What We All Want

by Michelle Berry

  “This was in the trunk,” he says. “Lucky us.” He hands one to Thomas as he passes him leaving the living room. He hands one to Hilary in the kitchen. She looks at it. It is cold and heavy.

  Billy twists off the cap and gulps the beer quickly. His throat feels parched and dry. Hilary sips at her beer with a bemused expression on her face. She stifles a burp.

  “Well,” Thomas says, “I guess we should figure out what to do with her.”

  “Mother never went anywhere,” Hilary says, dreamily, sipping her beer. “I put the rocks there so she could feel as if she had travelled great distances. I put the rocks there so she could walk barefoot over them.”

  “Surely she went out, Hilary,” Thomas says.

  “No. Only to the doctor at the end. And to the hospital for chemotherapy.”

  “How long?”

  “How long, what?”

  “When did she last go out, go shopping or something?”

  “A couple of years. Maybe five years.”

  “Five years,” Thomas echoes. He imagines sitting in this house, being stared at by these dolls, for five whole years. Never going out for dinner or to the symphony or the opera.

  “Everything we wanted was right here,” Hilary says. “We didn’t need to go out much.”

  “She just got worse and worse, didn’t she?” Thomas says, looking at Billy.

  Billy shrugs and sips his beer. His mother and sister were always crazy, this doesn’t surprise him at all.

  “Well, we have to bury her,” Billy says. He lets out a large belch.

  “Hey, didn’t Dad give you a doll once?”

  Hilary goes rigid. Her bottle of beer is poised at her mouth. “Did he?” Thomas asks. “That would explain a lot.”

  Hilary says nothing.

  Billy says, “We have to bury her, have a small funeral, and then get on with our lives. I’ve got a teenage daughter who’s having a baby. I’ve got a wife to feed.”

  “Hilary,” Thomas says. He ignores Billy. “What do you think? Do you have any ideas about where to bury her? What did the funeral home say to do?”

  “Daddy gave me the doll with the emerald green dress,” Hilary says. “Her eye is broken. It keeps shutting. It’s like she’s winking at me. But Mother started my collection. She gave me my first doll the day I was born.”

  “I didn’t get anything,” Billy says. “I never got anything.”

  “You got married, Billy,” Hilary says quietly to the kitchen sink. “You have a child.”

  “Lucky me,” Billy says. He snorts. “Dick Mortimer said that we have to think of a good place to bury her and he’ll arrange the details. He said each cemetery has a different fee. I think Sage Hill’s nice. Or maybe Cresswood. Then we have to decide how much we want to spend on the funeral. I’m broke, Thomas. So is Hilary.”

  “That’s not a problem,” Thomas says. “I’ll pay for it.”

  Billy smiles. “Told you he would, Hilary.”

  “Cresswood then?”

  “No,” Thomas says. “I never liked Cresswood. It looks too cheap. Plastic flowers, that kind of thing. We want something with character, with age.”

  Billy swirls the beer around his mouth and swallows loudly. “I’m lucky to be saddled with a pregnant teenager?” He shakes his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “What about Inglehaus?” Thomas says with one hand cupped over his mouth, the other wrapped across his chest, his head down. “Or what about that other one—what was it called—Valeside?”

  “Where,” Hilary asks, her voice a whisper, “would Daddy have buried her?”

  Thomas and Billy look at Hilary.

  “That’s beside the point,” Thomas says.

  “I think she would like Sage Hill,” Hilary says. “All the pretty bushes. The bushes line the side of the road there. They keep the car exhaust off the headstones.”

  Thomas looks up at Hilary’s face. She looks old and tired. Her eyes are unfocused. Thomas sits back in his chair, tilts it a bit, wraps both his arms around his chest and breathes deeply.

  “Careful,” Billy says. “Those legs aren’t strong enough.”

  “That’s my problem.”

  “You’ll break the chair.”

  “I’ll buy a new one.”

  “Big man,” Billy laughs. “I suppose you have credit cards with huge limits. Do you drive a BMW?”

  “Do you have a problem with that, Billy?”

  “Jesus, a BMW?”

