Death Benefits

by Sarah N. Harvey

  “I’m sorry you never knew him when he was young,” Coralee says.

  “Yeah, me too.” I scan a photo of Arthur in his tux, standing next to Fred Astaire at a party; they are surrounded by adoring women in elaborate ball gowns. And suddenly I realize I did know this Arthur, but only in fragments: smiling and laughing with a bevy of women at the gala just before he died, charming the reporter and the photographer at his house, meeting with his lawyer to make sure the people he cared about were taken care of, flirting with Kim, buying me a tux. Fragments of joy encrusted by years of pain and decay. A rotten oyster with a hidden pearl.

  Nineteen

  The wake is subdued, almost genteel. No wailing, gnashing of teeth or rending of garments. I dress up in my tux pants and a white shirt, and Dani and I circulate with trays of food and drinks, making small talk: Didn’t he have a long illustrious life? Wasn’t I proud to be his grandson? What was going to happen to the house? Apparently it’s okay to talk real estate at a wake. Mom and Coralee meet and greet the guests, who exclaim over the view and suck back the free booze. One of the guests is Midge, the reporter who interviewed Arthur before he died. I tell her about transcribing his story onto the Mac and she puts her drink down and pulls me into a corner.

  “You’re saying you got his whole story—verbatim?”

  I nod. “He was in the hospital, bored out of his skull. We’d look at photographs for a while, and then he’d talk while I typed. It seemed to take his mind off things. Like dying.”

  “You still have it?”

  I nod again. She seems about to ask me another question—she is a reporter after all—then she thinks better of it, pulls a business card out of her purse and tucks it into my shirt pocket.

  “Ever since I interviewed your grandfather, I’ve been thinking about writing a book about him. Now’s not the time, but I’d love to talk to you and your mother about it.”

  “Sure,” I say. “I saw your article. It was good. Didn’t make him into too much of a saint.”

  “Well, we both know he wasn’t that.” She laughs and heads off to find another drink.

  My slide show is a hit, although when the Pussycat Dolls song comes on the soundtrack, you can see people’s heads come up, like dogs smelling an intruder. You have no idea, I think. If I decided to speak, what would I say? Arthur loved the Pussycat Dolls. He watched CNN all the time. He loved women and cars. He hated drafts. He never stopped mourning his brother and sister and first wife. He loved his family—even if he didn’t show it— and chocolate ice cream. And café au lait. He wanted to die long before he did.

  I carry my empty tray to the kitchen and sit down at the table, which is covered in platters of sweets: puff pastries, truffles, brownies, lemon bars.

  “You okay?” Dani starts loading her empty tray with more sandwiches.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Just needed a break.”

  She nods and leans down to kiss my cheek before she heads back out to the living room. Her lip gloss smells like ripe strawberries. “I’ll cover for you,” she says.

  I stay in the kitchen until I hear my mom’s voice. “I was going to talk a little bit about Arthur, but then I thought of something better, something that says more about my father than I ever could.” There is a pause as she sits at the piano bench and uncovers the keys. “My father expressed himself best through his music—I guess I’ve inherited that from him. His old student and friend, Martin Sutherland, is going to help me out.”

  I stand in the doorway to the dining room and watch as Martin Sutherland comes into the room carrying Frankie—my grandfather’s cello. I recognize Martin from the photo albums—he is the principal cellist of some big symphony orchestra in the States. He sits and tunes the cello, while my mother waits. When he is ready, she announces, “Debussy’s Cello Sonata in D Minor.”

  It’s not a long piece, but by the time they reach the last notes, almost everyone, including me, is sniffling. Mom looks at Martin and shrugs.

  “Arthur would hate to see his send-off end on a sad note, don’t you think?” she asks.

  Martin nods and Coralee gets up to stand by the piano. The three of them launch into a spirited version of Gershwin’s “They All Laughed.” By the time they get to “Ha! Ha! Ha! Who’s got the last laugh now,” most of the guests have dried their tears and joined in.

  When all the guests have left, Mom sits down at the piano again. While Lars and Dani and I clean up, Coralee curls up in Arthur’s big chair while Mom plays: “Begin the Beguine”; “Some Enchanted Evening”; “Climb Every Mountain”; “Cheek to Cheek”; “Shall We Dance?” Sometimes Coralee warbles along, but most of the time it’s just Mom and the piano. “Arthur would have loved this,” I say to Dani as she dries the wineglasses I have washed.

