against which to compare her speech, but
Beth seemed to be quite eloquent for such a tiny child. Still, she either couldn’t wrap her mouth around the words “Aunt Maryanne,” or my slight physical resemblance to my sister was just
too much for her. Maybe it was some combination of both. All I
knew was, every single time she called me Mommy I corrected
her, and every single time I corrected her, she’d give me an odd
look and ignore me.
“Mommy drink,” she said, and she took my hand and led me
through to the kitchen, where she stared at me expectantly. I
sighed and poured some water into a cup, then watched as she
drank it. Beth passed the cup back and turned to leave the room.
“Uh-uh, Beth,” I scolded. “Now, what do you say?”
“Thank you, Mommy.”
“Thank you, Aunt Maryanne,” I corrected. She toddled out of
the room as if I hadn’t spoken, and I watched her go, frowning
as I tried to figure out exactly what to do about the confusion.
In the weeks since we buried Grace, I’d tried firmly correcting
Beth. I’d tried patience. I’d even accidentally snapped at her a
few times, because although I wanted to be compassionate and
her circumstances were heartbreaking, I was grieving, too. I had
just lost my sister, and my own life was hanging in the balance,
because somewhere in that house, my sister had left the death
warrant to my career. Some days, it was a battle to keep a level
head, and the constant reminder from Beth that her mother was
gone was almost too much to bear.
“Mommy!” Ruth screeched then, tearing into the kitchen at
a lightning-fast pace with Jeremy on her heels. “Jeremy hit me!”
“Auntie Maryanne!” I exclaimed, and Ruth and Jeremy both
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came to an abrupt stop. “My name is Aunt Maryanne. Mommy
is gone and she’s never coming back and you have to stop call-
ing me that!”
The twins stared up at me with wide, rapidly moistening
eyes, and then Ruth burst into noisy sobs. Jeremy threw his
arms around her and Tim came barreling in from the backyard.
“Why is everyone crying?” he asked with some exasperation.
And in that moment I felt like the child, because Tim had this
parental way about him that was both disturbing and adorable
for a four-and-a-half-year-old.
“They keep calling me Mommy,” I said, my tone both de-
fensive and uneven. Tim frowned at me as he joined Jeremy to
console Ruth.
“You’re not my mom,” he said, suddenly grumpy. “But she’s
not here, and they miss her, and you look just like her. Why do
you have to be so mean?”
I guess that’s when it really started—when I finally stopped
resisting the mantle the smallest of the children seemed deter-
mined to thrust upon my shoulders. Maybe I just gave in. Maybe
I decided it wasn’t doing any harm.
And maybe I let them call me Mommy because I knew deep
down that but for me, their mommy would still be there with
them.
Patrick and I had both become so sick of waiting for an awful
phone call from my parents that after a few weeks, we unplugged
the phone altogether. Still, I knew that sooner or later they’d
just come to the doorstep if they were ready to make a serious
play for custody of the children. And besides, instead of warily
watching the phone, now I warily watched the driveway.
Over the weeks after the funeral, I was genuinely run off my
feet. I felt sure I’d checked every possible space in the house for
Grace’s notes, so I started way back at the beginning, doing a
second pass of every nook and cranny. When I wasn’t frantically
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searching, I made dozens of phone calls to day-care centers all
over the city, only to discover that finding a solution to Patrick’s
problem was harder than I had anticipated. Childcare was far
more expensive than I’d ever realized, but even if money wasn’t
an issue, the hours on offer were much shorter than his work-
day. How on earth would Patrick manage to get to work for his
6 a.m. start if the day-care centers didn’t open until eight? And
how would he juggle picking the children up at 5 p.m., when
he worked on job sites all over the city?
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my search was proving
utterly fruitless, mostly because he was doing everything right. It was rare for Patrick to be late home from work in those days.
He was always bursting through the door right when he said
he would, covered in sawdust and dirt, making a beeline for
wherever the children happened to be—usually bathed and in
their pajamas, often snuggled around me as I read them a story.
Those kids had such a voracious appetite to be read to, especially
Beth. Some nights I’d read her a dozen picture books before I
finally got them into bed, and we were walking to the library
several times a week because I got so sick of reading the same
books over and over.
Still, I made a point to extract myself very quickly from the
circle of that little family once Patrick came home, retreating to
“my” bedroom to read. It wasn’t always easy—Beth had taken
to me more and more, and some nights she’d cling to my legs or
cry when I tried to say good-night. However, I was well aware
that my time with my nieces and nephews would soon come to
an end, so I made a point of quickly handing over responsibility
to Patrick despite protests from Beth or anyone else. I’d walk to
my room with my spine stiff, leaving that domestic bubble to
go back to my own life in limbo.
But one night, as I went to bolt for the bedroom, Patrick
called after me.
“Do you have to rush off?”
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If he’d hinted for me to linger anytime over the weeks since
Grace’s death, I’d have been irritated at still more demands on
my time. But this was New Patrick. This was the man who
thanked me constantly and who washed up his own dishes from
dinner, and who noticed that Ruth needed new underwear and
who tried very hard to catch up on his bills, even though that
meant no money for whiskey. I wasn’t sure I liked New Patrick,
but I didn’t dislike him, either, and I was conscious of a grow-
ing respect for the man.
“Is something wrong?” I asked him.
“Not really. Just felt like a chat.”
The house felt like a completely different place without the
stampede of little feet thundering against the floorboards or the
television blaring too loudly, or the endless cycle of happy play
that turned to raucous roughhousing that turned to the inevi-
table tears. The younger children all napped during the day, but
rarely at the same time, and so I wasn’t sure how I felt about
being out of my room during the quiet hours. But then Patrick
flashed me a tired grin and asked, “I’m guessing you cooked
enough for fifty or sixty people, like you usually do?”
I laughed weakly.
“Yes, there’s plenty there. Unfortunately, it’s not very good.”
“Maryanne, have I ever once complained about your cook-
ing?”
“You have not,” I conceded. “But you’ll notice I don’t ever
linger to watch you eat.”
“I’m the last person on this planet who would ever criticize
someone else’s cooking skills.”
So we sat opposite one another at the dining room table with
steaming bowls of the stew I’d made, and the silence was some-
thing like companionable. Patrick dove into the meal as if he
hadn’t eaten in weeks, and only when the bowl was half-empty
did he pause long enough to say, “If things at work keep going
well for me, I’m getting a promotion.”
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“Really?”
“Ewan said today he’d let me shadow him as foreman…to
learn how to manage jobs myself so he can expand the busi-
ness. It means a lot more responsibility—but also eventually,
it’ll mean more money. A lot more money, if I do a good job,
and maybe one day I’ll even be able to go out on my own. And
once I finish training and my wages go up, I’ll be able to fix
up this house and afford proper day care and who knows what
else. Anything else me and the kids need, really. I just never
thought Ewan would trust me with an opportunity like this but
he said…” Patrick hesitated, then cleared his throat and gave
me a surprisingly bashful smile. “He said that he’s been waiting
for years for me to show some initiative, because he desperately
needs another foreman.”
Something about that smile endeared me to Patrick in a way
I’d never experienced before with him. It took me a minute
to grasp what it was. He had always been a little brash, a little
too charming for his own good—but those awful months had
humbled him. The sensitive side I’d seen hints of in the early
days after Grace’s death was now on full display, and it was a