by David Bell
In the narrow space between the bed and the dresser stood a stretcher with my mother’s body lying on top of it. Her eyes were closed, and a sheet covered everything except her head and shoulders.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ I jumped at the sound of the voice. It was Detective Post, and she reached out her hand and placed it on my shoulder. ‘Do you need anything from me?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said. I always told people I was fine. Okay. No problem. No worries. It wasn’t always true, but I said it. I’d never been less fine, looking at my mother’s dead body.
‘You don’t have to see her like this if you don’t want to,’ Detective Post said. ‘The funeral will be a different environment, if you want to wait.’
‘Has somebody told my uncle?’ I asked.
‘Your uncle?’
‘My uncle Paul,’ I said. ‘My mom’s brother. Her only relative besides us. I guess I can call him and tell him what’s happened.’
‘What’s his full name?’ Post asked. ‘We can make the notification.’
‘Paul McGrath,’ I said, happy to be relieved of the burden. I gave the detective his phone number. ‘He’s very close to Mom and Ronnie.’
‘But not you?’ she asked.
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘I’m just not around as much these days. Why don’t you let me make the call? He should hear it from me, not from a police officer.’
‘I think you have enough on your mind,’ Post said. She nodded in the direction of Mom’s body, then stepped back, leaving me alone in the room.
I hesitated a moment, then moved forward until I was sitting on the bed next to the stretcher. Mom’s mouth was pulled back in a tight line, something just short of a grimace. She didn’t look, as the cliché has it, peaceful in death. She looked like someone who had died in pain. Mom wasn’t a fashionable woman. Everything I learned about clothes and hair and makeup I read about in magazines or heard about from my friends. But Mom always looked good for her age. She remained thin and fit as she aged, and only a few streaks of grey ran through her hair.
I leaned forward and placed my hand on her shoulder. I avoided contact with her skin. I didn’t want to feel it if it was cold. That would be too much – too real and harsh. I wasn’t ready for that yet. I didn’t know what else to do, so I said what I wanted to say.
‘I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry I couldn’t just say what you wanted to hear me say.’
I squeezed her shoulder, then cried as I hadn’t cried since Dad died.
I don’t know how long I cried for, but twice I thought everything had come out of me only to find a new round of sobbing rising up from my chest and shaking my whole body. When it finally seemed to have stopped for good, I removed my hand from Mom’s body, pulled some tissues from a box on the nightstand, and wiped my face. I took two deep breaths before pushing myself off the bed and stepping back into the hallway where Detectives Richland and Post waited with a few of the others who had been in the bedroom. They could no doubt tell I’d been crying, had no doubt heard me, and they all shifted their feet uncomfortably and averted their eyes as I passed.
Detective Richland cleared his throat. ‘We’re just finishing up here, Ms Hampton.’
I knew what he meant. They needed to remove the body from the house.
‘There’s some paperwork you’ll have to go over with the medical examiner,’ he said, his hands moving again as though he were turning a crank. ‘It’s pretty routine. Your mother’s body will be transported for an autopsy, and then it will be released to the funeral home of your choice. Did your mother specify any plans for her funeral?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Probably. She was a careful planner.’
‘We contacted your uncle and told him what happened,’ Post said.
‘Is he okay?’ I asked.
‘He was shaken,’ she said. ‘But he seemed to be holding it together.’
‘I’ll have to call him. He’ll be good with Ronnie.’
‘Speaking of that –’ Richland leaned over and looked into Ronnie’s bedroom. He tilted his head towards the living room, indicating I should follow him, which I did. When we were there, he asked, ‘Do you know why Ronnie was at this Mrs Morgan’s house tonight?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Did your mother have plans?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. She never went anywhere.’
‘Mrs Morgan isn’t answering her phone.’
‘She’s ninety,’ I said. ‘And deaf as a stone wall.’
‘Had your mother been having any problems?’ Richland asked. ‘Money trouble? Disagreements with anyone?’
