Welcome to the Slipstream

by Natalka Burian

  • • •

  Mom was good at tying up loose ends. The next morning, by the time I got dressed, she was talking to Marine at the glass dining table. They were quiet, their voices muted by the hum of the air conditioner. Two room service trays sat on the counter. Mom and Marine held mugs of coffee in their hands. They stopped talking when they saw me, and Marine looked over toward the living room. Someone had picked up Ida, because there she was, on the coffee table. It was just a box, a plain, white cardboard box. It looked light. No heavier than a houseplant.

  “Good morning, dear Van,” Marine said to me, sweet but with no smile.

  “How is it today, honey?” Mom asked.

  “Shitty,” I said as I moved to sit across from them. It was too absurd, that we just sat there like it was any morning.

  Marine nodded and stood to pour me a coffee from the tray. “Did you talk to Alex? He’s been calling me, trying to get in touch with you.”

  How chummy, I thought, distantly. Their relationship had obviously warmed on the ride from the camp to Vegas.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “You should find him. Say goodbye. He’s a nice boy.”

  “Go ahead,” Mom said, her voice still soft.

  “Yeah,” I said. “My stuff is there, Mom.” We were leaving soon—just Mom and me and Ida’s remains. My suitcase was packed—the same one I’d brought to Vegas. I’d nestled Ida’s guitar into its case and set it by the door, too.

  “I’ll meet you downstairs in half an hour,” she said.

  I nodded. I felt like she was trying to explain something to me. So many of the conversations and discussions between Mom and me, about important things, about real, life-altering things, were conducted in silence. It was like one of us would suggest something, or ask a question, and we’d just stare at the air between us until it got figured out. Like the genetic similarity of our brains would make the synapses fire in the same direction and domino to the same conclusion. We’re not coming back here, right? she was trying to say.

  I saw Marine’s bags by the door—the same ones she’d brought to the same door, the ones Ida had called the size of Delaware. I knew it would be the last time we saw her. I expected Mom to be miserable, but it was Marine who seemed sadder. She stood and snuffled into my shoulder as she hugged me goodbye.

  “I’m going to sort out a few things at home,” she said. “If you’re ever in Cleveland, Van, come find me. You are an extraordinary young person!” Marine shook me a little on each word as though trying to emphasize their meaning—extraordinary—young—person. She finally released me and wiped at the crescents under her eyes.

  After everything, I was actually surprised to find that I was a little bit fond of her. Most of my anger had shunted off onto Mom. Marine looked over my shoulder, where Mom stood, fresh tears streaming down her long face. I looked back at Mom and left, closing them both away.

  I loved Mom, of course, and I felt the same relief I’d felt when I’d found her, when she woke up, when I held her next to Ulrike’s campfire. I felt that relief like some animal’s tongue, warm and rough, surprising and constant, sometimes pleasant, sometimes not. Of course I’d love Mom forever, with that fierce marsupial clinging, but knowing the truth—with Ida, my grandmother, dead on the glass-topped coffee table—well, it made me want to kick her. To know that my connection with Mom was so powerful, that I could be this angry and still love her, made me furious. All I wanted was to close her out, and I loved and hated that I never could. I probably wouldn’t be able to even when Mom was dead on a glass-topped table somewhere.

  I went looking for Alex, not sure what I was going to say or do. Thanks for coming last night? Sorry I couldn’t get it together to open the door for you? Oh, did you know, Ida was actually my grandma? Also, I’m pretty sure there’s something seriously wrong with me—while you were gone, a giant face in the desert talked to me.

  I took the elevator to the lobby and turned down one of the employees-only hallways

  “Hey, Van.” Someone caught my elbow and shuffled me over against the wall. It was Joanna.

  “Oh, hey,” I said.

  “I’m really sorry about Ida. She was a really nice lady.”

  “Yeah, she was,” I said. I could hear how flat my voice sounded. I remembered that she was supposed to be mad at me, about Marcos. Whatever fear that should have inspired in me was subsumed by the greater darkness in my mind. Joanna looked up at me and squinted a little.

