A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents

by Liza Palmer

  “Leo only wears underpants and capes!” Abigail protests.

  “So!?!”

  “I swear to God, if you touch my stuff,” Abigail warns.

  Unable to control my compulsion to do the opposite of anything Abigail tells me to, I bolt over to her neatly folded basket of clean laundry and sit directly on top of it, praying to any god that will listen to please… please let me fart. I dig my narrow thirteen-year-old ass deeper and deeper into the recesses of the laundry, past tiny rainbow T-shirts, Day-Glo sweatshirts and Jordache jeans.

  “I’m going to killllll you!!!” Abigail screams, charging at me.

  “Huuuuusttooonnnnnnnnn!” I scream, raising my hands defensively as Abigail and I both topple over the basket, her clean laundry spilling everywhere. Huston gets up from the dining room table and starts toward us. Leo lets out a weary sigh and focuses back on his ever-present puzzle book. He always has a Plan B.

  “Don’t you help her, Huston! You are so dead!!!” Abigail squeals, tugging at my hair and clawing my face.

  “I may be dead, but you still have to do your laundry all over again!!!!” I hawk a giant loogie over as many of her clothes as I can. Those Skittles I picked up after school do wonders for my Technicolor saliva production. My pinkish-red spit goes everywhere—clinging to way more garments than I ever could have hoped for. Abigail lets out a primitive howl, grabs my still-spitting mouth and pins me to the living room floor. Leo meanders over from the dining room table.

  “Stop it!!! Come on! It’s your turn, Abigail,” Leo demands, pointing to the unfinished game on the dining room table. He has an old towel tied around his shoulders, and is clad in underpants and a pair of red Wellingtons. At eleven, Leo’s a bit old to be running around in costumes. Mom hates to discipline him, really any of us, since she asked Dad to leave a few months ago after she caught him with another woman… again. We’re hoping things will go back to normal soon. And not just Leo and his costumes.

  “Enough! Enough!” Huston says, peeling Abigail off with the strength of the varsity quarterback he is. He holds Abigail by the upturned collar of her pink Lacoste shirt as she swats at me. At him. At everyone.

  “I’m so telling Mom,” Abigail fumes.

  “It’s still your turn, Abigail,” Leo pleads, knowing the game is close to lost.

  “You’re still going to have to do your laundry again,” I sing, wiping the last strands of pinkish-red spit from my chin.

  Abigail defiantly walks back over to the dining room table, picks up the die and surveys the board. I am six spaces away from winning. Abigail blows on the die for good luck.

  “You’re going to do both your laundry and Abigail’s, Gracie. It’s only fair,” Huston says, as both of us walk back over to the dining room table. Abigail rolls a five.

  “Oh, yeah?” I answer, sitting. Abigail moves—one, two…

  “Yeah,” Huston says, leaning toward me. Abigail knocks my little yellow man off the board and onto the floor.

  “Well, you’re not Mom, so you can’t decide…” I bluster, watching the little yellow game piece skitter across the floor.

  “No, I’m your older brother, so I actually don’t have to be nice to you,” Huston says, scooting even closer, downright looming if you ask me. I am unimpressed… stupid, but unimpressed.

  “Sorrrryyyyyyy,” Abigail proclaims, sitting back in her chair.

  “See? She apologized, now you have to redo the laundry,” Huston says, picking me up and holding me upside down over the board. My tangled ponytail sweeps the game’s surface and the pieces scatter.

  “Yeah! Now get to it!” Abigail orders, grinning widely. Huston scoops me up and stands me upright.

  “Fine,” I say, steadying myself, giggling and picking my yellow man up off the floor along with a few others.

  “Your turn, Huston,” Leo urges, scrambling to put each piece back where it had been. Thanks to his freakish photographic memory he gets every position correct.

  “Okay… okay,” Huston says, laughing.

  I put my yellow man back at Start and settle in.

  “Grace?” Huston’s voice crackles through the phone. I reorient myself. The din of Noah’s Bagels zooms back. I steady myself on the counter, still clutching my empty large cup; the tea bag is now a crumpled mess.

  “I’m not taking her calls because I’m not interested in what she has to say,” I explain, turning away from Tim. He walks over to where the group is seated.