  She stops drying and comes around to stand beside me at the sink. “No he wouldn’t,” she says. “Are you on crack? He’d say, ‘What the hell’s that goddamn racket? Get me some ice cream, boy, and turn on the tv.’” She giggles and puts her arms around my waist. As we sway together to “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” I lift a soapy wineglass in a toast. “Here’s to you, you old prick.”

  “That’s more like it,” says Dani.

  Before Coralee goes back to Toronto, she helps us go through Arthur’s things. His room is the worst— beautiful “bespoke” pinstriped suits with giant shoulder pads and nipped waists, ancient cracked two-tone Italian leather shoes, cashmere sweaters with frayed cuffs, unopened packages of black Jockey underpants, dozens of stained ties, a box of cufflinks, a drawer full of stockpiled drugs, a bag of quarters. I keep his new shoes, which fit me perfectly; his tux, which does not; and a set of ruby cufflinks. The rest goes into the garbage or to a consignment store, along with most of the furniture. Arthur’s desk and chair go downstairs into what will be Mom’s office. The piano goes into the living room to make room for our dining-room table and chairs. The old TV with the stick remote goes into my room. We have the carpets washed, and Lars paints every room except mine. I want to leave it alone for a while before I cover the dingy beige paint.

  The day before Coralee leaves, we scatter the ashes. Mom has done a lot of research on the web as to the best way to dispose of ashes. It’s illegal, so we can’t just stand around the way they do in the movies, flinging handfuls of ash into the air. For one thing, we might get arrested. For another, human ash isn’t soft and uniform, like baby powder or flour. It’s gritty and kinda chunky. I know this because I stuck my hand into his ashes after we brought them home. I also put some ashes in a jam jar and hid it in my room. Just a toe’s worth, I swear. Later Mom tells me that she has done the same thing, but on a slightly grander scale: she used a pickle jar. Anyway, if you don’t want ashes up your nose and in your eyes, and you’re near a large body of water, apparently the best thing to do is to put the ashes in a plastic bag, submerge the bag and open it under water. The ashes will disperse gently into the water as you say your fond farewells. At least, that’s the general idea.

  Mom double-bags Arthur’s cremains in two plastic grocery bags, even though she thinks plastic grocery bags are evil. I point out that since we are basically polluting the ocean, using a couple of plastic bags hardly seems criminal by comparison. She glares at me and says, “Thanks for that. Makes me feel so much better.”

  We get to Cattle Point in the late afternoon. It’s windy and cold and gray. No Japanese dog-walkers, no elderly couples on the benches, no kids making out in cars. So far so good. Mom has done reconnaissance and picked the ideal spot, somewhere the tides will whisk Arthur away into the channel. We pick our way over the rocks to the edge of the water, Coralee holding my arm. At the last minute, Mom seems a bit confused about the exact spot, but she finally points to a place where there is a bit of an eddy by the shore.

  “There,” she says. “You ready?”

  I nod and kneel beside the water, the plastic bags in my hand.

  “Make sure you get them under the water before you open them,” Mom says.

>   “I know, Mom,” I say. “You told me.”

  “Does anybody want to say anything?” Mom asks.

  “Too bloody cold,” Coralee says, her teeth chattering.

  Mom nods. “Go ahead, Royce.”

  My hands are numb, but I manage to submerge the bags in the freezing water and untie the knot. Nothing happens. I rustle the bags a bit under the water and suddenly all the ashes come out in a single gray blob, which sits just under the surface, unmoving. We all stare at it.

  “It’s looks like when you add flour to water to make gravy,” Coralee finally says. “Just needs a bit of a stir, Royce.”

  “A bit of a stir?” I say. “What am I supposed to stir it with?”

  We look around, but the shore is bare of sticks and there are no trees nearby. I roll up my sleeve and plunge my hand into the ball of ash, which clings to my skin, coating me with a fine, gritty film. I sweep my arm back and forth through the blob, but even when it’s broken up a bit, the mass doesn’t move away from the shore. It just sits, reproachfully, as Coralee flings some red tulips on top of it.

