Along the sides of the national cemetery were rows of committal shelters, structures that looked like places to picnic in areas of the country with lots of snow. Sturdy roofs and pillars, but open on all sides to let the fresh air in. Set up on the side of the long cemetery park. Rows of committal shelters for newly deceased veterans. A handsome Air Force officer, tall and straight like her son had been in his military school days, escorted them to a row of chairs in a committal shelter near where their his-and-hers spot was located. Aida knew her son would like the military funeral, all the pomp and circumstance. It would remind him of his son’s military training at Parris Island and his time at George Washington Military Academy. Forged in steel, taught to live in service to others. Her own life had been spent in service to others, too, and what had she gotten for it?
The band played “Taps.” She looked around her. No one cried. She didn’t cry either, even though “Taps” always made her sad. She hummed along. Five servicemen marched in front, two carrying and then folding the American flag into a compact triangle. Saluting, then bowing towards her, one of them offered the red, white, and blue triangle to her in both hands. She smiled and nodded, and rifles shot into the air, four bullets in all. They would make nice souvenirs. Aida would pass hers on to her son, so he could have two.
One of the military guides escorted them to the mausoleum “niche” where Bob’s ashes would be placed in an urn designed specifically for Korean War vets. Instead of a tombstone, there was an engraving on a drawer set into a marble wall filled with hundreds of identical drawers. Twenty-six letters, including spaces, were allocated for summing up his life. Aida would be allowed only nineteen letters—seven less than Bob—when her own time came. Who knew why.
Aida had thought of having “Ladies aren’t fat,” the title Bob had proposed for another book he never wrote. It would be about losing weight, he had explained to her—about how obese women weren’t ladies because they preferred food to looking attractive for men. That fantasy book would be written after his first one, Beat the Wife and Save the Marriage, a title that seemed inappropriate for an epitaph. She had heard him mutter the title in his sleep once. So much for secrets from her. How Julia had been embarrassed by her father’s views as a teenager! But she supposed “Ladies aren’t fat” wasn’t particularly appropriate either. The marble drawer would proclaim: “To a beloved dad and gramp.” Joanne had looked up epitaphs online to get that one. The original sentiment had actually read, “To our beloved father and grandpa.” No one called Bob “Gramp.” But they would have needed seven more letters for that.
An MIA-POW flag was prominently waving in the northeast corridor. Megan and Sarah walked together down the lanes, if you could call them that, where the marble walls were lined up like bunkers in the beautiful 160-acre park. Aida never liked having her granddaughters around her older daughter. Not quite sure why. Julia could influence Megan and Sarah too much, if left to her own devices. Perhaps say something not so nice about her. Although she couldn’t imagine what that might be. Still, Julia could concoct something. That was just like her—always imagining. Why couldn’t she just let memories be? Maybe it was better that Julia couldn’t attend. Though it bothered Aida that she didn’t know the real reason why. Her daughter, gone AWOL.
It would have been a nice park for her friends to take their afternoon walks, for exercise in a spirit of recreation—you know, if it weren’t so formal and somber. All that carrying on. Completely unnecessary, she thought. She’d stick with the shopping malls for her walking exercise.
Aida patted her younger daughter on the back as they headed in the same direction as Andrew and the girls. Joanne was always blubbering about something. That’s probably why she needs me so much, Aida said to herself. She held Joanne’s hand as they walked closer behind her granddaughters, trying to overhear their conversation. Megan asked her Uncle Andrew, “Do you think if you had a partner who was gay, you’d be allowed to have the partner’s name on the other side of the tombstone?”
“I don’t think the military’s that open minded—yet. Not even after death. Forgiving the already dead,” Andrew answered. “What do you think?”
Megan hesitated, thoughtful. Aida watched her closely. Sometimes this granddaughter reminded her of her older daughter’s soulful, waytoo-serious demeanor. Could become a wallflower if she wasn’t careful. Then Aida would have to step in and help out. Just like she had for Julia. Her younger daughter was her happy girl, just like Aida had been all those decades ago as a nightclub singer. She must mention to Joanne that it was okay to entertain Megan’s boyfriends and put them at ease. A little glamour and flirtatiousness on the part of the mother always appealed to a teenage boy with raging hormones. It certainly helped her daughter Julia, on many occasions, to smooth things over.
