The Northern Reach

by W. S. Winslow

  With the children’s final call for mercy on their mother’s soul, Father Barbizon made the sign of the cross. “The Lord be with you,” said the priest, signaling the end of the proceedings.

  “And also with you,” came the rote chorus.

  The priest bent forward, closed Alice’s eyes, and pulled the sheet over her ghastly face. The family seemed to emit a collective sigh of relief.

  At this, Alice expected she might finally feel the pull from on high or at the very least see the bright light she’d heard about on Oprah, but still she lingered, even as everyone began to file from the room and the priest packed up his paraphernalia and folded his stole.

  Turning to leave, he placed his small hand on Theresa’s shoulder and murmured, “I’m so sorry for your family’s loss, Theresa, but we can all take comfort in the certainty that your mother’s earthly suffering is over and that she’s with God now.”

  Theresa, now alone with the priest and the corpse, her swollen eyes narrowed like gun slits in the mottled fortress of her face, said something Alice never would have expected from her.

  “I doubt it.”

  And with that she rose from her chair and walked from the room, leaving the priest standing next to Alice’s body with his shiny red mouth hanging open for the second time that day.

  * * *

  Alice would not have been surprised to hear such a remark from Molly. Her relationship with her youngest child had always been contentious, and Molly had embraced her role as the family heretic early on. At sixteen she’d announced that she would no longer be bound by “some life-denying rules made up by a bunch of power-mad hypocrites and closeted old queens just so they could push everybody else around.” She had become, she told anyone who would listen, an existentialist. When Alice inquired as to what that might entail, Molly said, “God does not exist, so everything is permitted. I am my own project.”

  Alice let it drop, figuring age and experience would eventually lead her youngest back to the one true Church. They had not, and Alice still regretted letting Molly switch from Latin to French in the eighth grade.

  Her eldest child was a different story. Often, but never kindly, referred to as “Mother Theresa” by her younger siblings, Theresa had never shown any sign of being other than a rock of silent Catholic rectitude, the living embodiment of familial devotion. Or as Alice’s husband had remarked, long before Mr. Alzheimer stole his mind and convinced him he’d been elected governor of Maine, “Theresa wouldn’t say shit if she had a mouthful.”

  Apparently, Alice thought as she trailed her family out of the death room and down to the first floor, she’s had a bellyful.

  It was here that she first noticed the smoke. Not sooty black chimney smoke, but wispy, vaporous strands like spiderwebs that seemed somehow attached to her nothingness. Although Alice could see the smoke, she couldn’t quite make out where it began or ended, which gave her the sensation of being tethered, like a balloon in the Thanksgiving Day parade, unable to control her position and unsure of where she was going or who was handling the lines, floating just above the crowd at the base of the stairs.

  Paul was shaking Father Barbizon’s hand and thanking him. “I’m sure she knew you were here and was comforted by the presence of the Church,” Paul said with apparent sincerity, even though he had broken his promise to have Monsignor Kennedy attend his mother. Jack stood awkwardly by, making small, fidgety movements with his hands. Molly drifted out of the foyer and over to the drinks table in the living room, next to where Theresa had dropped into Alice’s favorite chintz armchair and was staring intently out at the milky winter afternoon and the whitecaps on the bay.

  The priest declined Paul’s offer of refreshment and excused himself. Once the front door clunked shut, Jack suggested that a cocktail was in order. Molly’s glass was already half-empty. Refusing a drink, Paul moved in the other direction, down the hall toward his father’s study. Mrs. Coltrane headed for the kitchen.

  * * *

  While Molly and Jack drank Irish whiskey from her husband’s heavy crystal tumblers, Theresa chose one of Alice’s delicate little thimble glasses for the Scotch her mother always preferred. “Just a halfsie,” Alice would say when Mike offered her a refill, and she’d hand her husband the little glass for a drink that didn’t really count as a drink at all.

