“What?” Mom says.
“You said craisins, honey,” Bill says, stifling a laugh.
“They said that’s what the ashes are called!” Mom yells, which only makes me laugh harder. Her face is turning red. Like a Craisin.
“It’s cremains, honey,” Bill says.
“Craisins are dried cranberries,” I say. “Like what they have at the salad bar. Or in a cookie.”
Mom realizes her mistake and lets herself laugh—a little. “Fine, make fun of your mother.”
I wipe my eyes, this time full of the laughing kind of tears.
It’s so exhausting, all this laughing and crying—and then the periodic panic about what will happen next.
Grandma Sheryl would tell me I should be drinking more water.
“Seth,” Mom says, “are you up for this? Do you really want to stay in Natick for another week and take Lori to all these gardens? And pack up the house?”
She’s skeptical. Seth has never been able to keep himself in Natick for very long. The last time he spent four days in a row here, it was because he got the flu during a visit, and by now he’s on day eight or nine.
Bill looks up from his phone. “It’d be great if you could,” he tells Seth. “Hon, if Seth stays here with Lori, we’d be able to focus on prepping the house. We need all hands on deck.”
Mom nods. This is starting to sound like logic.
“We could start calling some Realtors. We could come back up next weekend and help with the packing,” she says. “Then we could drive Lori back with us.”
I can accept that plan for now. It gives me just a little more time to figure out if there are any other options.
“Well,” Mom says, “can I at least join you for one of the boxes? She was my mother, after all.”
Then I feel terrible.
“Mom, we didn’t mean you shouldn’t come,” I say. “Of course you should be there for a box. We can do the arboretum first. Tomorrow. You can show it to Bill.”
“Thank you,” she says, knowing it’s hard for me to be nice to her sometimes. She walks to her small suitcase, which she left in the front hallway. “We should check into the hotel, Bill. I’m wiped out, and I’d like to meditate.”
Mom and Bill gather their things, and she and I pause at the door.
“Where are you staying?” I ask.
“A hotel by the mall,” she says.
“Which side?” I ask.
“Neiman Marcus,” she says, because that’s the compass. Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Sears, and Macy’s.
“I know you don’t want to talk about moving, but it’s in your best interest to be part of this discussion,” she says. “I’d like as much of your input as possible.”
I take one step backwards. I can’t right now.
“One thing at a time,” I say. “All this just happened, Mom”
“I know it will be hard to leave this house—and your friend,” she says, and I shoot her an offended look. She understands nothing about my relationship with Chris.
“It’s fine,” I say, which is what I always say when things are not fine at all.
She nods; she knows the discussion is over.
Bill walks past her, grabbing her bag, and then I see him on the other side of the screen door, getting into the car and starting the engine. Seth follows Mom outside, standing with her on the front step, and they close the door behind them. They think they’re having a private, grown-up conversation that no one can hear, but they don’t understand that the sound from the front of the house travels right through the window in the living room. I don’t even have to walk over to it to eavesdrop.
“Becca, you’ve got to give her a second to breathe. This is hard enough for you and me, but Lori was living with Mom. She’s the one who brought her to the hospital with chest pains. She’s a wreck,” Seth says.
“How can you tell? She always defaults to being stoic and sarcastic. God forbid she shows her vulnerability. She’s just like Mom. It’s eerie sometimes.”
“Well, she’s cried plenty in front of me. Also, Bec, you have to look in the right places. You have to look for the chin acne,” he says. “I used to get it whenever I was anxious as a teen. You did, too. It’s a Seltzer trait.”
I feel the small city of zits growing under my chin, embarrassed that Seth has noticed. I really have to wash my face.
“Becca, all I’m asking is that you behave like the sensitive empath you claim to be. If Mom had pulled you out of school right before senior year, you would have chained yourself to a tree in protest. God forbid she had pulled you away from Matt Ellis.”
“How dare you invoke Matt Ellis,” she says, but she’s laughing.
“Isn’t it sad that he remains the most attractive man you’ve ever dated?” Seth asks.
“He wasn’t a man; he was seventeen.”
They pause.
“Bec, I’m just telling you to give her the week before you start planning the rest of her life.”
“Fine,” Mom says. “You know everything, and I’m a terrible parent.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“I know,” she tells him. “I’m just wondering when I get to feel part of the inner circle here. I’m always on the outs.”
I roll my eyes. She is the one who chooses to move everywhere. She is the one who stays away from any circle that doesn’t involve a boyfriend.
They’re both quiet for a long moment, and I can’t tell what’s happening.
“Ba-ba, our mom is dead,” Seth says, using the nickname he invented for Mom when they were little, before he could say the c’s in my mom’s name.
“I don’t even think it’s hit me yet,” Mom says with an exhausted cry, and I am reminded of what we’ve lost, and I start to cry too, before I can stop myself.
“We’re orphans,” Mom says dramatically.
Seth laughs.
“We’re almost fifty, Bec, I don’t think you can be an orphan when you’re this old. We just have two dead parents. That’s different.”
“It doesn’t feel different,” Mom says.
“Go get some sleep,” Seth says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
* * *
The car pulls away, and then I hear Seth call Ethan from the front stoop. The conversation is quick, and I can hear only the one side.