Megan smiled at her Uncle Andrew—Even her smile is like Julia’s, Aida thought—and said, “I’d be insulted if my tombstone had the same thing that everyone else had. ‘Gone fishing’ or ‘Gone home’ is even worse. As if those left behind don’t matter.”
Aida said nothing. Of course family mattered. She had always warned Megan and Sarah that their Aunt Julia had an “active imagination”—unreliable, dark, and not to be trusted. Fickle. They continued to walk along the rows of mausoleum drawers in the sun, and Joanne let go of her hand and caught up with her girls. Aida didn’t mind that they were all walking ahead, leaving her behind. Sarah noticed, though, and waited for her to catch up. So atypical for a teenage girl, Aida thought. And such a beauty. Sarah held her hand.
“If Auntie Jules were here, she wouldn’t make the sign of the cross or mumble the prayers at Grandpa’s service,” Megan said. “I’m more Buddhist now than Catholic. I believe that the body’s karmic ashes recycle, becoming compost. Your time on earth’s like writing with a stick in water—brief, washed away in a moment. The transitoriness of life. That’s what Aunt Jules told me. I think it makes sense.”
Aida listened closely.
“And I can’t wait to read her book! I’ve never known a real author. And you know I love reading, too,” Megan said, jumping up and down gleefully, hair flying up around her. Oh no, thought Aida, both granddaughters may turn out to be like their aunt, despite all I’ve done to prevent that.
Buddhism. And that book. Julia was always talking about it. Something about motherhood. What did Julia know about motherhood? She hadn’t exactly been an exemplary daughter, so what made her think she could be a good mother? Aida reached out for Megan and took her hand, cutting in front of Joanne, as they went to the mausoleum. Three bouquets had been placed at the base of the block. One of the military personnel carefully pulled out the drawer, placed the small urn into the center, and carefully pushed it closed, looking down all the while to avoid stepping on the flowers.
The five of them walked in silence towards the limousine that was waiting to take them back to the funeral home. Her husband was gone. Andrew seemed a lot more like him than she had felt before. Like his shadow. She’d almost forgotten he had attended the service, too. Whatever it was that was missing remained missing.
SafeHarbour’s conference room, neatly arranged folding chairs lined up in ten rows or so, felt bone cold. Aida hated these “Celebration of Life” ceremonies. A lot of fuss over nothing. She knew her husband’s memorial service would be a very small, quiet affair. Only two of her children and her two granddaughters—and a few SafeHarbour residents who could barely remember who he was—would be there. A ghastly photo of her husband was suspended from the stage. His photo was like the portrait of Dorian Gray: it made him look older than he’d looked in real life. Looking down at her like a preacher, like she was a lost sheep in his flock. How could she sing “Someone to Watch Over Me” now, with that image imprinted in her skull?
She sat there in the front row, turned around to see who would show up. Two gigantic floral wreaths blocked her view of attendees unless she twisted herself completely around, pretzel-like. There was Linda Higgins—slowly pushing her three-pronged cane
before her, concentrating on the ten inches in front of it. What would happen if she fell? Aida wondered, feeling a stab of excitement at the idea. Many of the octogenarians at SafeHarbour were no longer ambulatory, or were suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s, or both. There was Pam Taylor, who had secretly had a crush on her now dearly departed, always bringing cookies and even the occasional sushi tray. The nerve of her! Had a face like a horse. A few of the other residents she didn’t know by name. There was Tom Stephens, shuffling in. He was more her type—not too senile, and didn’t smell like an old man. Yet. Had some possibilities.
A smorgasbord of tasteless, incompatible foods was laid out on a side table: Chinese takeout, soggy Japanese sushi, and Taco Bell Mexican tacos, along with her own mother’s favorite comfort food—spaghettini with giant meatballs—and an antipasto of Italian processed meats. Her mother would have loved stuffing her diabetic face with it all. Aida thought how the leftovers of her family—Julia, Joanne, and Andrew—were just as incompatible and mismatched as the food, and she frowned.