  Hilary feels teary all of a sudden. The beer is going to her head. She knows her mother wouldn’t like Sage Hill.

  “I should go now,” Thomas says, looking at his watch. “I’ll call a taxi to take me to the motel. We’ll decide everything in the morning.”

  “I don’t like that chair anyway,” Hilary says, rubbing her eyes. “You can break it if you want, Thomas.”

  “I don’t want to break the chair.”

  “No, Thomas, you should stay here,” Billy says. “Why don’t you stay here?” He looks at his older brother. He opens another beer from the pack on the kitchen table. “Don’t waste your hard-earned money on a motel.”

  “Here? I can’t stay here.”

  “Yes you can. I’ll help you clean up our bedroom. Just like old times.”

  “It’s just … I can’t stay here.” He thinks of facing the kitchen in the morning, the dirty dishes, the smell. He thinks of all the dolls staring at him.

  “We’ll have to clean the house before we sell it anyway.” Thomas itches his thighs through his pants.

  “Sell?” Hilary’s beer is raised to her mouth. The air from her word makes the bottle whistle.

  “What did you think we were going to do with it, Hilary? Open a bed and breakfast? Becka is dead. This house is too big for just you.”

  “You can’t sell my house. This is my house, Billy.You can’t sell my house.”

  “This was Becka’s house,” Thomas says. “Now it’s our house and we have to make some sort of sensible decision. She had a will that told us to sell and divide. I think that’s sensible, don’t you?”

  “A will?” Hilary says.

  “Yes, it’s at my office. I’ll send you copies.”

  “It’s my house.You can’t sell my house.What will I do? Have you thought of that? Where will I go? What about my dolls? I have far too many dolls to move.”

  Silence.

  Billy says, “What will she do?” He imagines her moving into his house. He shudders. All those dolls lining his garage shelves. Sharing a room with his daughter and her baby.

  “Hilary, this house is falling apart. It needs too much work to stay here. The roof needs replacing, the eavestroughs look like they are falling off, it needs painting. We’ll use part of the money to set you up somewhere nice. A condominium or apartment. Something close to the stores. We’ll give you some sort of allowance, we’ll figure it out.”

  Billy sits up in his chair and opens another beer. “I could use some money too.”

  He imagines what he could do with the money. He wonders what the house will sell for. Thomas is right. It will need a good coat of paint, some fixing up. Get rid of all the old furniture. “You can throw out the old dolls, keep the newer ones. We’ll get you fancy cases for them. Glass with fluorescent lights We have to sell the house, Hilary. I need the money.”

  “One thing at a time, Billy,” Thomas says.

  Hilary clutches her hands around her small chest. She starts to shake. At first the tremors are not noticeable, but they get stronger.

  “You won’t sell this house.You can’t sell this house. It’s my home. Everything I have is here. Right here. My dolls.…”

  Billy rubs his chin. “Christ, Hilary. Don’t be so selfish.”

  “I’m going to a motel,” Thomas says. “We’ll talk about this all after we’ve had a good night’s sleep. And, Billy, don’t count on anything. Hilary is the one who is going to need a place to live and money to live on. You’ve got a job.”

 
; “Jesus, Thomas. I think I deserve some of the money.” “We’ll see.”

  “What are you? A lawyer? It’s in the will.”

  Thomas shrugs. “I’m tired. I’m going to a motel.”

  “You really should stay here,” Billy says. “Hilary needs you.” Hilary turns her head quickly, looking back and forth between brothers. “It’s my house. You can’t just sell my house.”

  “I could stay at your house, Billy.”

  “We don’t have enough room. Besides, Hilary needs you.”

  Thomas leans back in his chair again, his toes barely touching the floor, and the legs suddenly crack right in half with a noise like a shotgun.

  After Billy leaves, Hilary shows Thomas where she keeps the extra towels. She hasn’t used them in at least ten years. She assumes they will be in good condition.

  “In the attic?”

  “Where else? Where else would you keep them?”

  “In the linen closet.”