‘I don’t know.’
Richland appeared to sense my impatience with his questions. He scratched the top of his head, then said, ‘Make sure you and your brother are around. We may have more questions to ask you both.’
‘We have a funeral to plan,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’ll be going on any cruises.’
When it was time for them to bring Mom out of her bedroom, I went and sat with Ronnie. I placed my arm around his shoulder again and held him tight. But I didn’t close the bedroom door. We sat next to each other, watching in silence, as the two paramedics wheeled the stretcher past Ronnie’s bedroom door, the sheet pulled up and covering Mom’s face.
4
I felt better when Paul showed up.
After the police and the paramedics – and Mom – were all gone, having finally finished with their endless photographs and poking around the house, I called Paul. He answered right away. I didn’t have to say anything to him. I couldn’t. Just hearing his voice made me want to cry again.
‘Paul …’ I managed to get out. Just that. My voice sounded as if I had swallowed a bullfrog.
‘I heard,’ he said. His voice was hollow and distant. He was sitting in his house, absorbing the blow all alone.
I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. I expected him to be stronger than me. I needed him to be stronger.
‘Can you – ?’ I tried to ask. The words were caught in my throat.
‘Are you – Do you want me to come over now?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Are they … the police and everything …?’
‘They’re gone,’ I said.
‘Let me get dressed,’ he said.
Paul was two years younger than my mom and also her only sibling. He’d been divorced a long time, since before I was born, and he didn’t have any children. I suspected Ronnie and I filled that role in his life. He treated us like adults, as if the things we said were important. And I know Mom leaned on him a lot.
When he came through the door, just thirty minutes after they’d removed Mom’s body, I couldn’t have been happier to see anyone. We hugged a long time, and when we finally separated, I saw the tears in his eyes. He looked all of his sixty-seven years. He ordinarily seemed so youthful, so energetic. But that night, he suddenly looked like an old man.
‘Ronnie?’ he said.
‘He’s in his room,’ I said. ‘He seems okay. But he was the one who found her. He called the police. They told me they think –’
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘You can tell me in a few minutes.’
But he didn’t move. He stood in the living room looking around. I couldn’t tell what he was doing. Absorbing the scene? Remembering Mom? He looked lost. Confused. Overwhelmed, I guess, would be the best word. I reached out to touch his arm, to tell him he didn’t have to stay if he didn’t want to, but just as I did, he went down the hall and into Ronnie’s bedroom.
While Paul was in there, I gathered my wits. Like most twenty-six-year-olds, I had never planned a funeral. I’d only attended a few, and one of them was my dad’s. Mom planned that one, and I assumed hers would be similar – simple, small, low-key. Dad didn’t even have a viewing. We just went to the church and then to the cemetery. Some relatives came back to the house with us and ate cold cuts and cake. That was it. Ashes to ashes and all that.
I sat on the
couch and used my phone to send a few emails. I had just started my second year of graduate school, studying American urban history. Cities and immigrants and neighborhoods. I had always imagined myself learning about the topic somewhere else – New York or Chicago – but we had an excellent program right here in little Dover, Ohio. And Columbus was just an hour away if I really needed to see a city. I wrote to my advisor and told him what happened. I also wrote to a few friends at school. I didn’t stay in touch with a lot of people from Dover. I occasionally ran into them around town, and when I saw them I didn’t know what to say. A lot of them were married already and having children. Things went that way in Dover, but not for me. I might get married someday, but not before I was thirty-five. Hell, maybe I’d wait for forty.
Once my messages were sent, I didn’t know what to do. I looked around the room. The order, the neatness. The plan. There had to be a plan. My mother always had a plan.