The director rang a little bell. The hard of hearing didn’t look up. Walking up and down the aisles, Ann Pike put her index finger to her lips, hushing the residents in a type of sign language, and motioned for Aida to walk to the stage. The microphone had been lowered down as far as it would go to accommodate her height.
“I would like to thank all of you for coming this evening.” All fifteen of you, that is. “Please make yourselves comfortable and help yourself to the buffet”—You’re just here for the food—“before we have some testimonials and speeches from family and friends.”
“Hey, could you speak up? Use the microphone or something. Can’t hear a word you said,” Tom Stephens shouted, hand megaphoned to the front of his gaping mouth. She could usually throw her voice—her singing voice—even in a crowded room like this one. Reaching for the microphone at the podium again, clearing her throat, she spoke louder: “I would like to thank all of you—”
“Still can’t hear you,” Tom interrupted. “What’s happened to your voice?”
Aida felt that in the space of just a few days, her gigantic personality had somehow shrunk. She left the stage and sat back down in the widow’s seat of honor. She reconsidered Tom Stephens. She hadn’t noticed before, but he was an annoying man. At least Bob hadn’t been that hard of hearing. He could still hear her sing, up until the end.
This was it. She was finished.
Their—now her—apartment smelled empty. Like death. Like loneliness. Aida pulled off her widow’s dress. Black still looked great on her. Dressed in one of her Valentine’s Day–pink nightgowns, her faced wiped clear of her pancake foundation, eyeliner, red lipstick, and mascara with Pond’s cold cream, she looked naked to herself in the mirror. As if she had wiped off her personality. Her identity. She pulled and stretched the skin around her cheeks, then her neck, then her arms. Bob always had commented on her beauty. Even the day of his death. An endearing habit of his.
Aida turned off the light and crawled into her side of the bed, which seemed to have expanded overnight.
In the morning Joanne rang the doorbell, then inserted the key, letting herself in before Aida could reach the door. Her daughter’s habit of unlocking the door for herself, often without announcing herself first, used to be comforting. It didn’t now. Aida felt scared.
“Hi Mom, brought you coffee and bagels. Before we go out and shop. Christmas season is starting. Maybe we can even drive into Seattle and take a walk around the botanical gardens—if you feel up for it, that is.”
“Sweetie, the memorial service just exhausted me. Do you think we could just have quiet time?”
“Anything you want, you know that.” Joanne kissed her. “We could freshen up your apartment a bit.” Her daughter reached over the couch to draw the curtains open, letting in fresh air. Aida inhaled deeply.
“The closets are still full of your father’s stuff. Lots of old golf clubs, doctor’s white coats, shoes he never wore. Debris. Garbage. We could bag it up for Salvation Army.”
“If it’s too difficult for you, I can come over and bag it up with my girls when you’re working at Yellow Brick Road or out with a friend, if you’d like.”
“Nah, I’m fine. I just want to get it over with and make room for some more clothes for me.” She was already yanking his clothes off the hangers, dropping them in heaps on the floor.
Joanne immediately started to pick them up off the floor, separating the slacks from the shirts, setting the shoes to the side. Miscellaneous specialty items—golf equipment, medical paraphernalia, formal wear—she bagged together in gigantic white garbage bags. In thirty minutes, Aida and her daughter had emptied her husband from her walk-in closet. All that was left were eight bags of junk.
When Joanne had finished loading the bags into her car out front, she came back in and sat down on the couch, her eyes clouded over. The visual reminded Aida of her own cataracts.
“Mom, I don’t want you to be alone now. Without Dad.”
Here it comes, Aida thought to herself.
“We’d love to have you move in with us. Christmas will be here before you know it. Sarah and Megan will be leaving for college soon, and without Al, there’s so much room. Plus, it would help Jules if you didn’t live at SafeHarbour anymore—make it easier for her to take care of your debts. I think she could use our support now.”