  “There’s no room in there,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Hilary echoes, looking around. She looks at the boxes stacked four high in the crawl space of the attic. “Our old school textbooks are up here,” she says. “And Christmas decorations. Mother kept everything. There’s a box with your name on it. And another with Billy’s.”

  Hilary is standing on the ladder that leans up against the trap door, peering into that space. Thomas steadies her below. “I can’t keep the towels in the linen closet because the linen closet is full of preserves. So is the basement. We’ve got preserves everywhere.You won’t believe how many things we’ve preserved.”

  “What for?” Thomas says. He looks at his manicured fingernails turning white from holding tightly to the ladder. Thomas shivers. The house is cold and damp. “Do you eat them all?”

  “If we ate them all,” Hilary says as she climbs down the ladder with a box of towels and takes Thomas by the arm and guides him to his old room, the one he shared with Billy when they were boys, “then we wouldn’t have so many around the house, would we?” She puts the stale-smelling towels on one of the twin beds and folds the covers back. Thomas notices an old water glass on the night-stand, water now missing, evaporated years ago, but lip marks, probably his waxy teenage Chapstick marks, still stuck to the glass. Thomas has an urge to put his lips up to the glass now to see if they’ll fit.

  “We haven’t had a guest for quite a while,” Hilary says. “I’m so glad you are here.”

  “I’m not a guest, Hilary. I’m your brother.”

  “After she died, I was all alone. That was the first time I’ve ever been all alone. Mother has always been here.”

  “There are advantages to being alone,” Thomas says. “You’ll get used to it.”

  Thomas wishes he had stayed in a motel. The one out on Barclay Street, across from the old Chevron station. Alma’s Hotel. He wishes he had a nice clean double bed, sweet-smelling towels in his own private bathroom, and a mini-bar. He wishes he were alone. Maybe he should just pack up and go back home. But that means he would have to fly again and he’s not ready for that. It will take a couple of days at least to build his courage up again.

  He sighs He sits down on the bed he spent his childhood nights in and it squeaks. Loudly. If he were home, in the house they are renovating, Thomas would be lying in bed next to Jonathan. Sleeping peacefully. A nice thought, but he would probably be feeling guilty that he hadn’t done more to help Becka when she was alive, feeling guilty that he wasn’t at her funeral. He would probably be tossing and turning, thinking that he should have at least visited her once before she died.

  “I was thinking,” Hilary says. “I was thinking that maybe we should put something in the paper, in the obituaries, something about Mother’s death.”

  “Why? She didn’t have any friends, did she? And we have no living relatives.”

  “Daddy. Maybe Daddy would come to the funeral.”

  Thomas looks at Hilary. “Do you think he’s still alive?”

  “He wouldn’t be that old.”

  “True.” Thomas stares at the old posters on the walls. “I like to believe he’s dead. I like to believe that there was a damn good reason he never came back to us.” Sometimes he feels that he understands why his father left. The same reasons he did, he guesses. He just needed to get away in order to be himself again. “I don’t know if I want him to come home. I don’t know if I want to see him. He isn’t really part of our lives any more, is he?”

  Hilary sits beside Thomas. “That’s from ‘The Dukes of Hazzard,’ isn’t it?” She points to a poster beside Billy’s bed. “I came in here last week and I spent about an hour trying to remember the name of that show.”

  “Yes,” Thomas laughs.

  “You and Billy.”

  “I think Billy liked the car better than the adventures the brothers had.”

  “He’s still like that,” Hilary says. “He’d still prefer the car.”

  “I don’t know,” Thomas says.

  “I don’t come in this room very much. I keep the door shut. It reminds me of you and Billy. It reminds me of all I miss … of all I’ve missed.”

  “I’m sorry I moved away, Hilary,” Thomas says. He takes Hilary’s hand. “I don’t know what else to say. I went to university. I started my own life. I got away.”

  “Men are always leaving.” Hilary pulls her hand away from Thomas and stands up and starts to walk out of the room. She pauses at the doorway. “Thomas?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember Dick Mortimer?”

  “Who?”

  “Dick? The boy who lived above the funeral home on Duncan Street?”

  “Yes, I think so. Fat kid? Smelled funny?”

