What We All Want

by Michelle Berry

  It is quiet in the embalming room.

  Rebecca Mount is on table 2.

  Mr. Grant, heart attack, is on table 6.

  Rita Paisley, car accident, is on table 10.

  The room is cold and dry, the air stale and stinky. The tables are shining silver. The occupants are still.

  Silent.

  Speechless.

  Bodies lying in a state of rest. Waiting for someone to carry on. Waiting.

  1. Fear of Flying

  Luggage is being loaded onto an airplane on the tarmac. Thomas stares at it. He swallows and reaches up to his brow as if trying to wipe off sweat.

  “Don’t worry,” Jonathan says. “It’s one of the newer ones. That’s not your plane out there. That’s an old one.”

  “I can’t fly. God, you know I can’t fly.”

  “We could get another drink.”

  “I’ll be sick.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “I can’t do this.” Thomas walks away from the window. He sits on a plastic bench beside a flowerpot. He watches the children play in the huge rocket-ship shaped structure in the centre of the lounge. Sliding down the tube slide. Screeching. In the lounge they can see everything inside and out.

  “Thomas, you have to go.”

  “I know. I don’t want to go.”

  Jonathan sits beside Thomas.

  Thomas looks at his watch. “It’s almost time to board the plane.” “I could come with you.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Why not? I could see if they have any standby tickets.”

  “We talked about this.” Thomas takes Jonathan’s hand.

  “I’d like to meet them, Thomas. It’s been fifteen years.” A small voice sounds through the airport: Now boarding flight 742A. All passengers please report to gate 8B.

  “That’s me.” Thomas squeezes Jonathan’s hand. “Remember,” he says. “When the plane goes down, you can have the oil paintings and the granite sculpture in the garden but you can’t have my clothes. You look awful in my clothes. Give them to Geoffrey.”

  Jonathan laughs. He stands and Thomas stands. The men hug. “Are you sure I can’t come?”

  “Positive.”

  The men take the escalator to the departures level. Thomas walks towards the metal detector. He stops and empties his pockets into the plastic bucket. He places his raincoat and carry-on baggage on the belt. He walks through the metal detector and picks up his things, fills his pockets back up, and turns to look at Jonathan but Jonathan is gone. He is leaving the airport, holding his coat around him, battling the fierce November wind.

  Thomas settles into his seat and clutches his paperback book close to his heart. He remembers watching a movie once where a terrorist shot at a passenger but the passenger lived because her paperback romance novel stopped the bullet from entering her body.

  Terrorists. That’s all Thomas needs to think about right now.

  Jesus.

  A young woman sits beside him “Hi,” she says.

  Thomas nods. He turns to the window. He wasn’t sure if the window seat was the safest. Now that he looks at the thick glass he thinks that he could never break it to escape and that the aisle seat seems safer. At least he could run. But run where? He shakes his head. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes, fine.”

  “You’re sweating a lot.” The woman points to his forehead. He is an attractive man, well dressed, tall, muscular. She smiles at him.

  “I’m just hot.” He wipes his forehead on a ironed handkerchief that he pulls from his breast pocket. He moves his book to do so and the woman sees the title.

  “Oh,” she says. “Look.”

  Thomas looks. She holds up her book. “We’re reading the same book.”

  A best-seller. On the best-seller lists for ten months.

  “That’s fate, don’t you think?” The woman leans into him. “Do you like it?”

  “Like what?” The plane starts to taxi down the runway. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Thomas feels his heart is about to explode. He can feel the intense beats in his arms, his stomach, his neck.

  “The book.”

  “What?”

  “Do you like the book?”

  “Oh God,” Thomas says as the plane begins to soar. He reaches instinctively for the woman’s hand and he clutches at it, grasps it hard, pulls it towards his chest, on top of his book.

  “What?” she says.

  “Oh my God,” Thomas says. “We’re going to die.”

  “We’re just flying in a plane,” the woman says, taking her hand back, prying her fingers from his. “We’re not going to die.”

  “We’re going to crash,” Thomas pants. “Almost all crashes occur during takeoff and landing.”

  The woman looks past Thomas, out his window. “Well, we’re up now. We’re in the air. So we made it through takeoff, in about five hours we’ll just see if we make it through landing.” She shakes her hand out. Her rings were pushed into her fingers when Thomas clutched her hand so hard. They have dented the flesh.

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas says, peeking out his window. “I’m sorry about your hand.”

  “How can you not like flying?” the woman says. “I do it about three times a month for business.”

  “I’ve always been afraid to fly.”

  “Why are you flying then? Why didn’t you drive?”

  “I have to get home,” he says. “For a funeral. It would take too long to drive.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Whose funeral?”

  “My mother’s.”

  “God, I’m so sorry.” The woman puts her hand on Thomas’s. He pulls away.

  “It’s all right. She was quite sick. She’s been dying for a long time. Cancer.”

  The woman makes sympathetic noises. Clucking sounds. She sniffs “And when did you see her last?”