“I’m going to stay for a bit.”
“Yes. We’ll do all the gardens in a week or so.”
“That would be great.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, that would be helpful.”
“Anywhere close to The Mount works. Sure.”
“Okay. Okay.”
The call ends, and Seth comes back inside.
“Thanks for backing me up with the cremains,” I say.
“The craisins, you mean,” he says, laughing. “You’re right, though. We should bury her now. Or scatter her? I guess it’s a scatter. Otherwise we’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to coordinate when to do it.”
“You really don’t mind staying in Natick for an extra week?”
“For this? For you? Of course not,” he says.
The air feels breathable now that my mom is gone, and I feel bad for thinking that. It’s just hard with her agenda filling up the room.
“Ethan will meet us at The Mount,” he says. “He’ll get us a hotel.”
“Can Chris come with us?” I ask.
“It’s no big deal if I can’t—”
As if out of nowhere, Chris is coming down the stairs, his backpack on. I guess he was waiting up there until it was safe to leave.
“I don’t want to intrude on family stuff.”
“Of course you can come,” Seth tells him. “As long as your mom says it’s okay. One of these gardens is in Rhode Island. Two of them are kind of a drive, come to think of it.”
“I’m sure she’ll say it’s okay,” Chris says, walking toward the door, and as much as I don’t want him to go anywhere, I know it’s time to be alone. To slee
p. To think about how this week is going to change my life.
“You’ll come tomorrow? For the first box? So I don’t have to deal with my mom without you?” I ask.
“Of course,” Chris says, and pulls me into a hug. Feeling bold for a second, I put my hands on his chest.
“Thanks for everything, Christopher,” I say, mimicking my mom.
“No problem, Lucy,” he says, which is what my math teacher, Mrs. Williams, called me for an entire year.
After he’s gone and Seth retreats to the spare room, I walk to Grandma’s bookshelves and find her favorites.
She asked in her will for an appropriate reading, and I know who she’ll want to hear.
I hope Dorothy Parker has something meaningful to say about gardens. Or death.
Chapter 4
After an almost reasonable night of sleep and my first shower in days, I am a new person. I watched days of makeup swirl down the drain. I shaved my legs and my armpits. My eyes are no longer red, and I can focus. I feel like myself.
Of course, seeing things clearly only makes reality seem uglier.
Seth passes me in the hallway and shoots me a smile, which helps. Today is going to be weird. I like the way we can be comfortable in the house without talking. We slide by each other, me on breakfast, grabbing cereal and coffee and orange juice, and him making his midmorning coffee and sending emails from his phone, like we have a rhythm. It’s not what I had with Grandma, but it feels right.
An hour later, it’s time to move. I’m standing in the driveway with a pack of people who qualify as my immediate family, but we all look like we’ve dressed for different events.
Seth is wearing dark jeans and a T-shirt that says MONTREAL on it. He wears sunglasses that look expensive, and his sneakers have a cool paisley pattern. He could be going to a reading at a bookstore. He could be going to a restaurant downtown.
Mom, meanwhile, is in one of her flowing hippie sack dresses and a large mesh sun hat that, like her dress, is made from some sort of burlap. Her geode necklace is back, but she’s added a rose quartz beaded choker to the mix. The woman loves stones.
Bill is in a long-sleeve formal suit, even though it’s ninety-four degrees outside. I don’t know where he thinks he’s going. Did he think we were having a real funeral?
Chris is in black pants and a matching T-shirt, like he’s dressed to be a stagehand in a theater production. Another baffling choice.
I am wearing a white A-line dress with birds on it that I bought at a thrift store in Cambridge. I look like I should be on an indie rock album cover, which is predictable, but the way I like it.
I suppose we never talked about the dress code for the day, but together, we look ridiculous.
“What is this ensemble?” I ask Chris.
“I know it’s not a funeral, but my mom said I should be respectful,” he says, embarrassed. “I went with all black.”
“Very respectful,” I say.
“You’re making fun of me.”
“No. I mean, it’ll be good for the miming portion of the burial,” I tell him.
“Are you sure I should be here?” Chris asks me.
“I’m so grateful you’re here. I can’t believe your mom let you miss church.”
“And the clothing drive,” Chris says.
My chest gets tight when I realize what day it is.
“The clothing drive!” I yell, and rub my forehead.
Over the past year, Grandma and I tried to do more volunteering with Chris’s family, joining the activities put together by their church. It was kind of weird—partly because we were two rando white Jewish ladies tagging along with the Burkes’ church friends, but mostly because I’d never done stuff like that. My mom and I never had enough time in one place to get to know big groups of people and give back.
Grandma and I were supposed to be sorting clothes today. We were supposed to be organizing donations for people who need nice things to wear to job interviews.
We would have been there right now, in Chris’s church’s basement, if things were normal.
“The clothing drive,” I say again, and I blink tears away.
“My mom’s got it, Lor,” Chris says, placing his hand on my shoulder. “There are fifty volunteers over there. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. All I meant was that I didn’t want to get in the way of a private family moment today. I’m honored to be here.”
