What We All Want

by Michelle Berry

The feeling passes quickly. He looks at the doll and at Becka and at his daughter and then he rubs at his eyes. Hard.

  Dick closes the casket. “Would anyone like to say a few words?” Silence.

  “Someone say something,” Billy says.

  “I’m sorry,” Hilary says.

  “What are you sorry for?” Billy asks. “Stop picking at your face. You’re bleeding again.”

  Dick touches Hilary’s hands on her face. He squeezes them. “Shhh,” he whispers. “It’s all right. Don’t say anything. You don’t have to say anything. Hold my hand.”

  “Let’s just bury her,” Billy says. “Let’s get this over with.” He looks over at the barbecue, at Jonathan standing there minding the burgers. Billy wants a drink so badly that his hands are shaking. He wants a drink so badly that his mouth is watering. “It’s harder to change than you think, Tess,” Billy whispers.

  Dick stands tall. “I’ll need some help lowering her.”

  “I just want to know one thing,” Tess says. Her voice cracks. She’s been quiet for so long. “I just want to know if you slept with someone, Billy.” She can’t hold it in. She is watching the lid close on Becka Mount and she is thinking that she could just as easily be where Becka is now.

  “Christ, Mom,” Sue says. “Bad timing.”

  Billy looks at his wife. “Not now,” he says. “We’ll talk later.”

  “I just want to know.”

  “Not now.”

  “Did you?” Tess stands as tall as she can and she glares at Billy.

  “No, for Christ’s sake, I didn’t sleep with her. I just—” Billy puts his hands over his eyes.

  Tess turns and walks quietly into the house. She turns her back and walks away, opening the glass patio doors, releasing the bobbing balloons which float up into the snowy sky. She settles down in the living room, takes her coat and boots off, feels her feet solid upon the rocks, and she stares at the blank TV set. She turns it on. Tess puts her hand on her heart and settles in to watching TV.

  An uncomfortable silence falls over the people under the tarp. Jonathan watches the balloons float higher and higher. And then he thinks that he can’t wait to go home and feels the side of his face, feels the ache, wonders how long the bruise will take to heal.

  “Hey,” a voice says suddenly. “What are you guys doing?”

  Hilary looks up. “It’s the neighbour.”

  “Oh no,” Dick says.

  Hilary walks out from under the tarp and sees the neighbour standing on his ladder looking down at the plastic blue covering. “We’re having a party,” she says.

  “In the snow, in the cold?” he asks.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than spy on your neighbours?”

  The man looks at her. “I —”

  Hilary suddenly shouts, “When I need something, no one ever comes. And then, suddenly, everyone is here. Why don’t you just leave me alone? Leave me in peace. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

  The man looks up at his well-lit window and then down at Hilary. He clears his throat and climbs down the ladder and goes back into his house. Hilary feels a blush spread across her face. She is shaking, she is dizzy. She stumbles back under the tarp.

  “Good for you, Hilary,” Dick says. He reaches to steady her. “Now he won’t bother us any more.”

  “He’ll call the police, I bet,” Sue says.

  Billy is standing still with his hands over his eyes.

  “Billy?” Thomas says. “Hey, Billy.”

  “What?” Billy shouts. “What?”

  “We have to put her in the ground. You have to help.”

  No one says anything. Hilary starts to cry. She leans on Dick’s shoulder and cries. Then she straightens up, wipes the tears from her face, and moves away from Dick. She stands next to the closed casket, looks at it, sees her reflection in the blue shine.

  “Hilary,” Thomas says, “it’s okay, really.” He moves to comfort her.

  “I have this doll,” Hilary says. “Daddy gave her to me. He brought her home in a large box with a plastic bag around it. She was so pretty, all dressed in green. Her eyes winked at me and her smile was perfect. I have this doll and that’s all I have of him.”

  “Isn’t that the doll you just put in there?” Billy points towards Becka’s casket.

  “Shut up, Dad,” Sue says.

  “Why couldn’t Daddy have helped me? Why couldn’t he have stayed with us, helped us?”

  “Hilary,” Dick says. “It’s all right now.”

  And then there is no sound. The snow muffles the traffic on the road out front. A dog’s bark several houses over comes at them, ghostly and thin.

  “Help us, Jonathan,” Thomas says after a minute. “Help us lower the casket. We have a funeral to finish.”

  “Be careful,” Dick says. “Be steady.”

