Past: Red Roses
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at myself. I looked ridiculous. The suit had been Taylor’s two years ago and I don’t know how I even got myself into it in the first place. It was this weird greenish brown color and kind of itchy. I was supposed to wear a tie, but there was no way I was doing that, too.
For several minutes I just stood there, staring myself down. I had already finished brushing my teeth and my hair, but I just didn’t want to move. I backed away from the sink until I felt back bump against the wall. It jarred me so badly that my teeth rattled a little. Slowly, I sank down the wall until I touched the floor. It felt like melting. I didn’t know if I would be able to pick myself up again.
The muffled sound of my mom calling out my name barely made it to me, barely carrying through the walls and the loud white noise in my head. I knew it was time to leave. This was the first night of visitation before the funeral. I didn’t want to go, not to the wake or the funeral or anything. I had tried, earlier, to convince Mom to let me stay at home. Someone needed to be there to answer the door when well-wishers came by with their trays of sandwiches and Jello molds. But she wouldn’t hear a word of it. Which left me there, crumpled up in the bathroom floor in a suit about two sizes too small, inherited from my dead brother.
When I could hear Mom’s footsteps coming up the stairs, I carefully picked myself up and straightened the wrinkled material of my pants as best I could, which wasn’t very good at all. I walked downstairs to find the whole family – no, that wasn’t right. But it was right, now. Everyone who could be was there. Mom, Dad, Isaac, Jessie, Mackie, Avery and even Zoe in a little dull purple jumper. Everyone piled into Dad’s Blazer, except for me and Ike who walked wordlessly to his car, the beige Camry he had worked and saved for months to make the down payment on when he was seventeen. The entire drive to the funeral home, we didn’t speak a signal word to each other. Isaac wouldn’t even turn on the radio and I didn’t want to reach out and touch it without asking him. But I also didn’t want to ask him. So I just listened to hum of the air conditioner all the way there and thought about how I would probably get sweat stains on that stupid suit.
It didn’t take us long at all to get there, since it was the only funeral parlor in all of Jenks. I wasn’t surprised at all by how full the parking lot had already become; Taylor had always had a ton of friends, and we had a lot of family, too. Aunts, uncles and cousins had come pouring in from all around the state to see him put into the ground.
Most of the friends and acquaintances mingled around outside while we made our way inside. I saw Shelby standing near the end of the building by herself and I gave her a small smile so she’d know I was coming back to see her as soon as I could. Mom and Dad ushered all the little ones inside and I wondered how they had managed to explain to them why they were there and what was happening. Zoe didn’t want to go inside the building at all and Dad finally had to sling her over his shoulder like she was still a baby.
A few stray aunts and uncles mingled about in the lobby area, and I was afraid we would be forced to make small talk. I always hated small talk. Luckily that wasn’t the case. Some fat, balding guy in an even more ill-fitting suit than mine ushered us into the main room. I could hear piano music coming from somewhere and when I looked around, I saw our old piano teacher in one corner, plucking away at some sad, slow hymn.
The smell of fresh flowers made the room’s air heavy and suffocating. All around Taylor’s casket were bouquets and baskets of deep red roses – his favorite. Maybe it was weird for him to have a favorite, but there was no doubt that red roses were it. For now, the casket was open but I wasn’t close enough to see in. I knew that Mom and Dad had asked for it to be open just for us, but they didn’t want everyone to see him. I thought that didn’t make much sense, but I knew my opinion on it didn’t matter anyway.
Dad stood back from the casket a little, since he was still holding Zoe to his chest. Mackie and Avery followed Mom down the aisle, but I don’t think either one of them made an effort to look in at Taylor for more than a few seconds. Just enough to make sure he was really was there, I guess. I walked up the aisle with Jessie, both of us glancing over at the over with a knowing look. She didn’t want to see Taylor laying there and neither did I.
The walk up the aisle seemed to take forever, my feet shuffling on the dark green carpet and making this annoying sound. I wanted to keep staring at my scuffed black shoes instead of looking in at Taylor. I could feel Jessie bracing herself against my side and it surprised me a little.
I put my arm around her, tentatively, and finally looked up at the casket holding Taylor’s body. It was weird to think of it as his body and not him. But I guess that’s what it was His face was covered in this thick makeup that barely disguised all the cuts and bruises from the windshield he had flown through. I imagined even more injuries lay hidden under his silky shirt and that velour jacket he had loved. His cheeks were rosy, but not like they had been in life. I wished I could see his blue eyes again, just one more time. And he looked so cold. I wondered if I touched him, would he feel like ice, the way he looked?