  “Typical,” Mom says. “Ornery until the end.” We continue to stare at the blob, and just as I am about to point out that I have lost all sensation in my right arm and really need a shower, a small wave, probably from a passing boat, sweeps the blob and the flowers into the channel, where it begins to move out to sea, still remarkably intact.

  “Goodbye, my love,” Coralee says.

  “Goodbye, Dad,” says Mom.

  “Later, dude,” I say. “Gotta go. I’m freezing.”

  I run to the parking lot, the plastic bags dripping in my hand. I can’t wait to get out of the wind. There is a garbage can beside the car, and I stop to dump the bags, figuring Mom isn’t watching. Wrong again.

  “Don’t throw them away, Rolly,” she yells from the shore. “I’ll recycle them.”

  I pretend not to hear her, but I swear I can almost hear Arthur’s raspy voice as I shove the bags deep into the garbage can: “What the hell are you doing, boy? It’s too drafty in here. Get me a café au lait.” I laugh and run back to help Coralee over the rocky ground.

  The day I pass my road test and graduate from Learner to Novice, I take Dani out on a real date: flowers, dinner at the Marina restaurant, a movie of her choosing and a post-movie toast to Arthur at Cattle Point. Not enough to make me drunk, but enough to bring tears to my eyes. I tell Dani it’s because I’m not used to drinking whiskey. In reply, she kisses me and whispers, “Sure, Rolly. Whatever you say.” After that…well, let me put it this way: Arthur would have been proud of me.

  When I get home from the date, I decide to finally read the letter Arthur left me. It’s on top of my bookshelf next to my favorite picture of him, the one where he’s on his Indian motorcycle. Coralee had it enlarged and framed for me before she left. She also gave me an antique print of an artichoke, with an inscription on the back: Arthur Jenkins, circa 2010. The letter’s been gathering dust ever since the lawyer had it couriered over from the bank. Mom has asked about it a couple of times—she’s more curious than I am, it seems—but she hasn’t pushed it. Maybe she’s upset that she didn’t get a letter too. Not much I can do about that.

  I’m not sure why I haven’t opened it. No, that’s not quite true. I’m afraid it’ll be like one of those horror movies where a corpse reaches out from the grave and pulls the dim-witted but good-looking hero into hell. I’m afraid that Arthur has listed all my faults: my selfishness, my stupidity, my lack of musical talent, my inability to make a perfect café au lait, my lamentable virginity. I’m afraid he will say that his will, at least as far as I am concerned, was his final joke, that he never meant for me to have anything. That I don’t deserve it. I’m afraid that I will believe him.

  The envelope is plain, white, legal size. Nothing remarkable. Nothing to be afraid of. My name is printed on the front in shaky capital letters. The letter—actually it’s more like a note or a memo—is written on lined yellow paper and dated the week before his first stroke. The handwriting is atrocious.

  Dear Royce,

  Take care of your mother.

  Take care of the car. Always fill it with Premium.

  See the world.

  Get laid.

  You did a good job. Thank you.

  Arthur

  I turn the letter over—there is nothing on the back. I read it again. The words are blurry. You did a good job. I put the letter back in its envelope and place it next to the photograph. For once, I’m happy to let Arthur have the last word.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to my editor, Bob Tyrrell, as well as to the rest of Team Orca, particularly Andrew Wooldridge, Teresa Bubela, Dayle Sutherland and Kelly Laycock.

  I benefited from the insight and experience of many patient friends, who read various incarnations of the manuscript and offered their impressions and suggestions. Sarah Gee, Leslie Buffam and Tabitha Gillman were early readers; Maggie de Vries, Kit Pearson, Monique Polak and Robin Stevenson weighed in later on; and Amanda Adams gave me valuable medical information. Sarah Mnatzaganian of Aitchison/Mnatzaganian Cellos in the UK graciously answered my questions about old cellos.

  I would also like to thank my father, John Edgar Harvey, who died in 2008 at the age of ninety-five. He did not “go gentle into that good night,” and thus provided the inspiration (but not the model) for Arthur.

  SARAH N. HARVEY is an editor and the author of Puppies on Board, The Lit Report, Bull’s Eye, Plastic, The West Is Calling and Great Lakes & Rugged Ground. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia. This book was inspired by her experience caring for her aged father.