  The men slowly lower Becka’s casket into the ground, using ropes and straps. A light flashes on in the house just behind. Dick lowers quickly. His hands are shaking. The casket is off-centre. The men work at it. Righting it. Resting it properly. They sweat.

  “She was calling for help,” Hilary whispers as the casket makes a final move and then stops. Her whisper stops abruptly in the padded stillness of the snow. “There was no one there to help me. None of you helped me. I’m sorry, Mother.” She steps outside of the tarp and she looks up at the sky. The drops of snow hit her face and the weight seems unbearable.

  “Just be quiet for a minute, will you?” Thomas says fiercely. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “All this talking,” Billy says. “You’re giving me a headache.”

  “I knocked the glass of water on the floor,” Hilary says. “I knocked the pills off the table. It was an accident.”

  “Accidents happen, Hilary,” Thomas says. “I’m cold. I want this to be over.”

  “Her breath hushed over my face.” Hilary touches her cheeks. “It stained me, can’t you see? The stain is all over my face.”

  “Jesus Christ. There’s nothing there. It’s all in your mind. There is nothing on your face. You didn’t do anything, Hilary. Just be quiet. Just stay quiet. Everyone be quiet.” Thomas is shouting. A door slams in the neighbourhood. The dog several streets over begins to bark again and its high-pitched yapping takes over, grows stronger, drowns out all else.

  The family in the backyard stands still. No one moves a muscle. “I don’t know why everyone can’t just be quiet once in a while. Stop talking,” Thomas whispers. “Just stop.”

  15. The End

  I need a goddamn drink.” Billy is the first to speak.

  Dick reaches over to Hilary. He pulls her towards him and hugs her tight. She is shaking.

  Thomas whispers, “There’s nothing there, Hilary. I’m sorry. There is nothing on your face.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of dry skin?” Billy says.

  “Let’s bury your mother,” Dick says. “There’s nothing else left to do.”

  Thomas looks at his hands. He feels helpless. He reaches for one of the shovels Dick has thought to bring and he begins to load the first bit of snow and dirt on Becka’s casket. Billy picks up a shovel too.

  The light in the neighbour’s window goes out. A door bangs shut like the blast from a gun and the dog suddenly stops ­barking.

  Billy and Thomas and Dick stand before the hole, shovelling in the snow. Hilary joins them. They form a semicircle. They bow their heads to the work.

  Jonathan stays by the barbecue, afraid to move close and help when Billy has a shovel in his hand.

  There is little sound in the air except the static of snow falling, the heavy thud of the dirt on the casket. The shovels toss the dirt which thumps lightly on the closed lid of the Blue Diamond casket.

  Slowly they finish and, one by one, move into the home.

  Quietly.

  Jonathan unties the tarp from the fence and tree and then carries the burgers and hot dogs into the house. He puts the plate on the table. The kitchen is light and
warm Hilary stands in front of the stove and her mind spins; she touches the stove and thoughts about having a bun in the oven, about her mother, about the Madonna, about her own reason for being tumble around her head. Billy tries to find another glass for his Scotch but he can’t find one because Jonathan moved everything. He continues to drink straight from the bottle. No one says anything to him about burying his habit. Dick watches Hilary, inspects her every movement. Thomas stands by the sliding-glass doors, looking out at the backyard. He begins to cry silently. He wipes his eyes and watches the snow as it sticks on the mound of dirt now that the tarp is gone. Sue joins Tess on the couch, and the noise from the TV fills up the house. Tess puts her arm around her child and holds on tight.

  Hilary takes one step forward, towards the centre of the kitchen. She opens her mouth as if to say something and then, thinking better of it, she closes her mouth and takes one step back. She leans against the stove again, feeling the warmth, hearing the clicking sounds as it heats up to keep the food warm.

  Rebecca Mount’s body lies resting under a mound of fresh dirt and a sprinkling of snow, six feet under, in cold, damp ground. And in the Blue Diamond casket, right beside the dead woman, is Billy’s empty bottle of Scotch, her husband’s pair of dirty, old running shoes, the emerald green doll with both eyes shut, and Thomas’s contribution, the missing piece of Hilary’s puzzle—the Madonna’s mouth, lips pink and painted thin, closed tight and speechless.

  MICHELLE BERRY has been widely published in many Canadian literary magazines, national newspapers, and anthologies. She is the author of seven books of fiction, two novels of which have been published in the UK as well as in Canada.