by Cory Hiles
Tears were leaking out of my eyes and I was doubled over with laughter watching Louie being a nut. Though June could not see Louie, I could see him as solidly as if he were a physical man and it was a hilarious act that he was putting on for me.
Eventually Louie grew tired of performing and leapt down off the car and landed silently beside me and extended his hand. I grasped his hand—which was awkward for me because I could only barely feel it in my own hand, and it felt cold and damp—and he gave me a furious hand shake while clapping me on the back before returning to the porch to stand beside Miss Lilly.
I looked back to the porch and saw the three of them beaming at me and the tears that were leaking out of my eyes from Louie’s dance began to flow much more freely.
“Do you like it, Jelly-Bean?” June asked.
“I love it!” I replied enthusiastically. “And I’m pretty sure Louie likes it too.”
Louie laughed silently on the porch and gave me a thumbs-up signal before fading back into a shadow.
“Well, Boo, you gonna be givin’ us a ride to town in dat contraption o’ what?”
I smiled broadly as June, Miss Lilly and Louie descended the porch and came towards me. When June was still about fifteen feet away she reached in her pocket and withdrew the keys and tossed them to me.
I caught the keys one handed, almost as if I had some athletic ability to speak of which was certainly not the case, and jogged out to the front of the garage to open the bay door. By the time I got the door opened up and headed back into the garage, my three amigos were already sitting in the car; June in the front and Miss Lilly and Louie in the back.
I checked my pocket to be sure my wallet which contained my learner’s permit was with me before sliding into the driver’s seat. I took my time adjusting my mirrors and my seat before I clicked my seatbelt into place and stuck the key in the ignition.
Because my driver’s education teacher had been so adamant about checking mirrors, it had become second nature to me to check my rearview mirror before actually allowing the car to move.
When I looked in the mirror I saw that Louie had materialized again and was currently making a big production out of looking terrified and biting his nails.
I laughed as I said “What do you have to worry about, Louie? I can’t possibly kill you any deader!”
Before I had finished my joke Louie had pulled his knees up to his chest and had put a two-handed death grip on the grab-handle that hung from the ceiling of the car. When I finished speaking he let go of the handle and settled back into his seat. He gave me a big cheesy grin and shrugged his shoulders as if to say “good point”.
Miss Lilly reached over and slapped Louie on the shoulder and said, “Knock it off you ol’ Rascal! You be good an’ let de boy drive. Get dis car out on de road, Boo. You gonna do jus’ fine, an’ we all gonna get home alive, no matter what dis ol’ rat say.” She jerked a thumb towards Louie as she said “dis ol’ rat”, and I couldn’t help smiling.
“Well, all except Louie, that is,” June said, and we all had a good laugh, even Louie.
I drove the car cautiously on the way to town, checking my mirrors frequently and always staying at least three miles per hour below the speed limit. The drive to town usually only took about twenty minutes and I made the drive in just under thirty minutes.
During the journey I chatted with June and Lilly chatted incessantly to Louie. I looked into my rear view mirror every three or four minutes and could see Lilly was talking as animatedly as ever, waving her arms around like crazy.
Louie, who had remained visible for the duration of the trip was smiling and pretending to dodge Miss Lilly’s hands every time they swung near to him.
When we finally got into town I asked June where she wanted to go and she innocently suggested stopping for an ice cream cone. Ice cream was one of June’s secret weaknesses that she thought nobody knew about, but everybody knew.
I glanced in the rearview and winked at Miss Lilly who had stopped gesturing for the time being and saw her smiling weakly and winking back halfheartedly.
I pulled up to the ice cream shop and barely had the keys out of the ignition before June was already out of the car, urging us to hurry up. I laughed and started to get out, but noticed Miss Lilly hadn’t moved.
“You coming, Miss Lilly?” I asked.