I took a slow walk down the hallway. When I passed Ronnie’s room, I looked in. Paul was talking to Ronnie in a low voice, soothing him. Ronnie looked tired, his eyes half closed. They seemed so close – my mom, Paul, Ronnie. But not me. I always felt like the outsider, and I knew it was by choice. I had opted for a different life, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel the loss of that closeness sometimes. I hadn’t planned to move back after I received my undergraduate degree in Illinois. I worked for two years, and then when it was time for graduate school I applied to Dalton only as a backup plan, my safety school. As the fates would have it, they offered me the best graduate assistantship and tuition waiver. I moved back to Dover, Ohio, with my teeth clenched. But, privately, I hoped it would work out. I hoped I’d get along with Mom better, that we’d become closer somehow as adults. What’s the word for that – doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result? Insanity?
I went into the bedroom. The death room, as I suddenly thought of it. My dad had died in there after a two-year fight with stomach cancer. And Mom died there too. Enough of that, I thought.
I went to the bedside table, the one on Mom’s side of the bed. A dark, dusty powder covered the handle on the drawer. I looked around. It was on all the drawer pulls in the room. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. Fingerprint powder? I got it all over my fingers as I opened the little drawer. It held some pens, another crossword book, a Bible and a manila envelope. I saw Mom’s neat handwriting across the front.
To be opened in the event of Leslie Hampton’s death.
I knew it. The plan. And of course Mom had made sure it was easy to find.
I slid my finger under the flap and pulled out the papers inside. The top sheet informed me – or whoever might have found it first – that Mom had, indeed, prepaid for a funeral with the Myers-Davis Funeral Home in downtown Dover. The phone number was listed at the bottom of the page, as well as a contact person’s name. Myers-Davis had handled my father’s funeral as well, so it was no surprise that it would handle Mom’s. Knowing Mom, she probably paid for her funeral at the same time she paid for Dad’s, using the funeral insurance they had purchased. I set that paper aside, making a mental note to call the funeral home in the morning.
Then I turned to the small packet of stapled papers. Mom’s will. Across the top I saw the name and address of Mom’s attorneys – Allison and Burns, who were located downtown. They had handled Mom and Dad’s minor legal affairs over the years. I had never met Mr Allison, but I remembered seeing him in church when I was a child. He seemed like somebody’s grandfather, the kind of man who would probably ruffle your hair with a big calloused hand when he saw you.
I skimmed the first page of the document. Legal jargon written in tortured and convoluted sentences danced past my eyes. I turned the page and skimmed the rest. I knew what it said. Mom had once, offhandedly, mentioned that she intended to leave everything to Ronnie and me. She didn’t have much – just the house, a ten-year-old Toyota Corolla and the life insurance. I didn’t expect to see much. I figured whatever there was would go to Ronnie’s care, and I was fine with that despite my life as an impoverished graduate student.
‘Are you … ?’ Paul looked like he thought he was interrupting something private and personal. He stood at the doorway of Mom’s room as though an invisible barrier were keeping him out.
I looked at him and held the paper up. ‘The plan,’ I said. ‘Information about the funeral home. And Mom’s will.’
‘The will’s there?’ he said. He still didn’t come into the room. He looked around again, just as he had in the living room. Absorbing? Remembering?
‘It looks pretty standard,’ I said. ‘Ronnie and I get everything.’
‘Good.’
‘And it names you Ronnie’s guardian,’ I said. ‘But I guess you knew that.’
I felt emotion welling in me again. I clamped my lips tight, biting against it. Everything seemed so final, so certain. So finished. I looked up at Paul. His face was ashen, his lips slightly parted. For a moment, I thought he might faint or fall over. Was he sick?
‘Paul?’ I said.
I dropped the will and started to get up. But he waved me back.
‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘Really. Things are just sinking in, that’s all.’ He let his body sag against the doorjamb. He lifted his hand to his head and rubbed his temple. ‘Ronnie went to sleep.’
‘Is he okay?’ I asked.
‘He’s okay. He didn’t say much. I think he’s wiped out.’
‘Me too,’ I said. I picked up the will again. I stared at the stupid papers. My vision started to swim. ‘Paul, I hadn’t talked to her in six weeks.’