  “It’s your choice not to be a part of this,” Huston says. The weight of what I did smothers me as it does every time I let myself think of my family.

  I bolted.

  I ran from the only people who loved me. I should have run to them when Mom died. But I just couldn’t get away fast enough. Their love felt like a building on fire. I had to stop the burning.

  Huston continues, “It’s great to hear your voice again.”

  A flash flood of emotions begins to penetrate my carefully constructed barriers. Panicked, I focus on Tim settling in next to Laura. He looks over at me. The divide between my two identities is comical.

  “Me, too,” I whisper.

  Huston laughs. “You’re glad to hear your own voice?”

  “No, I mean… it’s good to hear your voice, too.” I laugh in spite of myself. I watch as Tim picks up our baskets of bagels. He settles back in, taking a huge bite of his—cream cheese everywhere.

  I remember that back before Tim and I started dating I believed him to be a monkeyhander: a word Mom coined to describe (or poke fun at) Abigail’s exceptionally long fingers and her habit of pawing at people like some kind of mutant-alien. As we grew up, monkeyhander evolved into an adjective we all used to describe a lover who was good on paper, but devoid of that… spark. So whenever I fantasized about Tim, we were always cuddling and lounging around doing crosswords on an overstuffed couch. Not struggling to get each other’s clothes off in the heat of the moment. I had that once. Wasn’t ready for it again. So with Tim I prudently fantasized about golden retrievers, morning cups of coffee and a retirement plan.

  “Leo’s coming,” Huston breaks in.

  “Be sure to bring some air freshener and bail money,” I joke. Huston laughs.

  I continue, “Well, then…”

  “So, I’ll see you later,” Huston says, getting down to business.

  “I… uh—”

  “I understand this is tough, but you must know that we’re looking forward to seeing you,” Huston interrupts.

  I am quiet.

  “Then it’s settled,” Huston says.

  “If by settled you mean that you’ve bullied me into going, then—”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Huston says. Even twenty years later my brother is just as imposing as he was over a game of Sorry!

  “Huston—” I start.

  “Grace—”

  I cut in, “Let me finish, please,” still stupid enough to challenge him.

  Huston is quiet.

  “I’m standing in a goddamn Noah’s Bagels… and… I just need to get my head together,” I finally say.

  “You’ve had five years to get your head together, Grace. You’re thirty-five years old. The onus is on you to be a member of this family now whether you feel you’re ready or not.” Huston’s voice slithers over the word feel as if it’s the most ridiculous word in the English language.

  I am quiet. Suddenly ashamed and embarrassed.

  “So, it’s settled,” Huston repeats.

  “Yes,” I say, almost in a whisper.

  “See you when I see you,” Huston says, finally hanging up.

  “See you when I see you,” I say to the dial tone. I beep my BlackBerry off. What just happened? I walk outside. Run outside. Faster. Faster. Outside. Away. The rain. Close my eyes. Can I really return to this family? I don’t have the heart… I mean, I literally don’t.

  It broke into a million pieces the day Mom died.

  chapter three

  I thought your dad wa
s dead?” Tim whispers, as I pull a chair up to the group after finally filling my cup with hot water. Little Earl Grey flakes float on top like fish food.

  “No, it was my mom who died,” I say. So normal. Just words.

  “Then where has your dad been?” Tim presses, crossing his long legs and turning his chair toward me.

  “Apparently he’s been in Ojai, California. Less than a hundred miles away. He left—well, he was asked to leave, when I was thirteen…” I trail off, having given Tim more information about my past in the last ten seconds than I have in all the months we’ve been together.

  “So, what are you going to do now?” Laura chimes in.

  “I’m going to eat my blueberry bagel,” I answer, dismissing her and her ridiculous assumption that this is any of her business.

  “Do you have any other family?” Laura presses. I swallow my bite of bagel with an apologetic shrug. They wait. Fantastic.

  “I had two brothers and a sister,” I admit, swallowing.

  “Had?” Laura asks. A look of horror passes across her Botoxed face—at least I think it’s horror—she could be laughing maniacally, for all I can tell.

