“Vito doesn’t ever have to struggle for breaths again,” Ty says, his head hanging low as he crawls onto Janie’s bed.
I didn’t know it would happen so quickly.
I haven’t seen Gram undressed since Rio. She’s a skeleton with a pregnancy bump, covered in purple scabby patches and needle marks. Mom and Janie and I pin her funeral dress behind her wasting frame and dot her cheeks with blush. Janie fluffs her thinning hair, freshly done at the salon, and I paint her nails seashell pink.
“Stop fussing over me,” Gram says. “I’m fine.”
“We love you, Gram. We’re just trying to make you look pretty,” Janie says.
“You’re trying to make me look alive,” she says.
We nearly crash wheelchairs with Mark as we round the corner to the ballroom. Enzo’s pushing him, and Burt’s bent down tying Mark’s shoe. There’s an emptiness in Mark’s expression, like he’s tired of being fussed over, too.
I’m wearing red for the service in honor of Gloria’s lips and Vito’s love of Christmas. Enzo is wearing his Armani suit. I am an evil pervert for thinking about sex at a time like this.
“Bride’s or groom’s side?” Vito’s son-in-law jokes as we file into the ballroom-turned-funeral-parlor. Roberta and one of the other daughters pass out programs. There are two screens, one showing photos of Vito’s life, the other of Gloria’s. Gloria’s recipes are displayed on an easel for everyone to see.
“They were both attractive,” Mom says. Mom has been crying off and on all day. “Who knows why I so enjoyed spending time with Gloria. Maybe it was that we both love makeup or that I have a passion for baking and she loved to cook. Whatever it was, I miss her. I miss her a lot.”
Mom’s lip quivers. I put my arm around her shoulders. “Isn’t that what soul mates are? People who are drawn to each other?” I say.
“I guess it is. You are getting philosophical on me, hon. But, yeah, it’s true. It’s hard to put a finger on what connects people.”
The minister talks about the power of family and friendship and how blessed Vito and Gloria were to have all of us. He tries to get through a story about when Gloria was diagnosed and the first thing she said was, “Who will cook your eggs, darling?” but he breaks down and Bob has to help him to his seat.
Roberta talks about her dad and how he supported all his children through tough times. He was their rock. He was their Father Christmas.
Overall, it’s a pretty painless service, maybe because it was exactly what Vito and Gloria wanted.
“It’s so weird we’ll never see them again,” Janie says.
“Holy Christmas,” Wes says as I elbow Uncle Billy out of the way so I can sit near Gram. I’m wearing the sapphire. I want her to see how much I cherish it.
The dining room is ablaze in twinkle lights. The crew moved Vito’s Christmas village to the back wall near the giant heavily tinseled tree. I butter my roll and gear up for an Italian Christmas Eve with twelve trays of fish and Gloria’s eggplant lasagna.
Uncle Billy clinks his glass with a knife. “I’d like to read our special message to Gloria. I hope we did our girl justice.”
Gloria, Gloria, you bald beauty.
You swept us off our feet with your gorgeous face and knocked us off our feet with your fabulous recipes. We will never look at a lipstick without thinking of you, your quick wit, and your beautiful heart. We love you.
The Wishwellians
We clap and cheer when Jeb rolls the paper and sticks it in the paper bottle. Apparently messages in papier-mâché bottles is our new thing.
Dad stands up next.
Dear Vito,
It is no wonder you loved Christmas so much. You embodied the true spirit of Christmas. You were bright and shiny, generous and charitable, and full to the brim with love for family and friends. We will never forget the cheer you spread every single day. We love you.
The Wishwellians
We make our way out to the deck. The minister and the former Mrs. Vito, who is more of a mess than any of his kids, kiss the bottles and fling them overboard. We lean over the railing and watch the bottles flip and flop until the sea swallows them up.
Eddie pulls out the karaoke machine. Our family can dance to anything, but singing is a different matter. Nobody seems to care, since “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was meant to suck. We take an eggnog break while Bob sings “O Holy Night” with a voice as rich as red velvet cake and the Ornaments deliver a moving rendition of “Ave Maria.”