‘I know.’
‘The last time we talked we had a huge fight.’
‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ he said. His voice sounded weary and hollow. ‘She knew.’
‘Knew what?’ I asked.
‘That you love her. That you love Ronnie. She knew that.’
‘Are you sure she did? I never said it. Not since I was a little kid. I probably didn’t even tell her when Dad died.’
‘She knew. Mothers know these things.’
‘You know what we fought about, right?’
‘About Ronnie?’
‘She wanted me to promise that I would take care of him if anything happened to her. She wanted me to promise he would live with family and never have to go to an institution or a home. She was adamant, more adamant than ever.’
‘She always worried about that,’ he said.
‘Why couldn’t I just say it, Paul?’ I asked. ‘Why couldn’t I just tell her what she wanted to hear?’
‘Stubbornness,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Stubbornness. Good old-fashioned stubbornness. We can’t make other people do things for us, no matter how much we want them to.’
He seemed to be talking about something I didn’t know about, and I didn’t ask.
I folded up the papers and slid them into the envelope, then put it back into the drawer. I would make the appropriate calls in the morning.
‘And,’ I said, ‘here I am tearing myself apart over it, and the fucking will gives you guardianship of Ronnie. Why did she need to ride me so hard?’
I caught myself. Why was I worrying about these things now? She was gone. Mom was gone. Who cared about anything else?
‘I’m not getting any younger either,’ he said. ‘Look, you’re of a different generation than your mother. She’s sixty-nine. You’re twenty-six. You want to have a career. You worked after college in Illinois and supported yourself. You’re independent. She never thought about those things. Her whole life was her kids, especially Ronnie. She lived to make sure he was okay. That’s why he’s doing so well. She spent so much time with him. Talking to him, reading to him.’
I tried to collect my thoughts, tried to be logical and calm at the most illogical time of my life. My mother is gone.
I swallowed hard. ‘So why was she so adamant about getting a promise from me now?’ I asked.
‘Maybe she felt the clock ticking,’ he said. ‘She knew time was passing. She knew this day was coming. Let’s face it, kiddo, getting old fucking sucks. It might be the only thing worse than being alone.’
He rarely cursed. Given the circumstances, it didn’t surprise me that much. I needed to tell him about the police and their questions.
‘They don’t think she died of natural causes,’ I said.
He barely moved. ‘What?’ His voice sounded hollow.
‘They’re investigating to see if Mom’s death was a homicide.’
Whatever colour had returned to his face and lips left them again. Colour even seemed to have drained from his eyes. ‘That’s crazy,’ he said.
I stood up, placed my arm on his, and guided him inside the bedroom. He resisted a little, but I continued with the pressure on his arm. I closed the bedroom door. We stood face to face, and I spoke in a low voice just in case Ronnie had woken up. I said, ‘The police were asking some strange questions before they left.’
‘Like what?’
‘First they wanted to know if Mom had been having any troubles,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what they meant. I told them she’s an old woman who takes care of her adult son. She doesn’t do anything else.’ I paused. I wasn’t sure about the next part, but I thought it needed to be said. I hoped Paul could talk me down more than anything else. ‘Maybe I’m just being paranoid or emotional or something, but they were asking me about Ronnie. About his whereabouts. Like they needed an alibi for him or something.’
‘Jesus.’ Paul raised his hand to his mouth and chewed on his thumbnail.
‘I know. It was weird.’
‘Maybe that’s just routine.’
‘They didn’t ask about me. I was just sitting at home studying. Alone. Did they ask you?’
He shook his head. ‘They barely said anything to me when they called.’
‘See?’
‘It seems kind of strange …’ He looked at the floor, his head lowering.
‘They said there were bruises on her body.’ I felt the emotion rising again, almost choking me. My eyes filled with tears, and I wiped them away. I cleared my throat. ‘I didn’t see them. I didn’t really look. But that’s all they said. Bruises.’