Miss Lilly wiped a hand down her face from her forehead to her chin and blinked a few times before answering. A thin sheen of sweat had accumulated on her forehead, giving it a shiny appearance.
Waving me on with a hand gesture she said, “No Child, go on ahead. I think I gonna sit dis one out. I jus’ ain’t feelin’ so good all de sudden.”
I felt concern creeping into my veins and said, “Are you sure, Miss Lilly? We can just go home instead, and get you to bed.”
“Ha! You tink June-bug gonna get dis close to de ice-cream an’ go home empty handed? We could no’ do dat to her anyway, it be cruel. No Boo, I be jus’ fine out here. Now get goin’ b’fore June-Bug eat herself sick wit’ nobody to baby-sit her.”
I reluctantly followed June into the ice-cream parlor where she had already ordered herself a cone and told her about Miss Lilly’s sudden illness.
Concern washed over June’s face, and she headed swiftly for the door, ignoring the clerk who was standing there holding out a triple scoop of strawberry ripple with a chocolate sauce coat.
We could see that there was something wrong before we even reached the car. Miss Lilly’s face was pressed up against the window, smashing the side of her face into the glass. Her eyes were wide open and her skin was ghastly pale and a trail of drool was flowing from her opened mouth and was running slowly down the glass.
June broke into a run with me close at her heels, and threw open the door, barely catching Miss Lilly as she tumbled out of the car. Louie came spilling out of the car right behind Miss Lilly, the look of terror in his normally twinkling eyes real this time.
June and I worked Miss Lilly out onto the sidewalk and laid her on her back. Her breathing was shallow and irregular. Perspiration was running down her face in streams as thick as the stream of drool that was still running from her mouth.
Louie had dropped to his knees at Miss Lilly’s head, one knee on each side of her head, and was cradling her face between his hands. He looked up at me with tears running down his cheeks and worked his mouth silently a few times.
I already knew the situation was bad, but I suspected that it might be worse than bad when on the fourth or fifth try, Louie managed to scream out “LIIIIILLYYY!” in the most heart wrenchingly sorrowful voice I had ever heard.
June was already running back into the ice cream parlor to call the ambulance when Louie screamed, so she did not hear his cry and I doubt she would have heard even if she had been there still.
I was glad she hadn’t heard it. The cry had shattered me. I was paralyzed with fear, and I could literally feel a tearing sensation in my chest as my heart broke for Miss Lilly and for Louie.
The ambulance arrived within four minutes, but it was four minutes too late. Miss Lilly was pronounced dead at the scene; all resuscitation attempts had failed.
Miss Lilly died of a cerebral aneurysm, while lying on her back on the sidewalk in front of an ice cream parlor on my sixteenth birthday.
I was utterly devastated. My own mother’s death had filled me with turmoil and confusion in regards to my emotions, but Miss Lilly’s passing did not breed any such confusion. It brought with it the deepest and most painful sadness I had ever known, and that sadness was acute, distinct, and focused.
As the paramedics draped a sheet over Miss Lilly’s body and prepared to load her on a gurney, June and I held each other and wept. I did not want to watch the men hauling Miss Lilly’s body away, but was powerless to look away.
I watched the men load the gurney into the ambulance and close the door. Then they walked wordlessly to the cab of the ambulance and got in. They started it up and drove away, leaving J
une and I standing alone on the sidewalk.
I stared blankly at the place on the sidewalk where Miss Lilly had died and cried all the harder. I closed my eyes but could still see her lying there in my mind’s eye.
Suddenly I felt cold fingers lifting my chin and opened my eyes. Louie was standing in front of me, looking me directly in the eye and smiling. Now that his lover was no longer frightened and hurting and had gone home, he had regained the twinkle in his eyes.
He leaned over and whispered in my ear in a deep raspy voice, “Her love you Johnny. Her done told me ev’ry day dat her love you. An’ her know dat you love her too. Her goin’ home now, an’ I got’s to go an’ meet her there. Au revoir, Johnny. We be seein’ you when we can.”