“Oh darling, darling. You worry so much. Julia didn’t even bother to be here. Abandoned her own family! And for what? So she can focus on that damn book of hers?”
“Actually …” Joanne hesitated. “I think she may be having some problems back home. With Mike and Zoë. I kinda feel bad for her.”
“What makes you say that?” Aida perked up. She wouldn’t mind some juicy bit of gossip about her oh-so-perfect daughter right now.
“Nothing, Mom. Nothing. Just think about moving in with me, okay? Down the road. When you have more time to plan.”
Before Aida could press for more details, Joanne left to dump off the bags at Salvation Army.
Aida steeled herself to clear out the computer desk. Bob had been such a mess. Stacks of papers had toppled onto the floor. Overdue bills. The notice about updated information needed for his Air Force insurance policy. Had to sign that off to Andrew so he could have the funds right away. The 1967 Encyclopaedia Britannica, still on its original bookshelf, had an inch of dust coating the top of each volume, right where the stitches of the leather spine met the pages. Bob had spent hours looking up minutiae about nothing—a certain type of seaweed, for example, or marine flagella. How many times had she screamed at him and stormed out? Running to Yellow Brick Road, seeking refuge?
The desk drawers were full of business-size check registers, the kind Bob had used at his office over twenty years ago. How she had hated working there. She knew it upset him that she couldn’t keep the messages straight, or the phone numbers. But who cared?
Aida moved slowly, back and forth, pushing empty boxes into the middle of the room and emptying shelves and desk drawers. She rested on the desk chair, swiveling and looking at the clutter all around her. Then she pulled out the top drawer—but something all the way in the back, way, way back, was stuck. The drawer resisted as she tried to pull it out completely. She heard paper crunch. She reached back behind the drawer, her skinny arm lying flat on top, and her index and middle finger tweezered the thick paper causing the jam. She pulled hard, and it came loose. An envelope.
Aida slipped open the flap and saw two brittle sepia photographs. The kind their old Brownie camera took. The first was their wedding photo; the second showed the two of them holding their firstborn child. Both were crumpled. She smoothed out the photo of Julia and turned it over. On the back Bob had written the lyrics—the first stanza—to “Someone to Watch Over Me.” Tears dropped on first one photo, then the other, smearing the emulsion.
HAPPY PILLS
What was going on? No response yet from Jules, either by e-mail or snail mail.
Zoë was a healthy girl—she’d never had any medical issues before. Had she gotten in some sort of accident? Why did her sister always keep things to herself? And what could be more important than their father’s passing and his funeral? Jules had changed. Dramatically. Suddenly. Wasn’t even there when their parents needed her most. She seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. What was wrong with her?
Joanne had to get out of her own head or she’d go stark, raving mad. She shook her head hard, feeling her ears beginning to fill up: vertigo. Another episode of Ménière’s disease, perhaps. If only she could shake the clutter out of her mind, she thought as she walked down Main Street to open her shop, A Real Gem. Business was so slow around Edmonds, in the deepest recession in the Seattle area since the Great Depression. Joanne liked to call it the Great Recession. She was in her own Great Depression.
She didn’t like going to work when there were no customers, those days when she spent the whole time organizing the inventory and dusting. But her shop was an escape, a clearing of her mind, her own little haven, her sanctuary. There she could be herself and not think of her daughters, soon-to-be ex-husband, or any of the other shit that pressed down on her as soon as she woke up.
Opening the front door to her shop, Joanne sighed heavily. All around her, stores were closing, even though Edmonds was a tourist town with quaint historic architecture from its glory days as a silver mining center. Joanne worried her dwindling savings foreshadowed doom. She could usually count on selling a few trinkets each week, enough to cover rent, if not take-home pay for her. But her AmEx bills were piled up on the kitchen counter, unopened. She hoped she could continue to make the minimum payment. Until Jules came through. Then life would get better for her. Sometimes her sister seemed like superwoman, Joanne thought to herself resentfully. Like she was so superior. But she could count on her sense of obligation. Maybe even more so now that their father had died, and his gambling on stocks had died along with him.
Things Unsaid: A Novel Page 19