For the grand finale, we sit Gram in a chair on stage and serenade her with “Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer.” It wouldn’t be Christmas without Gram saying “Thanks a lot, assholes,” at least once.
I get a knot in my stomach. It’s easy to make fun of Gram while she’s still here. But when she’s gone, swallowed up by the sea, with the bottles and Heinz and Vito and Gloria, what then? Who will fill the void she leaves in this world? Who will fill the void she leaves in me?
We linger, all of us, as if nobody wants to pull away from the comfort of the group. Janie and I wheel Gram up to her room and crawl under the covers like we’ve done so many times.
“When are you going to do this, Gram?” I blurt. I can no longer deal with the anxiety of not knowing. I push it away. It comes back. I do something fun. It comes back.
“I don’t know, honey. Gloria and Vito said they just knew it was their time. She was in an awful lot of pain, and he could barely breathe. I’m tired and out of it and feeling pretty rotten, but I’ve still got a little bit left in me.” She turns over and moans softly. “Bob and I want to watch the old movies one more time. It sounds trivial, but I can’t enjoy food, so I might as well look at James Dean and Marlon Brando.”
“Do you ever think about going back to New York and living until your body stops?” Janie says.
“No way, Jose. I’m more afraid of wearing a diaper and losing my mind than I am of death. This is the way to go, girlies. Haven’t we had loads of fun? If you really want to get depressed, spend a month in a nursing home. You’ll come out wanting to smother every bastard over eighty with a pillow.”
She gets quiet. Janie and I stay up listening to her irregular, gurgling breaths. “What are we going to do without her?” Janie whispers. I don’t answer because I don’t know.
TWENTY-FIVE
IT TURNS OUT Wes blabbed about the baby to everyone. He told Gloria and Vito before they passed. He told my entire family, then made each of us promise not to tell anyone. So when Uncle Billy gets us together for a “big news brunch” at their cabin, we all act abnormally surprised.
Uncle Billy passes around ultrasound pictures of a baby with a perfectly round head and a button nose.
“She’s an adorable fetus,” Mom says.
“We’re going to name her Tessa Astrid O’Neill Parker,” Uncle Billy announces.
“Can I make a suggestion? A revision, if I may?” Gram says.
“What’s your revision, Assy? There’s always something,” Wes says.
“I adore the name Tessa. But how about Tessa Rose? I have you people, and I’ll surely have buildings named after me. Rose didn’t get to have children. She would have been tickled pink.”
Uncle Billy and Wes exchange looks. “Yes. I love it,” Wes says.
“Me too.” Uncle Billy kisses Gram. “Tessa Rose O’Neill Parker it is.”
“Now we have a question for Bob,” Uncle Billy says.
“Sure, Bill, shoot,” Bob says.
“We would be honored if you would be Tessa’s godfather. We want you to be part of our family officially, forever.”
Bob’s eyes fill with tears. “I’ve been a lot of things in this life,” Bob says, “but I’ve never been a godfather.” Wes and Uncle Billy get up and walk over to Bob, and the three of them embrace.
“I’ve raised good boys,” Gram says.
“You didn’t raise me, Assy,” Wes says.
“Yes, but I taught you everything you know. That dowdy backwoods mother
of yours didn’t know a thing about raising a gay. It’s not all musical theater and decorating, Delores,” Gram jokes.
“I love you, Assy.”
“I love you more, Wessy.”
Gram and Bob don’t seem thrilled about me following them to the theater. Gram wants to watch a movie from 1949 because Celia Hobbes has a bit part. I don’t want to leave Gram. I take in every gesture, every smile, every word. I hold them for a second and stuff them into my mental file, already overflowing with Gram memories. I don’t want to miss a single one.
“Go, Maddie. Read a book. Bob and I have a date. No kids allowed.”
“Fine, Gram. Go have your date. I love you.”
“I love you, too, stalker child.”
I wander aimlessly. Mom and Roberta are playing Scrabble in the library, and what’s left of the poker guys are down in the card room. I bang out a few rounds of Whac-A-Mole and go up to the cabin. Janie’s on the balcony bawling her eyes out.
“Janie, talk to me. Is it Gram?” She nods. I slide next to her, hold her head on my lap, and stroke her hair like I did in Charleston after her parents’ divorce.