With a wave of his hand, Louie winked out of my sight and out of this world to go be with his angel on the other side, and June and I stood together, intertwined tightly in our sorrow, weeping in the rapidly fading light of the saddest day I had ever known.
June and I didn’t get home until after ten that evening. When we were done weeping on the sidewalk we decided to finish what we’d started and go have an ice cream cone. Neither of us would admit it, but we just did not want to have to face going home without Miss Lilly.
We understood that we were a team—the three of us—and June and I were not certain how we’d be able to keep playing the game when we were one teammate short.
Eventually we got tired of bawling in public and having people cast their pitying looks in our direction, so we went home. June drove on the way home, and though she normally drove in such a manner as to make little old men shake their fists in her general direction, it took her longer to drive home than it had taken me to drive to town.
We said very little on the way home. We both knew exactly how the other was feeling, and we both knew that there were no words to be spoken that would make either of us feel better, so we were content to simply be together in our sorrow and draw comfort from each other’s presence.
When we arrived home we each retired straight to our bedrooms after hugging once more and offering a good night kiss to each other.
I kicked my shoes off as soon as I entered my room and lay down on top of my covers. I reached over and clicked the bedside lamp off and laid there in the dark, weeping and praying quietly for a safe passage for Miss Lilly’s soul from this world to the next.
After I’d been laying there for several minutes I felt something poke me in the ribs and was overcome by the strong scent of roses.
I knew Elle had come to me in my sorrow but rather than be grateful for it, I was annoyed. I sat up and turned on the light. I saw that my notepad was lying on the bed beside me and was what had poked me in the ribs.
There was writing in the familiar flowing script on the top page, though it was written in English now instead of French.
The sadness is deep. Do not drown in it, Johnny.
“Really, Elle?” I barked out sarcastically. “Gee I’m awfully glad to know that you can finally show up now, after I’ve been calling for you for two years, just to tell me that my heart is broken and I’m really effing sad! I already know I’m sad! I just lost someone who matters more to me than life itself! And why the Hell did I go through all the trouble of learning French if you knew English? Why didn’t you just start off with English, huh?”
I flung the notepad across the room and buried my face in my arms and wept. I knew Elle had only come to try and comfort me and I was lashing out unreasonably at her, and I felt bad for it, but was so deep in my sorrow that I couldn’t care.
I felt a hand stroking my hair as I wept and the smell of roses grew stronger than I’d ever smelled it before. I opened my eyes but could see nothing out of the ordinary in my room. I knew Elle was there, I could feel her stroking my head, but she chose to remain completely invisible to me.
I tried to mutter an apology through my tears but was startled out of trying when I heard a whispered “shh” in my ear.
I felt my head being pulled gently into the cold softness of Elle’s invisible bosom, and heard her whisper, “Johnny, I know it hurts. It will always hurt, but you will heal. Lilly is in Paradise. Have peace in your heart, Johnny. Do not let your grief swallow you.”
Elle’s voice was as soft as a butterfly kiss, and the thick French accent added a level of intimacy that I did not think could have possibly been achieved in any other way. While her words did little to alleviate my sorrow, I was glad she was there, and I allowed myself to fall into her embrace.
After weeping into her chest for ten minutes or so I finally felt all cried out and sat back away from her. “Thank you Elle, I needed that,” I said. I reached a hand out where Elle had just been but found only empty space.
“I’ll never understand why you hide Elle; I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay.”
My request for her to stay had no impact; the scent of roses slowly dissipated from the room and I eventually drifted off to sleep, still fully clothed, on top of my blankets, and with the lamp still shining.
When I woke up the next morning I had no need to dress and instead went straight outside. The sun was shining brightly in a cloudless azure sky, and there was only a breath of wind outside; just a breeze as soft as a baby’s breath exhaled across its mother’s face. Butterflies were flitting to and fro in the pasture and birds could be heard chirruping happily from the willow by the pond.