  Thomas looks again out his window. They are high in the clouds. He can’t see anything but whiteness below him and blue sky above. He wonders if this is heaven. Walking on clouds. Whiteness and blueness. But he doesn’t believe in heaven and hell. He believes in nothing, really. He wonders if he should start believing in something. Because if human beings can fly in a machine this heavy, hurtling through the air, then maybe there is something more to death, something other than just ceasing to exist. Anything seems possible when you are thirty-five thousand feet up.

  “I haven’t been home in a long time,” Thomas says. “Years.”

  The woman shakes her head. “That’s too bad. My mother is my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  Thomas opens his paperback novel. He starts reading. His hands are still shaking. But his heart has slowed down. He wishes that Jonathan were here beside him instead of this woman, going on about her mother. But it would have been impossible for Jonathan to come to the funeral.

  Thomas turns the pages without focusing on what he is reading. In less than five hours he will be home again. He will see his younger sister and brother again He will bury his dead mother, get her affairs in order, sell the house, settle his sister into an apartment somewhere, and then, one week later, turn around and fly back to Jonathan. Christ, Thomas thinks, he has to do this flying thing again. He has to fly home somehow, without dying, without plummeting to the earth and exploding in a burst of flames. Thomas’s heart speeds up as he tries to steady his breathing. He wishes he were in the gym riding the bicycle or playing squash or drinking a non-fat cappuccino or watching a movie, even watching a game show on TV, anything other than riding in this beast.

  Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

  Billy picks his sister up at the house. He doesn’t go inside. He waits on the front porch and looks around the neighbourhood. He thinks about nothing in particular. Instead he looks at his car parked up on the sidewalk, the blinkers flashing. Hilary comes out of the house wearing a fur coat.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Mother’s coat.”

  “It’s no
t winter yet.”

  “But I’m cold.” Hilary puts her hands in the pockets. She takes out a dirty Kleenex and some loose change—a penny, two dimes. She stuffs the Kleenex in the old baby carriage on the porch, puts the coins back in her pocket, and follows Billy down the stairs and across the front walk to the car. She doesn’t want to get in the car. “This doesn’t look safe,” she says. “It’s not a safe car, Billy. The consumer reports say that it is not a safe car.”

  “You read consumer reports?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Get in, Hilary. I drive this car every day. It’s safe.”

  Hilary walks around the car, staring at it.

  “Just get in.”

  “It’s not safe. There are no side air bags. The panels will collapse in a side collision.”

  “How else are you going to get there?”

  Hilary stares at Billy. “I could walk,” she says.

  “That would take you hours.” Billy guides Hilary around to the passenger side. “I’ll clip you in with a seat belt.”

  “Do you have front air bags?”

  “Yeah,” Billy lies. “I had them installed a week ago.”

  Hilary lowers herself into the bucket seat. “I don’t believe you and I don’t like this one bit,” she says. “I don’t like it at all.”

  “How the hell do you get around?” Billy asks.

  “I walk everywhere.”

  “Explains your thinness,” Billy says under his breath. “You and Thomas.You’re both chickenshit.”

  Billy buckles Hilary into the seat and then slams the door. Hilary jumps. Billy climbs in the driver’s side and starts the engine.

  “So, how’ve you been?” Billy asks

  “What’s that thumping noise?”

  “What thumping noise?”

  “Listen.”

  Billy listens. He doesn’t hear anything. “That’s just the way a car sounds. How the hell did you take Becka to a doctor if you didn’t drive a car or take a taxi?”

  “Oh,” Hilary brightens. “Taxis are fine. Mother and I love taxis.”

  “What?” Billy shakes his head. “You love taxis?”

  “Taxis are safe.”

  “Safe?”

  “We could take a taxi now,” Hilary says. She starts to undo her seat belt.

  “Hilary. I’m driving to the funeral home. Jesus. Stay in the car.” Hilary buckles herself up again.

  “Taxis don’t even have seat belts,” Billy says. “And the drivers are crazy. How the hell can you say they are safe?”

  “No,” Hilary says. “That’s not true. They are safe.”

  Billy wishes he had more to drink before he picked his sister up. He could have used two beers instead of one. He sighs loudly.

  “Well,” Hilary says, “you still look tall.” Billy has always been gangly, tall, awkward. His arms hang down at his sides like a gorilla.

  “I haven’t gotten any taller.” Billy turns the corner and heads west.

  “Are there hawks around here?”

  “Hawks?”

  “You know, the birds.”

  Billy shrugs. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Just wondering. Watch out for that car.”

  “I’m watching.” Billy drives quickly through a stale-yellow light. “I imagine there probably are hawks. I think they even live in the tops of the office towers downtown.”

  “Really?”

  “Or maybe that’s falcons.”

  They drive towards Mortimer’s Funeral Home. Hilary keeps her hands on the seat belt, clutches it around her.

  “How are the kids?” Hilary asks.

  “Kid, Hilary. I only have one daughter.”

  “That’s right,” Hilary takes one hand off the seat belt when Billy stops at a light. She twirls her hair around her finger. She rubs her cheeks. She sucks on a strand.

  “Sue’s fine. She’s about three months now”

  “Three months what?”

  “Pregnant.”