  “I’m on break. Come outside with me.” She pulled me along behind her before I could say no. I knew I had to find Alex, to say goodbye, but it was so much easier to stumble after Joanna. She led me to a little alcove beside the employee parking lot—a low wall separated it from a row of dumpsters and drunkenly parked laundry carts. She hopped onto the wall, her slender body like a vine in a garden. She offered me a hand, but I scooted up on my own. Joanna pulled a cigarette from her pack and held another one out to me.

  I shook my head. She smoked and we kicked our legs. I actually felt all right sitting with Joanna under the sun like that. I liked that she let the quiet spool out between us. It was settling. I could almost believe everything was fine, that Ida was cracking jokes upstairs and that I’d never taken that bus to Sedona. I tried to pretend it was the day after the show.

  “Thanks for letting me play with you guys. You’re really amazing,” I finally said.

  “You are amazing.” Joanna blew smoke out to the side, away from our faces and grinned at me. “So, you’re going to call Carol back, right? She really, really wants you to call and set up practice and say you’ll do the tour. You’re going to do it, right?”

  “I’m not sure if I can,” I said, clutching the rim of the filthy peach-painted half wall. “Do you want me to?”

  “I know it’s probably not the best time to say this. I mean, I’m really sorry for your loss.” Joanna squinted out at the place where the desert pushed itself against the sky. “But this is something—you are something. I mean, even Carol’s impressed, and nobody impresses Carol. I don’t want to push you at the wrong time, but you’re perfect, and I’m dying for you to say you’ll come with us.” Joanna looked me in the eye as she spoke.

  I smiled down at my legs.

  “I’m not just saying that. This tour will be incredible for us. If we can get it together—I mean, you’ll still need new gear, thanks to fucking Marcos,” she muttered.

  “I’m really sorry about that. That you thought that. About me and Marcos. Nothing happened,” I said. I felt like I had to say it, to acknowledge Joanna’s difficulty, too.

  “Please, do you think I believe everything Marcos says?”

  I raised my eyebrows a little, surprised at how calm she was. “What? Carol said you were really upset. Again, not that anything actually happened.”

  “Don’t take Carol so literally. She lives to mess with people. And even if you were with Marcos for some reason, I really think everything would be okay. I’d rather have you for a guitarist than him for a boyfriend.”

  I brimmed with shy delight at that, at the way Joanna knew exactly what to say to pull the weight of everything that had happened the day before up and off, even just a little. I was genuinely comforted on that half wall by the dumpsters, next to Joanna, in the sunshine.

  “But,” she shrugged as she flicked her cigarette into the lot. “If you decide you want to do this, let Carol know. As soon as you can, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “I really hope you will.” Her voice was gravelly and gentle. “I have to go back in, but, about Ida—let me know if I can do anything.” She put an arm around my shoulders.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I reminded myself that I was about to get on a plane with my lying mom, to lay my lying Ida to rest. I stumbled away from the alcove by the dumpsters, away from Joanna, and retreated into the noisy coolness of the Silver Saddle. In the lobby, I vaguely noticed Chantal’s arms around me and some handshakes from the daytime desk staff, but m
ostly, I noticed Alex.

  I walked past Mom, who was waiting by the door, and took Alex’s hand. I led him outside into the dry, dust-filled morning.

  “You’re coming back, right?” It was the first thing he’d said to me since the corrosively terrible night at the hospital.

  “It depends on my mom,” I said. What I didn’t say was, It depends on me, too. I wanted to be alone. I had to figure out what had happened—or was happening—to me.

  “I don’t understand how you can give her that kind of consideration. After what she put you through.” Alex’s jaw wobbled a little.

  “She’s my mom. She’s the only person I have.”

  “I’m a person,” he said. “You have me.” And then he hugged me for a long time, and I hugged him, too. “Will you come back?”

  “I want to,” I told him. It was the truth.

  • • •

  All of the goodbyes had made us late. We almost didn’t make it to the airport in time. I was used to feeling a certain way in airports—calm, focused. Maybe it was because Mom and I always set off feeling like we were on the same page, moving on to the next thing like it was a decision we had made together—even if, especially if, it wasn’t.