“Grandma would want you to be part of this,” I say.
“You’re part of our family, Christopher,” Mom tells him, because she’s overhead.
“Christian!” Seth and I say.
“Oh yes, I’m so sorry,” she says, and gets into the passenger seat of her car with Bill.
“Meet at the Bussey Street Gate,” Mom yells out the window.
Seth gives her a thumbs-up as she pulls away, and then he notices the house across the street.
“What is up with that kid?” he asks.
“Who?” I ask.
“That kid,” he says, pointing to the middle schooler on the trampoline on our across-the-street neighbor’s long front lawn. “He’s been jumping on that trampoline every day since I’ve been here, like, all day. He’s on that thing when I wake up and when I go to bed. Literally, the only time he hasn’t been on it was when we came back from the hospital at three a.m., and frankly, he might have been on it then too, but I didn’t think to look.”
Seth is talking about Devin Coogan, the youngest of three brothers who live across the street. When I moved in, I asked Grandma Sheryl the same thing about Devin Coogan. Even a few years ago, he would hop on that fancy trampoline as soon as he got home from school, bouncing for hours, and sometimes for an hour or two before he left in the morning.
“He’s committed to his jumping; that’s all I know,” Grandma had said.
Chris had filled me in at the time, and I looked to him now to explain it all to Seth.
“Devin Coogan loves soccer,” Chris says. “He wants to be a famous player, and he practices all day, every day. See how there’s a net around the trampoline? He’s usually out there with a ball, and he’ll be kicking it against the net and catching it over and over and over. Sharpening his reflexes. It’s a little compulsive, I guess, but he knows what he wants.”
“I could put him in a book,” Seth says. “Honestly, that’s the kind of great suburban character I tell my students about.”
“Lori and I wrote a story about him once,” Chris tells him as he slides into the back seat and Seth and I take the two seats up front. Seth hasn’t driven in years, so he’s to my right.
“Tell me about it,” Seth says, and looks to me with a smile.
“We called it ‘Bouncing Boy,’” I tell him. “It was about a boy who’s always jumping on a trampoline, getting better and better at doing flips and kicks, until one day, after a series of somersaults, he bounces so high he never comes back down. His parents search for him but find nothing. After years, they give up—until one day he falls back down onto the trampoline. But he’s the same age. Like, for him, it was just one high jump. Seconds of time. The story sort of worked, but we were never sure if it was a metaphor or just a cool idea.”
“I’d love to read it,” Seth says, and I beam.
As we back out of the driveway, I see Devin in my rearview mirror. I have taken it for granted that I’ll get to see his weird jumping every day.
“I wish I liked anything as much as that kid loves that trampoline,” Seth says with a little bit of reverence. I stop the car to let him look.
“Hey, Devin,” Chris yells through his open window. I love that he is the kind of person who yells hellos. He is so social and easygoing, as long as he’s not in a big crowd. That’s when he gets shy. “You’re looking swift, like Ronaldo,” Chris tells him.
“I’m done with him,” Devin says, his voice cracking as he leaps. “I like Messi.”
“He’s got the moves for your height,” Chris says, “Keep kicking, man.”
“Ho
w do you know who these soccer players are?” I ask Chris. “I’ve literally never seen you watch soccer.”
“I don’t know,” Chris says, shrugging. “I guess I just hear stuff.”
Chris always knows sports things even though he doesn’t watch or do sports things. I have no idea how that works.
“Where are the craisins?” I ask then, remembering why we’re in the car.
“There’s a box in the trunk of your mom’s car,” Seth says. “I took the other three boxes up to the spare room closet.”
I don’t like the thought of boxes of cremains in a closet, but I’m not sure where else I’d put them. I can tell Mom and Seth have been divvying up this adult resposibility all moring.
* * *
Twenty-two minutes later we are technically in Boston, but you wouldn’t know it. It doesn’t look like a city here. The Arnold Arboretum is a massive open space that runs through a couple neighborhoods in the city, sort of like Central Park in New York, I guess, but probably not as cool because it’s Boston and not New York. I have driven through the arboretum with Grandma—the cut-through road is something we’ve taken into the city—but I haven’t spent a ton of time on the grounds. Grandma asked me if I wanted to visit the gardens many times, and even though I always told her I’d be willing someday, I never made it happen for more than a quick drive. She always went with the Girls.
“Do you know what an arboretum is, Lori? Chris?” Bill asks us as he gets out of my mom’s car.
I am staring at him. He’s taken off his formal suit jacket and thrown it into the back seat. He has massive armpit stains on his white shirt, and they’re only getting worse. I worry for a second that he might die by suffocation from his own outfit; I’m overheated, and this dress is one of the lightest things I own.
Chris is standing next to me, and I feel the warmth of him at my side. He’s brought his sketchpad and pencils so he can draw whatever site we choose for Grandma.
Chris shakes his head, and I think he probably does know what an arboretum is, but he wants to be nice and let Bill explain. But I am less nice. I answer Bill by lifting my arms and motioning to what’s in front of us. We’re at one of the gates of the Arnold Arboretum. Acres of trees and plants lie beyond. I mean, we’re looking at it.
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