The air smelled as clean and warm as fresh baked bread, and the grass was a brighter green than I could ever remember having seen it. The morning dew was still sparkling upon each blade and looked like a million diamonds twinkling in the early sun.
Everything was beautiful. The sight was not diminished by the shimmering auras that I still saw outlining everything, but was instead, enhanced by the shimmering silver outlines.
I looked towards the sky and wondered if Miss Lilly was looking back at the same beautiful day that I was seeing, albeit from the other side of the mirror. I walked down to the willow and sat in my favorite spot and spent some time reminiscing.
In my mind’s eye I could see hundreds of different memories of Miss Lilly flashing by all at once. The time she taught me how to make a cake, and smashed an egg on my head when I got distracted; the time she caught me melting army men in a frying pan on the stove and beat the Hell out of me with a wooden spoon; the time she hid in my closet at bedtime on Halloween and burst out after I turned out my lamp, screaming like a banshee and scaring me so bad I fell out of my bed and hit my head on the table.
Those memories and hundreds more like them flashed through my mind, and every memory ended exactly the same way; with Miss Lilly smiling, holding me in a gargantuan hug and telling me how much she loved me and how special I was.
I wept and prayed silently beneath the great willow, begging God for every blessing that could possibly be served up for Miss Lilly in the afterlife.
I knew that there was going to be a void in my heart for the rest of my life that could never be filled, and a small part of me longed to join Miss Lilly in death, rather than face life without her.
I looked back towards the house and saw June staring out the kitchen window. I knew that on this morning, of all mornings, she needed me to maintain our morning ritual at the kitchen table, and I knew I needed it as much as she did.
As it turned out, June and I spent the entire day sitting at the table, telling stories about Miss Lilly, and finding the beginnings of healing in ourselves by celebrating the memory of the life that Miss Lilly had lived.
The rest of the week was punctuated by frantic activity as June worked tirelessly to organize a funeral, find Miss Lilly’s will, and contact friends and relatives of Miss Lilly’s back in Louisiana to give them the sad news.
Nine days after Miss Lilly’s death we had the funeral. As per the desires she had set forth in her will, her body was cremated and her ashes were added to the urn that held Louie’s ashes, which was kept in her bedroom.
The funeral was held in a small
Baptist church on the edge of town and only about seventy people were able to attend, with dozens of other friends and family back in Louisiana unable to finance the trip.
The service was beautiful, full of singing and stories. At least fifty different people got up to tell stories about times that Miss Lilly had either lifted them up, or beaten them down, and then lifted them up.
The one theme that dominated every story that was told was that of Miss Lilly’s unconditional love for everyone she came into contact with. It was abundantly clear that Miss Lilly did not simply live her life; she gave her life to all the people around her.
I had always known that I was exceedingly fortunate to have had Miss Lilly as a major influence in my life, but until her funeral I had not really understood just how lucky I truly was. I had been blessed beyond all measurable value to have had her in such a prominent position in my life, and would gladly have spent several lifetimes trapped in a basement if I could only have her back for a short while.
Miss Lilly had very little in the way of assets and personal possessions and what she did have she did not leave to anybody specifically. Instead she left a provision in her will stating that all of her possessions were to be sorted through by her friends and family, and anyone who wanted anything could have it, providing that everyone that took any items was responsible for making sure that all of her possessions were removed from June’s house in order to spare June and I the trouble and heartache of sorting through the leftovers.
The only items that were specifically given were given to June and I.
To June, Miss Lilly left her oversized Bible that was always on her nightstand beside her bed and inside that Bible was a letter for June that I never had the nerve to ask to read. And to me she left a special gris-gris that she had made for me, though she did not indicate what blessing the bag was supposed to bring.
Miss Lilly also indicated in her will that it was her desire for me to take possession of her and Louie’s ashes.