  Theresa’s tears had left dry, chalky tracks on her cheeks, and her short dark hair, with its liberal sprinkling of wiry grays, was choppier than usual, looking, as it always did, like she’d cut it herself. In her uniform of colorless twinset, wool skirt, silver crucifix, and low-heeled pumps, Theresa might have been taken for a nun, but in Alice’s view it was the tough, unyielding set of her jaw that made her a dead ringer for a Bride of Christ. Straight-backed and disconcertingly still, her ankles crossed against the faded roses of her chair, Theresa stared unblinking out the window at the dreary ocean where a lone cormorant swooped low and glided above the surface, neck craned, prospecting, its reflection distorted in the ripples. Apparently satisfied that there was nothing for it in the water, the bird pumped its wings and ascended, flapping high and out of sight.

  When did Theresa get so old? Alice wondered. Good Lord, she’s only forty-seven.

  Jack asked after Theresa’s twin daughters and was told they were on their way home from college in New York. “They really loved Mum,” Jack said, unconvincing in his lie.

  “They did not,” Alice said aloud. Apparently no one heard, so she went on, pleased at no longer having to censor herself. “Truth be told, I suppose it was mutual. Oh, Theresa, I know it broke your heart when you couldn’t have children, but why did you have to go all the way to Korea to get some? I never understood that. Surely the Church could’ve found a baby here, or in Ireland. God knows there are plenty of bastards around. It would have been so much easier if they’d looked just a little bit like you or—”

  Alice was interrupted by a loud blowing sound. Molly wiped her nose and got up from the sofa to get another drink. Her daughter’s brown curls needed washing and there were ugly purple half-moons under her blue eyes.

  “I can’t believe she’s gone, that it’s all over. What do we do now?” Molly said. She looked small, diminished by her doubt.

  “Paul’s taking care of things with Mr. Fell,” Theresa said.

  Molly shuddered. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, not another fucking family jamboree at Toothaker and Fell. I hate that place—it smells like old man, and that puky green ladies’ room is always freezing.”

  Jack grunted, shoved his tissue in his pocket, and plunked down on an ottoman in front of the fire, tumbler in hand. He was shivering despite the heat on his back.

  “Why there?” Molly asked.

  “Mum wanted it there. She left very detailed instructions about everything. Thought they had the nicest rooms, and Fell’s the only undertaker who lets you set up a bar at the wake,” Theresa replied without moving her gaze from the water.

  “She always hated a dry event,” Jack said with half a grin. “And really, when do you need a drink more than at a funeral? Good thinking. Thanks, Mum.” And he raised his glass in toast.

  “You’re welcome, dear,” Alice said.

  Molly’s eyes snapped open, and Alice thought she might have heard her speak. “Oh Jesus, they’re coming to get her. Shouldn’t we do something, you know, put a dress on her or pull out the IV? Oh God, what about the catheter? The nurse is gone. We can’t let the funeral guys see that. Can you imagine what she’d say about being taken out of the house in a hospital johnny?”

  Jack raised one eyebrow and looked at his sister. “You can go rummage around for urinary clamps if you want to, Mol, but there’s no way I’m having that end of Mum be my last memory of her.”

  “Take that mess and throw it in the bay for all I care. Just keep the damned casket closed,” Alice muttered.

  Molly started to cry. “Urinary clamps,” she said, looking at Jack. Then she laughed right out loud and covered her mouth. The more she tried t
o stop, the worse it got, and soon both brother and sister were consumed by an unsettling mix of frantic giggles and wretched sobs.

  “A little respect?” Paul said from the doorway.

  It took a good few seconds for Molly to muster sufficient control to speak. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “It’s just the thought … of the … Mr. Fell … with his toupee…” And here she let out a sound somewhere between a howl and a screech. “His head under the sheets … oh God, I can’t. Sorry … so sorry.”

  This wasn’t the first time Molly had been felled by inappropriate laughter. More than once the nuns had had to rap her knuckles to stop her disrupting classes or, worse, chapel with her silliness; of course Alice had quickly put paid to that. You couldn’t have people, holy orders or not, striking your children. Still, she was surprised to see it happening now, and she was even more startled that Jack was joining in. He’d always been devoted to her.