I didn’t want to find out.
Still holding Jessie against my side, I made my way to the first pew with the “Reserved for Family” sign. I picked up a box of tissues from the end and set it in her lap. I didn’t cry. I wanted to cry. But I didn’t.
Through the whole thing, my eyes stayed dry. Mom stood up and said a few words about Taylor, followed by Isaac. I don’t think anyone expected me to talk, and I was grateful for that. I wasn’t good with words, even when circumstances weren’t so bad.
I still didn’t cry, but at some point I just started to feel this awful weight pushing down on my chest. So I had to stand up. I had to move. I had to get out of there. Grandma gave me a weird look when I passed her standing talking to some woman from church, but she didn’t say anything and just let me go on by. I could have hugged her for it, but that would have attracted attention.
The sound of angry voices carried through the doors to the lobby, and when I pushed them open I saw the source. Alex and Portia were standing by a big, fake flower arrangement, looking embarrassed, while my mom faced them down with her hands on her hips.
“Mrs. Hanson, please –” Alex asked, his face all screwed up and pleading.
“I would really be – no, the whole family would be – much more comfortable if you two would just leave,” my mom replied, her jaw clenched.
Portia took a step forward, which probably wasn’t a smart move, and said, “But we were his friends. I think we have every reason to be here.”
“It’s out of the question. I’ve made up my mind, now you need to leave,” Mom said, eyes closed. She didn’t even have the decency to look at the two of them while she kicked them out of her son’s funeral.
I knew how hard headed Alex was; it was half the reason he and Tay got along so well. So I knew the argument wouldn’t end there, even if Mom had decided it would. I really didn’t want to be there for the rest of it, so I slipped down the hallway to the left, in search of refreshments. Not surprisingly, the room was full – of both people and food. I kept quiet so no one would try to talk to me and did my best to react appropriately to all the looks of sympathy. I was pretty successful, and a few minutes later I was on my way back out, with two brownies and a plastic cup full of soda as my reward.
Instead of walking back into the battlefield of the lobby, I turned left again and kept walking down the hallway, following it to what looked like a door to the outside. Praying silently that it didn’t have an alarm, I pushed the door open and felt the late August heat rush forward to punch me in the face. Still, it was better than being inside.
The crunch of shoes on gravel told me someone else had had the same idea, and I looked to my right to see Shelby walking toward me, wobbling a little in her high heels. She wasn’t a tall girl, but you wouldn’t have known it to see her in those shoes, tiptoeing her way to me.
“Why aren’t you inside?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “Why aren’t you?”
“Just had my fill of it all, you know?”
“Yeah, makes sense,” she replied, fishing through her purse and pulling out a cigarette and lighter a few seconds later. “How does he look?”
“Weird. Like someone tried to make a mold of him just from memory, and it’s close but not quite right,” I replied, stuffing my hands in the pockets my pants and actually hearing the stitches start to rip and tear.
Shelby nodded, then took a drag on her cigarette. “That’s how my Gran looked at her funeral. I barely remember it, though.”
I tried to think back to my other Grandma’s funeral, but the memory was hazy. I was nine or ten at the time, I guess, and I had refused to go look at her in the casket. Maybe if I had, I would have been more prepared for this. But does anything prepare you for seeing your brother, who still looked like an overeager kid, laying cold and dead? I was pretty sure the answer to that was a big, fat no.
“Look, sugar,” Shelby began, putting a hand on her hip like she did when she was in thought. “It’s gonna be alright. This pain won’t last forever.”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t explain to her just how wrong she was. This pain might not last forever. Maybe it would fade to a dull ache. I would get used to Taylor’s bedroom in the apartment being empty. And I would stop expecting him to come walking through the door, another crazy scheme in his head.
But even if this pain did begin to fade, it wouldn’t take the rest of the pain away. Shelby couldn’t get that. She was hard edges and a fighting stance and all kinds of things I wasn’t. She didn’t get that there was always pain, that I couldn’t just angry and push it away like she did.
I glanced back toward the door. “I should probably go back in there before they send out a search party.”
Shelby nodded, still holding the cigarette to her lips. I turned and walked away from her, back toward the door, then paused there, clutching the big metal doorknob.
“And Shelby?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t think you have all the answers. At least maybe not the ones I need.”