  “He didn’t smell funny.”

  “Yes, he did. Like formaldehyde. A chemical smell from the funeral home.”

  “He’s a mortician now. He’s burying Mother.”

  “That’s not surprising. What else would he do for a living? Careers like that are usually passed down the line. There probably aren’t that many people who just become funeral directors because they want to.”

  “It’s just,” Hilary says, “I haven’t seen him in years.” She stands awkwardly in the doorway to Thomas’s room. “And I saw him today. It made me think about things.”

  “What things?”

  Hilary shrugs. “About me. It made me think about me.”

  “It’s always good, I guess, to think about who you are, where you’re going, that kind of thing.” Thomas yawns.

  “It made me remember that I’m …” Hilary pauses.

  Thomas yawns again.

  “That you’re what?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.” Hilary turns to leave the room. She turns back. “So you don’t think we should put a death notice in the paper?”

  “No, I don’t. It’s not necessary.”

  “Well, good night, Thomas.”

  “Good night.”

  Thomas sinks back onto the bed. He stares at his old desk, still littered with paper scraps. It amazes him that nothing has been tidied up, thrown out, put away. It’s like a museum of his childhood.

  When Thomas finally moved away from this house he never wanted to go back. He couldn’t go back. He formed a shell around himself, closed in his family and his past, and he continued on, remade himself, until he forgot he was wearing a hard, shiny exterior. Now it’s as if, because he’s home again, that shell is cracking. He feels nervous and responsible, he feels overwhelmed. He feels like a father, a husband, a brother again. Everything to everyone. He had so much to take care of when he lived at home.

  Thomas lies down on the small bed in his clothes, drapes a stinky towel over his torso, and closes his eyes tight. He knows he’ll be haunted by that airplane ride for years to come. Christ, Thomas thinks, once he gets back home he’ll never, ever fly again. He’ll take buses and trains. He’ll drive his car.

  Hilary stands in the hal
lway listening to the small sounds coming from Thomas’s room, to the sigh and then the creak of the box spring. And then she listens carefully for the moan of her mother but realizes, suddenly, that the sound of her pain is gone for good.

  What will she do now?

  She has nothing to do.

  She could do the dishes, dust, even vacuum. But she doesn’t want to.

  Seeing Dick again made her feel like a girl, like a woman, really. That’s what she was trying to tell Thomas. But it makes no sense because she knows she’s female. She’s always known that. Seeing him just made her feel different somehow.

  She wanders the hallway. She can smell Thomas’s scent, his cologne, lingering in the air, and she remembers the strange smell of her brothers when they were young, the odour of their difference lingering behind their closed door. Sweat socks and body odour. They never let her in. They would shut the door, lock it. She would sit with her mother and their dolls in front of the TV. Her mother smelled of waxy lipstick and cigarettes and stale perfume. Later she smelled of medicine and urine and shit and vomit. Hilary sniffs her armpits, smells the cardigan she put on after she took off the fur coat to keep her warm. What does she smell like?

  Hilary paces the hall one last time and then walks quietly to her mother’s room and turns on the light. Her bed is a mass of pillows and sheets, all crumpled. Hilary can almost feel her mother’s pain moving about her. She can see her mother’s shape pushed into the mattress, a dent stained from urine and vomit, scrubbed hard every week and aired to dry. She moved her mother from one half of the double bed to the other. Back and forth. Cleaning each side carefully. She sees the medicine on the table—Valium, Lorazepam, Gravol, morphine, even Tylenol, melt-in-your-mouth pills and liquid, sharp-edged needles—anything to stop the pain. There’s an empty water glass lying broken on the floor just under the bedskirt Hilary sees her mother’s slippers, white and bleached, looking for all the world as if she will step into them and shuffle around the house and down the stairs and out into the garden. That was where her mother was most comfortable. Before she stopped going outside altogether. Among her flowers and plants. Her knees caked in dirt, hair up in a bandana, a package of cigarettes close by.When Hilary was younger, her mother would spend hours in the garden, smoking, weeding, planting. It was the only time she ever seemed comfortable in her skin. Not afraid of who she was, of what was around her.