  Glass in hand, Molly fled the room, leaving Jack shaking in silent hysteria on the receiving end of his brother’s obvious disapproval. Only Theresa, seated off by herself, seemed unfazed by the scene. She calmly raised the tiny glass to her lips and sipped, wrinkling her nose at the taste.

  * * *

  After Molly left, Alice noticed she felt a bit less tightly bound by the smoke. She could still see it, but not as clearly as before. There was a sort of looseness to her movements, as if the bonds had been elasticized.

  Without his sister to egg him on, Jack’s outburst subsided and the living room became quiet again. He got to his feet and moved toward the kitchen, mumbling apologies as he went. Paul motioned for him to wait and then outlined the sequence of events to come, starting with the funeral home pickup (Mr. Fell was on his way) and ending with a Mass and burial in three days’ time.

  “I’m going to Fell’s tomorrow to pick out a casket. If you want to come, you’re welcome, but no pressure,” he said. “We’ll need flowers for the wake and the service. What do you think Mum would want?”

  Again Theresa roused herself, this time rising from her chair and pushing wordlessly past her brothers toward the den. When she returned, she handed a piece of Alice’s heavy ecru stationery to Paul. On it were the instructions Alice had written out three months previous. Paul skimmed it and nodded curtly.

  “Trust Alice to run the show right to the bitter end and beyond,” he murmured, then said, “Fine, I’ll pass this to Mr. Fell. Thanks, T.”

  You’d think he was handling a difficult client, Alice thought. “I just wanted to make it easier, so you knew what I intended,” she explained, wishing they could hear.

  “Where’s Molly?” Paul asked.

  In response Theresa shrugged, so Jack volunteered to find her and fill her in. He gave his older brother a manly pat on the shoulder, then continued toward the kitchen, pulling Alice along in the sticky cobwebs.

  * * *

  In the oak-beamed kitchen, Mrs. Coltrane was making sandwiches. “A plate of sandwiches and a pot of tea, the Irish response to every crisis,” Alice said. “That or hot whiskey.” Jack had grabbed a sandwich off the platter and was torturing it as he sat hunched in his usual chair at the old pine table in the corner.

  As she watched the hired woman methodically assemble first egg salad, then ham and cheese, Alice wondered about the inscrutable Ina Coltrane.

  “Coltrane, you are an odd duck. The kids love you, and God knows how I’d have managed without you, but after all this time you’re still a mystery. What makes you tick, Ina Coltrane?”

  Alice thought back to the bleak February morning Coltrane had come to them. With a newborn, Jack, three-year-old Paul, and Theresa, not yet five, all at home, Alice had been careening toward a nervous breakdown, there was no denying it.

  Her own mother was more interested in tennis and shopping than her grandchildren, who, Alice suspected, made her feel old. The one thing she had done for Alice was make inquiries about domestic help at the church. As it happened, Father O’Neill knew an Irishwoman who, having recently fled her abusive American husband up north, was looking for a live-in work situation somewhere her seven-year-old son could go to a good school. Alice was skeptical at first, but the priest reassured her, saying, “She’s Irish off the boat, but the woman’s teetotal, so she can be trusted to stay away from the liquor. She says she’s willing to look after the children and get the meals, just see to things generally.” And so the deal was struck without any further input from Alice.

  Five days later Mrs. Coltrane arrived with her son, two suitcases, a teapot, one book, and a teddy bear. She quickly settled into the caretaker’s apartment above the garage, which Alice’s mother had had painted, cleaned, and furnished with castoffs from her rambling, frequently redecorated home in Fairleigh. Though emotionally chary, Sarah Byrne was generous with a dollar.

  If Ina Coltrane was happy living on Bridge Point, she never let on. With her long copper-colored braid, now shot through with gray, and imperturbable demeanor, she initially put Alice in mind of a statue. She tended to be terse, though her speech was laced with an Irish accent, which lent it a lilting, musical quality that everyone, Alice included, seemed to find soothing.

  Mrs. Coltrane soon became the calm center of the Culligan house. When Molly came along quite unexpectedly four years later, it was Colie, as Jack had nicknamed her, who took the baby in hand while Alice stayed in bed with an extended case of postpartum pip.