After a long silence, I ask, “Do you want your worry doll back?”
“No.” She laughs a little. “I still have Maria and Conchita and Claudia and Rigoberta and Missy.”
“All right, then,” I say. “I think you’re good. I’ll keep Esperanza for now.”
Mark wants to have his memorial service before he dies. He doesn’t see the point in not being there to enjoy it. He wants old-school music and a burger bar and an endless stream of Mark’s greatest surfing moments.
I take a shower and put on my funeral sundress and flip-flops and starfish bracelet. I go over to Wes and Uncle Billy’s cabin and lie on their bed while they share a bottle of wine.
“It’s just so unfair,” Uncle Billy says. “It’s bullshit.”
“He told me as soon as he was forced to wear a diaper, it was time to book the ship,” Wes says, polishing off his wine. “There’s no dignity in diapers for a guy like Mark. Come on, peeps. It’s time to let Mark go.”
We enter Malibu Beach circa 1987 and take in the surfboards and strings of hanging paper lanterns and the barbecue smells. Mark’s surfing videos play on the screen to Pink Floyd’s “On the Turning Away.”
Bob tells me he’s worried about the minister, who has been sitting in the old-fashioned car on his balcony and won’t get out. They have to hand-deliver him soup and tea through the car window.
We eat burgers and fries and ice cream sundaes and wait for Mark and Burt and Enzo to arrive. It feels flat and empty without Paige and Grace and the others.
I’ve barely talked to Vito’s family, other than Roberta. They look alike and talk alike and move in a group like zebras. It takes too much energy to figure out how to separate them. But they’re funny and sarcastic and smart, just like Vito. Mark’s right, they are Christmas ornaments. One of them alone isn’t very exciting—together they’re so much fun. But even the Ornaments are quiet tonight.
Finally, Burt comes into the ballroom with a red, swollen face. He asks Eddie to turn off the movie and the music.
“Can I have everyone’s attention?” We freeze.
“I, uh, Markie can’t do the party. He’s having a tough time. He wants me to tell you he loves you guys.” Burt can barely get the words out. His face is twisted in anguish.
“He says you are his family now and forever, and he just can’t say good-bye to each of you so he asked me to say good-bye to all of you.” Wes and Uncle Billy embrace Burt’s heaving body. “He can’t do it.”
“How about we text him messages?” Wes asks as Burt blows his nose on a napkin.
Burt nods. “I think he’d like that.”
We give Burt hugs and deliver quiet whispers. Wes and Uncle Billy offer to walk him to his cabin, but he wants to go by himself. On the way out, Burt tells me Mark has asked Enzo to be with him in his cabin.
We bend over our bees and text Mark messages of love and comfort. We tell him how he inspired us, moved us, and made us braver. One by one, we get up and walk out, deflated.
Burt texts us all the photo of laughing Mark sprawled out in the wheelbarrow in Jamaica. This is how I’ll always remember him.
Paige texts me right away. You okay?
Yeah. I’m okay.
She sends a picture of Grace blowing a kiss, and I wish I could have that slimy baby mouth on my cheek right now.
I lie on the lounge chair, wrapped in my comforter, and think about the time when I was four or five and Gram screamed at Jeb and me for leaning over her penthouse balcony. It was the only time she ever yelled like that. I hid in the bookcase passageway, ashamed and afraid. I’m not sure why that memory came up. All the memories are swimming to the surface now.
The door opens, and Enzo comes out and slides silently under the blanket. I cradle him, his head on my chest, our legs intertwined.
“Do you hear that?” he whispers, his voice hoarse.
“What?”
“The music?”
I don’t hear music. I only hear the waves.
Mark belongs to the sea now.
Jeb and Enzo write the note.
Dear Mark,
You will always be our superstar. You showed us all that it’s not how long we live, but how well we live that counts. You are in good hands with Marley and Hendrix and all the righteous ones. Surf on, good dude, surf on. We love you.
The Wishwellians
TWENTY-SIX
BURT HAS TAKEN to sleeping on Wes and Uncle Billy’s floor. It started the night Mark died, and it’s been going on for a few nights now. They’re cool with it as long as he gives them space to get to the bathroom.