  “That little girl is pregnant?” Hilary sits up in her seat and stares at her brother.

  “Sue’s not that little. She’s seventeen.”

  “Oh, I forgot.”

  “That’s still too young, though,” Billy says. “The whole thing pisses me off. She won’t tell us who the father is. Or she doesn’t know. I’m not sure which.”

  “You haven’t been to see us in a long time, have you, Billy?” “About five months,” Billy says. “That’s all.” Billy drives and Hilary holds on to the door.

  “When was the last time I saw Sue?”

  “About two years ago.”

  “I can’t remember. Time seems to stand still and pass quickly all at once.” The fur coat Hilary is wearing is hot and smells of mothballs. Her skirt is too small. Her tights have been stretched too long and have runs in them.

  Billy’s breath smells like beer, like rotten socks. He scratches his thigh and turns on the radio.

  “So,” he says. “How was it?”

  “What?”

  “You know.”

  “What?” Hilary stares out the car window She marvels at the change in seasons. The trees are bare and the grass and plants are brown. “You’re going too fast.”

  “How was she at the end?”

  “Oh.” Hilary looks down at her shoes. “You should have come to visit,” she says. “You should have said goodbye. She asked about you all the time. She wondered where you were.”

  “I know that. Don’t you think I know that?”

  “But, why—Billy, that man is turning left. Slow down.”

  “Jesus. I’m a busy man, Hilary.” Billy closes his eyes for a second, tight, and then opens them again and watches the road. “I have two jobs. I’m working nights and days.” Had two jobs, Billy thinks. He lost both of them recently.

  “What about weekends?” Hilary says.

  “I’m not good with sick people,” Billy says. “I didn’t want to have to say goodbye.”

  They drive through the suburban streets, Billy’s headlights shining through the dimming evening. Hilary watches people walking their dogs on the bare sidewalks, restaurant signs lit up with neon tubes, a couple arguing in front of a Pet Valu store, the woman’s head turned away from the man, the man holding a bag of cat food and looking out at the road, looking into Hilary’s eyes.

  “She didn’t suffer much, I guess,” Hilary says.”It was pretty quick when it happened.”

  Billy breathes out loudly. “Did Thomas ever come to say goodbye?”

  “No,” Hilary says. “Of course not. You know how he is on airplanes.” She clutches her seat belt tighter around her body, holds on to it.

  “Yeah, like you are in cars.”

  “That’s not the same. Cars are much more dangerous.” “Not even once? He didn’t come home once?”

  “He hasn’t been home in years, Billy. I would have called you. Thomas would have seen you.”

  “Did he call Becka?”

  “Not often.”

  “I don’t know why,” Billy says. “I wanted to come see her.” “You don’t live that far away.”

  “I know.”

  “I could have used the help,” Hilary whispers.

  “Shit. I’m sorry. I have my family— we got so busy, I guess.” “Mother would have liked to see you.”

  In the funeral home parking lot Billy gets out of the car and stands tall and watches the sun setting orange. The evening air is chilly. Hilary gets out of the car on shaky legs and steadies herself before walking up to the front door. She is clutching a grocery bag of her mother’s clothes, a wig, and a picture. She straightens her fur coat and pats down her hair.

  “Come on,” Billy says. “Let’s get this over with. What happened to your face? Looks like your skin is chapped.”

  Hilary puts her hands up to her cheeks. “Chapped? You can’t see the stain? I can’t get it off.”

  “What stain?”

  Hilary stares at her brother. “What stain? This black stain “
Hilary points.

  Billy shrugs. He says, “It must be the dry heat in the house. It’ll get you every time. Makes my back itch.” He scratches his back to illustrate his point. “Hey, isn’t this Dick Mortimer’s father’s place? The fat kid.You used to hang out with him, didn’t you?”

  Hilary nods. “We used to come here,” she says. “After school.”

  “To the funeral home? That’s creepy.”

  “It wasn’t really. They lived up there.” Hilary points to the fire escape stairs that lead to an apartment above the building “His mother made it very bright. Cheery almost. I think I used to be in love with him.”

  “With Dick’s father?”

  “No.” Hilary looks shocked. “Not his father. With Dick. He was my only friend.”

  Billy can’t remember one specific friend in high school. His

  teammates on the basketball team or on the volleyball court, but no

  one specific. No particularly close person. He wasn’t even close to

  his brother. He mostly hung out with Tess and then he married her.

  “Tess wanted me home for supper. She wants to have fried chicken tonight,” Billy says. “I tell her my mother is dead and she says we’ll have fried chicken and gravy.” Billy shakes his head. “The woman does nothing but eat.”

  As they walk into the funeral home the odour hits them immediately. Chemicals. Formaldehyde. Billy would recognize it anywhere. He remembers the pickled fetal pigs in biology class at high school. He remembers flunking the class, putting the pigs’ eyeballs in his pockets and using them to scare the girls in homeroom.

  “Can I help you?” A receptionist peers out from behind a glass enclosure. Billy walks up to her.

  “We’re here to talk about what to do with our mother,” he says. “Becka Mount, Rebecca Mount. She came in this afternoon.” He pauses. “She died.”