  “Have. I have two brothers and a sister,” I say, wiping my mouth with a napkin. Laura relaxes. She must have thought I lost my whole family in some hideous accident. I laugh at the thought. But. Wait. Wait. The numbness I’ve luxuriated in for the past five years tingles like a foot that’s been asleep. It wasn’t a hideous accident. I walked away from my entire family voluntarily. I gulp my tea, instantaneously burning my mouth, esophagus and stomach lining. I slam the teacup down on the table, gulping for air. I pull my complimentary water out of my purse and drink the last droplets.

  The table waits. I set the little water bottle down.

  “And where are they now?” another woman chimes in. Do I even know her name? I know she’s told it to me a thousand times. I always refer to her as Slip Is Showing.

  “They’re still here… Huston’s in Pacific Palisades—”

  “Houston—like the city?” Slip Is Showing cuts in.

  “Yeah, but it’s just H-U-S-T-O-N, not H…” I trail off.

  “O-U-S-T-O-N,” Slip Is Showing embarrassingly finishes.

  “We all know how to spell Houston,” Laura says, laughing.

  “I couldn’t let it just hang there.” Slip Is Showing’s face reddens.

  “So, Huston spelled with just a u and not like the city, is in the Palisades—where’s everyone else?” Laura urges. I thought my detour through Houston had blessedly led us away from where this conversation was going. No such luck.

  “Abigail’s in South Pasadena and Leo’s in Pasadena… where I am. Last I heard,” I say, now taking the top off my tea and blowing on the hot water, which was apparently plumbed from the center of the earth.

  “Last you heard?” Laura asks, thrusting her breasts in my direction.

  “I haven’t spoken to them since Mom died,” I say. Tim is riveted. Whenever he’s asked about my family, I’ve always just said it was “complicated.” He never pressed further—one of the traits I appreciated most in him.

  “What… what happened to you?” Slip Is Showing asks, her face contorted in worry, her eyes looking on with wonder. I feel like a white tiger behind plate glass: one part scrutinized, the other pitied.

  “What happened to me?” I repeat, sharpening my claws.

  “So, you guys weren’t close then,” Laura cuts in.

  “Oh, no—we were pretty much inseparable,” I admit, feeling less and less confident with the choices I’ve made over the past five years.

  The table is silent.

  “So, you just walked away?” Tim finally asks, his voice heartbreakingly quiet.

  “Yeah,” I answer, my voice clear, but hollow.

  Without missing a beat, “And they let you?” Laura asks, her voice angry.

  “What?” I say, looking up and into her pooly blue eyes.

  “You were obviously in some full-blown depression—why did they just let you run away like that?” Laura is angry. I feel a pang of guilt for rolling my eyes every time I saw her over the last seven years.

  “I don’t think I was reachable… to anyone,” I say, almost into my teacup. I didn’t exactly wile away my days on the couch, swathed in a blanket, weeping and watching daytime television. I had never been like that in the past and certainly wasn’t going to start then. I simply decided I wasn’t going to think about it. Couldn’t think about it. All of Abigail’s phone calls, Leo’s e-mails, even the letters Huston sent rush back to me. I locked them all out and dove into work. It was the only way I could survive. This is the philosophy I’ve built my entire life around for the last five years. A philosophy that led me here: to an intervention at Noah’s Bagels. I force myself back to the conversation at hand. Slip Is Showing is asking me something.

  “For five years?” Slip Is Showing asks again.

  “Are they older or younger?” Laura asks.

  “Two older, one younger,” I answer, automatically.

  “How… how do you just walk away?” Slip Is Showing asks, marveling.

  “It just got easier every day. For everyone, I guess,” I say, now looking around the Noah’s Bagels like I’m waiting for someone. A lone gunman, maybe? One who’ll put us all out of our misery?

  “I didn’t know any of this,” Tim says, his voice low.

  “I know,” I say, unable to look at him.

  The table is quiet.

  “You must have really loved her,” Laura finally says.

  My head jolts up and I look directly into Laura’s now welling eyes. A person I’ve never taken seriously. A person whose last name I know only because it’s in her e-mail address. A person who has taken that chink in my armor and torn it wide open—simply by asking a few basic questions.

  “Yeah,” I say, looking away from Laura, my voice quiet.

  “I’m so sorry,” Slip Is Showing says. I take a giant bite of my bagel.