It’s too quiet. I wander the ship, sometimes with Enzo, sometimes with Janie or Mom or Dad. We sit with Gram in her room, but she’s sleeping a lot now. We visit the Ornaments at the pool or flip through magazines in the café. I pace. I fidget. I don’t know what to do.
At night, I burrow into the vortex and stay as long as I can with the waves and my Enzo. He spoons me facing the moonlit water, and we talk about college classes and music and our friends. Regular things.
“When are you going to start running?” Enzo blows past me. It’s raining, and the upper deck is empty. We stop for water, and there it is, a little green light on the side of my buzzing bee. I know what the message is before I pick it up.
Hello, babies. I have a dinner date tonight with Martin and Rose and Karl. I’m looking forward to it. It’s been too long.
My knees buckle, and I sink down to the floor, a shivering, pathetic little mess of fear and grief. Enzo sits next to me and holds me as tightly as a person can hold another person. He wipes my face with his shirt and doesn’t say a word because there are no words.
I’m too weak to get up. Enzo holds my hand and walks me around a little, gives me sips of water, and kisses my forehead.
“I’m okay.” My voice barely works.
“Do you want to lie down?”
“Yeah. I want to lie down and then I want to see my gram.”
We lie in bed with the curtains drawn. I doze off for a few minutes, and I wake with the feeling that everything is fine. Then I remember.
“Can I be alone for a little while?” I say to Enzo. “I’ll text you in an hour.”
He doesn’t press me. He cradles my face in his hands, kisses me on the lips, and gets up to leave.
There’s a wailing noise coming from the hallway. Enzo flings the door open and runs out. I jump up and follow him. Gram is hysterical and heaving on the floor in front of Jeb’s open door. Enzo kneels on the floor next to her while Jeb leans against the wall.
“Jeb, what did you do to her?” I scream. I’ve never seen Gram this upset. She’s the stoic one. She deflects with humor. She tells us to get ahold of ourselves.
The whole family comes running. Bob steps out of Jeb’s room. “Come on, Astrid.” He picks her up. “Show them what got your panties
in a bunch,” Bob says.
“Jebby,” Gram sobs. “My genius, Jebby.”
I haven’t ventured into Jeb’s cabin since the first day. I figured it was just a trash heap of masturbation tissues and empty pizza boxes.
“Oh my God, Jeb.” Wes freezes as he walks into Jeb’s room. The rest of us are stuck behind him. He moves and we see. My stupid, gross brother is a genius. Gram made his walls out of canvas in case he was inspired to paint, and I guess he was inspired to paint.
Snow globes.
He painted our entire journey in snow globes on the wall. There’s Jamaica on the beach with Tits and Mama and the bat cave and us on top of Corcovado Mountain and the Rio waterfall. There’s Dad hang gliding and us in the Blue Lagoon and standing inside the lava tube surrounded by a rainbow of elves and Jules Verne himself. He painted Mom in a gondola and Dad with the telescope and Gram and Aunt Rose in front of the forever tree with the castle in the background. There’s the Colosseum filled with cats and Celia Hobbes on stage and a snow globe for each of our Wishwell friends. Heinz is inside a bottle, and Dave is hugging his mom, and Gloria’s wearing a chef’s hat and purple lipstick. Aunt Rose is smiling in a tangle of roses. Vito is an elf grinning near the tree, and Mark’s on a surfboard, and Holly is in plié pose. Paige’s family is waving from Wishwell Island, and Enzo and I are waving from a kayak surrounded by bioluminescence. And the one in the middle is of Gram and Bob holding baby Tessa’s ultrasound. The one of Camilla in the Grotto is such a flattering likeness, it hits me just now that my brother is in love.
Jeb filled his room with snow globe moments for Gram. For us. He must have spent every free second he had to give Gram the gift of memories. He’s sitting on his bed, limp and teary-eyed as we study each snow globe. The moment is so ugly and distorted and full of primal sounds and deep pain. Yet it’s the most beautiful moment my family has ever shared.
I am a pumpkin. A metal scoop is digging out my insides. Soon there will be nothing left but dangles of slime and rotting flesh.
The Loose Ends List Page 23