  That afternoon at McCarran International, it was clearer than ever that the world of Mom-and-me had changed. I felt the difference, the way you feel a loss of weight on your body. It’s still your body, but the familiar, comforting swells and dips have disappeared.

  She stayed close, keeping a hand on me through the long security line and in the restaurant where we bought lunch. We didn’t talk, which, in itself, wasn’t especially foreign. Mom often wandered away on one of her thinking jags, leaving me behind. This time, though—I was leaving her behind. I felt like she was looking at me, trying to talk, and not able to do it.

  On the plane she tried to sit next to me, but in the row of three seats, I set Ida’s box in the middle. The rental car, too, was filled with dense silence under the rain and the rhythmic sweep of the windshield wipers. The white box wobbled on my lap. I could barely look at Mom. I could barely look at my own watery reflection in the window.

  I was quiet in Seattle. I was quiet in the overly clean business hotel Mom checked us in to. The only noise I made, I made with my hands. I couldn’t put Ida’s guitar down. I played all the Neil Young songs I could remember. My injured hand made my strumming clumsy and broken, but somehow it sounded more right that way. I thought, again, about what I’d seen in the desert, about that face, and tried to make sense of it across the frets of my grandmother’s guitar. I didn’t speak at the funeral home, where Mom picked out an urn and a set of yellow flower arrangements. Mom decided—and I nodded in agreement—that if it was only going to be us at the burial, to keep it short, like Ida would have wanted. I was quiet while Mom signed a bunch of checks under the carefully arranged, sympathetic gaze of the funeral director.

  In the morning, we would drive out to the cemetery and Ida would be buried in the same ground as her son. I was curious about where he was buried. I wondered if there were any trees nearby, and what his tombstone looked like. I wondered if it would be one of those ornate ones with angel statues lounging on top. By the time we left, it was raining.

  Inside of the floral-scented rental car, I finally spoke. “Mom, I love you. You’re wrong a lot, and sometimes I can’t stand you, but I really love you.”

  She looked at me like I’d just punched her.

  “I’m not going to go with you, wherever you’re going next. I’m going to do my own thing, okay? A girl from the Silver Saddle has a band that’s going on tour, and she asked me to be in it. I’m going to tell her yes.” I felt proud and guilty all at the same time.

  It was Mom’s turn to be quiet. She shook as she shifted the car in reverse and drove out of sight of the funeral home. But once we were out onto the road, she had to pull over, she was crying so much. I put a hand on her back, I couldn’t help it, and we let the bland radio station music wash over us as the rain trickled down the windshield and windows of the car. I turned my face into the little rivulets, one hand on Mom, and one cheek pressed to the glass.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The cemetery was enormous. Morning gloom swallowed the dark funeral-home car ahead of us. The signal light beat through the opaque mist and Mom turned onto a narrow paved road. A pool of leaves to our right nearly covered the sign, but I could see as we drove by three large black words: Evergreen Hills Cemetery. I hadn’t ever been to a cemetery. I was unprepared for how large Evergreen Hills was. I couldn’t help but imagine how many bodies were encased in the earth we drove over. Thousands, probably. I shivered in my navy blue cotton dress. Mom hadn’t slept at all the night before. She was showered and dressed, drinking out of a paper cup from some coffee shop chain nearby, by the time I woke up. I could always tell when she hadn’t slept by the sharpness of her morning conversation and too-wide eyes. She was watching me, watching to see what I’d do next.

  I knew she wanted me to take back what I’d said, but I wouldn’t.

  The cemetery grounds were drenched in green. Enormous maple trees soared over the drive, and the gray-white monuments hovered in the mist in jagged rows. There were lots of American flags, and clusters of flowers mobbed the well-tended graves. Some of the stones looked pretty derelict, though, seamed with cracks and nestled in organic debris—piles of leaves and moldering grass clippings. I wondered what my dad’s would look like—probably the latter. The black car pulled to a stop in front of us. The funeral director had sent an underling, Thad, along to deal with us. Thad leapt from the dark car and scurried over, opening the door eagerly for Mom.