  Alice’s reverie was interrupted by Jack asking Mrs. Coltrane where Molly was.

  “She’ll be down presently, I expect. Just upstairs washing her face.” As if summoned, Molly slipped down the stairs and took a seat at the table. Without a word, Mrs. Coltrane placed a sandwich and a cup of tea before her and nodded her instruction to eat.

  “Egg salad?” Molly asked.

  “Um-hm.”

  “Not too hungry, but thanks, Colie.” Molly wrapped her hands around the cup and lifted it to her face.

  “Molly Culligan, you should be ashamed,” said Alice to her unhearing child. Ina Coltrane looked up from her cutting board, then quickly back down.

  “Sorry about … you know, in there,” Molly said to Jack, glancing toward the living room. Seated together like that, the two of them could have been twins. They shared the same coloring and features; even their expressions and posture were similar. Jack, however, was tall and rangy like his father, while Molly was built more along Alice’s lines, below average height and about half a club sandwich past skinny.

  “Shit happens, Mol. Don’t worry about Paul, such a tight-ass.”

  “I can’t believe I did that,” she said. “Last time it happened I was in a bunker in Tora Bora, and my producer got so freaked, she sent me to an army field shrink. Happened in New York, too, 9/11. I just could not stop. He said it’s a common reaction to trauma or stress, but sometimes it just comes on because you know you shouldn’t do it.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Um-hmm. Remember Dawn Pendleton from high school? I did the same thing at her wedding to Freddy Houghton. He stood up and read this really horrible, sticky love poem he wrote and I just lost it, had to leave. Someone said the maid of honor played ‘Leather and Lace’ on a recorder right after. I’d’ve had to crawl out of Bloody Paul if I’d heard that. Alice was pissed, but Dad thought it was a hoot. Dawn never spoke to me again. Whatever, I couldn’t stand that girl.”

  Molly sighed, and Alice thought she detected a trace of a smirk on Coltrane’s face.

  “Dawn Pendleton? I did her,” Jack said without a trace of embarrassment. “Guess that’s why she didn’t invite me to the wedding, huh?”

  “Ew Jack, that is so gross,” Molly said. “When?”

  As Jack described the encounter, Alice wondered, Are these my children? Do they always talk this way? And in front of Coltrane? Alice wasn’t so much startled at Jack’s conquest as she was disgusted by the discussion. It didn’t surprise her that the Pendleton girl had been loose. All you had to do was take one look at the mother to realize how the acor
n from that tree would sprout. And although Alice had never been bothered by colorful language—she very much enjoyed swearing—the subject of sex had always made her distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Really,” Alice said to no one in particular. “There hasn’t been so much dirty talk in this house since Jack threw a petting party in high school, little bastard.”

  * * *

  Behind Mrs. Coltrane, Alice found herself being drawn back up the stairs. Paul had asked Molly to help prepare the body for the undertakers, who were due momentarily, but seeing the look of horror on Molly’s face, Colie had volunteered to go instead. Alice was surprised her daughter would be so squeamish. She must have seen hundreds of dead bodies in the course of her work.

  With Alice floating along, Mrs. Coltrane entered the bedroom to find Theresa rummaging through the dresser drawers.

  “I need a scarf,” Theresa said. She held a white cotton slip and a pair of stockings and looked dangerously close to tears.

  Mrs. Coltrane crossed to the hulking Queen Anne wardrobe, her steps soundless on the Oriental rug. “Here, I know where she keeps them. Now won’t this be just the thing, duckie? It was one of her favorites.” Alice was flabbergasted; she hadn’t heard Coltrane speak this way since the kids were babies.

  After shaking out the white silk square with intertwined gold chains and navy ropes, Mrs. Coltrane adeptly folded it into a triangle and approached the hospital bed. “Now, Theresa, you’ll have to help me if you can, dear. It would never do for anyone to see your mother like this, would it?” Her voice was low and soft, calming as milky tea. Theresa nodded.