  “So, what’s everyone doing for New Year’s?” Tim throws out as the silence around the table grows awkward. He scoots his chair closer and wraps his arm around my shoulder. The group of people stumble into a lighter conversation, but I can tell they are haunted. By me. Great.

  As they rattle off various parties, get-togethers and celebrations, I take a deep breath and close my eyes, retreating from the New Year’s Eve talk that swirls around me. The wafting Earl Grey smell reminds me of Mom. She smells like Earl Grey and outside.

  And then, she is there.

  “But you mustn’t forget it,” Mom reads, her arm around me, our legs a tangle in my tiny twin bed. I can hear Leo’s deep snores from across the bedroom. Abigail creaks on the upper bunk, settling in for the night. I try to read along with her, but she’s too fast.

  “You become responsible for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose…” Mom reads, closing the book.

  “Mom, is the… is the Little Prince ever going to… is he scared up there?” I ask, listening to the rumbles of Mom’s stomach.

  “We’ll find out more tomorrow night,” Mom says, kissing my head.

  “Just… is he… is he really a little prince?” I ask, as she crawls out of the bottom bunk.

  “Sleep, little one,” she says, bringing the covers up to my chin and gently kissing my cheek.

  “Yeah, but—” I say, as she stands on her tippy toes to tuck in Abigail. I hear their hushed good-nights.

  “You’ve read that book a hundred times,” Abigail says from on high. Mom walks over to Leo, who’s sprawled on his bed, snoring wildly. Mom pulls Leo’s covers tight over him and kisses him gently on the cheek.

  “I just… I just like asking her about it,” I say, turning onto my side.

  “Go to sleep and tomorrow we’ll read more,” Mom says, flipping off the light.

  I open my eyes.

  “That sounds great,” Tim offers. Was I remembering out loud?

  “Thanks, I love wearing red on New Yea
r’s,” Laura says. Apparently she’s been describing the dress she bought for her New Year’s festivities. Whew.

  “I need to get some fresh air,” I say, looking at Tim.

  “Yeah… sure. Why don’t you start the car and I’ll be there in a sec,” Tim says, passing me his keys.

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the keys and standing. “Have a great new year,” I throw out feebly, feeling naked and vulnerable. The group mumbles “Happy New Year” back to me, no doubt hoping that my New Year’s celebration will include a team of psychologists.

  I throw the teacup away, give the group a final wave, put my sopping wet hood up and race to Tim’s car.

  The silence of the car surrounds me. I know that Tim’s in there apologizing for me. He does that a lot. Sure, he’s all for my being who I am, but sometimes I wonder if he’d rather I were a little less… just, less.

  As I sit fiddling with the knobs on Tim’s dashboard (something I’ve been told several times not to do), I try to fend off the clatter of memories of Dad. So far away. I can barely… barely reach them. But, like a lost spoon in the garbage disposal, I pull one, bent and twisted, from the depths.

  “And on piano—Grace Hawkes,” Mrs. Callahan announces. The crowd applauds. The tiny auditorium is stuffy and smells of mildewed wood. The seats are pressed close to one another and the parents of the kids in the orchestra are packed in like sardines.

  I stand and the piano bench squeaks behind me. My formal dress we found at the Junior League thrift shop crumples up in the back. I smooth it down and bow, searching the audience.

  Mom, Huston, Abigail and Leo are all seated in the fourth row. Mom waves and smiles. I smile back. As I scan the row, I see an empty chair next to Abigail. Dad. I want to hit something. Thank God, we’re starting with Beethoven.

  The violins and violas bring their instruments up to their chins. The audience is quiet. My fingers are itching; I home in on the sheet music like a laser. Focus the anger.

  With the downbeat comes the quiet. The elsewhere. No empty chair. No rage. Just Beethoven. My body curls over the keyboard, foot pumping the pedals, fingers racing across the keys. Mrs. Callahan’s guiding baton… and one, two, three, four… and five, six, seven, eight… and nine, ten—how hard was it to just get here?—eleven, twelve. One, two, three… why did I even get my hopes up? Four, five—I knew he wouldn’t come—six, seven, eight. I knew it… nine, ten, eleven, twelve… and rest.