  She kept her head low and strode to where a dark figure waited by a bend in one of the sand-colored footpaths that wound through Evergreen Hills. I could see Thad rushing over to my side, so I quickly slid out, opening and closing my own door. He gave a comic oh-darn snap, but shook it off right away, a little shocked by the inappropriate gesture. I smiled at him, which surprised me. It seemed like maybe Ida would have liked his goofing around.

  When I caught up, Mom was already in conversation with the reverend, a stocky Asian woman with a crop of short, black hair. She was dressed in black robes and held a plastic binder in her hands. Mom waved me over.

  “Van, this is Reverend Cindy. Reverend, this is Ida’s granddaughter.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” Reverend Cindy said as she shook my hand, squeezing it very tightly at the same time.

  “Is there anything you’d like her to say, specifically? Do you want to say anything, honey?” Mom asked. I could feel her wanting to do and say the right Mom things.

  I shook my head.

  “Let’s begin, then.”

  “Of course,” Reverend Cindy replied with a somber nod.

  A small hole in the muddy earth gaped out at us, partly covered by a thin strip of Astroturf. Two workmen in coveralls stood to the side. It was obvious why they were there. Thad had disappeared into the dark car to retrieve Ida’s ashes. He emerged, holding the polished brass urn. He offered it to Mom, who shook her head, and then he offered it to me. I shook my head, too. There was something about the urn—so formal and final. When it had been just the white cardboard box, I’d felt Ida pulsing through, somehow. The golden urn looked just as dead as Ida—it wasn’t something I wanted to touch.

  Thad moved so that he was positioned between the hole in the ground and Reverend Cindy. Mom and I stood, so close we were almost touching, on the reverend’s other side.

  “Family, friends,” Cindy’s voice boomed out over Evergreen Hills, impressive in its volume and maple-syrup cadence. “We are here to celebrate the life of Ida Bouchard, beloved mother, friend, mother-in-law,” Cindy looked meaningfully at Mom, “and grandmother.” She clutched the white plastic binder in front of her. “Beloved Ida was a woman full of spirit and strength, yes, and love, too.” Reverend Cindy spoke like she was trying to reach each pair of deceased ears underground.

  Th
e flower arrangements we’d chosen the day before stood on either side of the open grave, splotches of yellow in the green, green grass.

  “We beseech you, ruler of the universe, to ease beloved Ida’s transition into the next world. Her path on earth has been righteous, may her path beyond also be.” Here, Reverend Cindy opened the binder in her hands and looked out, at Mom and me, at Thad, even at the duo of workmen slouched in their coveralls like old sacks of bones.

  “Sofia has kindly provided me with a piece to read this morning. This was a piece near and dear to Ida, and, as I understand, to her son, Michael. It is also, I’m happy to say, near and dear to me. If you’re familiar, please feel free to join.” Cindy held the binder lightly in one hand and smoothed a palm over the single page of paper nestled inside. And then she began to speak, her magnificent voice looping through the air like some mystical lightning bug. She half recited, half sang “Astral Weeks.”

  It should have been so terrible, this too enthusiastic, possibly Wiccan priestess half singing and half chanting my dead father’s favorite Van Morrison song, but it wasn’t. Cindy’s voice rose and broke through the song like some ancient lament, reaching down into all of us who stood around the tiny gravesite. Mom and I wept, and so did Thad. He had to readjust his hold on the urn, and the two workmen, who didn’t cry, seemed to slump even more. I wiped my eyes and nose on my cardigan sleeve, and Thad handed the urn to the workmen. They lowered Ida down into the hole using the narrow strip of Astroturf. Thad fished a handful of yellow flowers from a green bucket behind his legs and handed them out. Everyone dropped a flower onto the urn, even the workmen, before they filled the hole with dirt.

  We shook hands all around, Mom and I, our eyes still oozing tears from Cindy’s performance. I hugged her before she left, that’s how great it was.

  “Do you need anything else, ladies? Can I escort you back?” Thad asked.

  “No, thank you,” Mom answered. “There’s someone else we need to see here.”