Funeral with a View (26 page)

The next day I called Mom
during my lunch hour to inform her of two things: that Celeste’s symptoms were
the result of a severe pet allergy, and Mr. Wiggles would be living the rest of
his natural life in someone else’s house.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear
that, Richard.” For once she wasn’t yelling over the phone. While she loathed
that hamster with the fire of a thousand suns, even she wouldn’t gloat, knowing
full well how much her granddaughter cared for him. “How did she take it?”

“Not too well at first,
but we had a talk. Now she wants a fish.”

“A fish?” I pulled the
phone away from my ear. So much for her not yelling. “They’re just as much a
pain in the ass. Disease, pH levels … what did you tell her?”

“I told her we’ll see.”
Any parent knows using the words ‘we’ll see’ is a diversionary tactic. Can I
have this, Daddy? We’ll see, kiddo. As in, I don’t have the heart to tell you “no”
right now, but I’m hoping you’ll forget in a few days so I never
have
to
come right out and say it.

Mom chuckled. “I’ve used
that one a time or two in my day.”

I rest my case.

“Where do you think I got
it from, Mom? I learned from the best.”

“You won’t get any
argument from me. Are you busy, Richard? You sound distracted.”

I was.

Colbert & Colbert was
in the middle of health insurance changes. The contract with the current
provider was at its end and the deadline for the open enrollment period in
which to pick a new health plan had snuck up on me. Between my workload,
organizing the blood drive, and the recent Celeste drama, I’d put off filling
out the forms until the last possible minute. Said last possible minute was end
of business that very day, and if it hadn’t been for Sandy’s text early in the
morning—HEALTH INSURANCE FORMS: GET THEM TO HUMAN RESOURCES TODAY OR ELSE!—I’d
be stuck with the worst of the packages by default.

Hectic best describes
that morning. Not only did I spill coffee on my shirt, I dealt with a flurry of
questions from a lispy kindergartener regarding nothing but fish. When can we
get a fish, Daddy? Can we go to the pet store this weekend, Daddy? D’you think
we should get a couple fish so they don’t get lonely, Daddy?

My answer to these
burning questions? You guessed it: “We’ll see.”

Thank God for Catherine,
who not only stepped in and deflected the aquatic inquiries like a human shield,
but told me where to find Celeste’s social security card, which I needed to
fill out the multitude of forms awaiting me at the office.

“It’s in the file labeled
‘Celeste’ in the office cabinet,” she’d said as I juggled putting on a clean
shirt while opening drawer after drawer.

“What is?”

“Her social security card
that you’ve been grumbling about for the past half hour. You could have asked.”

I am a man. We don’t ask
directions, and we don’t ask where silly things like social security cards are
kept. True story.

Since I was so late, I’d
grabbed the whole elusive file and placed it in my briefcase.

“You’re the best, baby,”
I’d said, kissing her on my way out.

“I know. Drive safe.”

Now, I had a sea of
paperwork spread out on my desk, which by some miracle hadn’t been covered in
crumbs from my turkey on whole wheat.

“Can I call you back later,
Mom? I have a bunch of paperwork that needs getting done.”

“Absolutely. Have a nice
day.”

I opened the file. In it
was anything and everything related to Celeste, organized neatly and
efficiently, thanks to my wife who was much better at bookkeeping than I ever
was. Finding her social security card, I set it aside and allowed myself a few
minutes of nostalgia to go through my daughter’s early history.

It felt like taking steps
back in time as I worked my way backward chronologically to the day she was
released from the hospital, flipping past her birth certificate, the security
bracelet that had once called her fragile, pink wrist home, and the hospital
discharge papers.

I looked at the photo on
my desk and smiled, finding it hard to believe there was a time when she wasn’t
walking, talking, smiling. More difficult still was recalling how small she was
when we’d first brought her home, so tiny compared to the energetic cherub that
stared back at me from the confines of the picture frame.

Sitting back in my chair,
I scanned her birth information to see exactly how much she’d grown in the past
five years.

Something caught my eye,
and my smile turned into a frown.

“That doesn’t seem
right.”

I pulled a laminated card
from my wallet and set it down next to the open file. Back and forth, back and
forth went my eyes, from the hospital paperwork to the blood donor card I’d
gotten in the mail two weeks after having donated. The office seemed eerily
still. All was quiet.

The memory came to me in
vivid detail as I thought back and searched the recesses of my mind. Waiting in
line for registration. Another donor card, old and tattered. A blood type that
brought to mind the name of an old Goth rock band.

Maybe I was mistaken?
That had to be it. I’d read something wrong, or remembered something
incorrectly. That was the only explanation.

I logged onto my computer
and brought up the familiar website. For the next several minutes I scoured the
page, hoping I’d gotten it wrong, wishing I didn’t know half as much as I knew
I did.

A cold, sinking feeling
crept up on me as I compared the discrepancies between what was in the file,
what was printed on my card, and the unerring information that all but screamed
at me from my monitor. The edges of my vision grew blurry, so intense was my
stare.

I wasn’t wrong, no matter
how much I ached for it.

No. No way.
Impossible.

And yet it wasn’t
impossible. The information I had before me was cruel, irrefutable, and very,
very real.

Doubt became nervousness.
Nervousness turned into anger. Rather than chew my fingernails—a habit that, at
the ripe old age of thirty-one, presented itself with less and less frequency—I
balled my hand into a fist and slammed the desktop. Papers rode the resultant
wave of air and floated to the ground. Pencils, pens, and paperclips rattled.
My card, the offending file, both spilled over the edge. The photo of Celeste
in her floral dress, smiling and happy in front of the placid brook shuddered
and crashed on its face.

I was barely aware of my
gut twisting, of the onset of throbbing in my fist.

Almost nothing
registered.

Nothing except for the facts
I’d stumbled upon.

They mocked me. Like the
perpetrator of a cruel April Fool’s joke, they laughed in my face.

My breath abandoned me; I
felt as if I’d been punched in the solar plexus. I forced myself to calm down,
to pull it together, to get my air back.

So I could let out a
strangled growl.

“Mother
fucker
.”

“Mommy! Mommy,”
Celeste stage whispers from the parlor door. “Lookit who’s here.”

Catherine turns toward
the commotion.

There, as big as life, is
Bill, being lead into the funeral parlor by precocious Celeste. She leans
forward, using all her might to drag the walking mountain in. Her hands are
engulfed in his.

Bill is uncomfortable,
that much is clear. Serves him right. My best friend, the guy who’s supposed to
deliver my eulogy, shows up with minutes to spare? He should be uncomfortable.

“Sorry I’m late,” he
whispers to everyone.

“It’s about time you
showed up.” Angela’s voice is acid, and with her hands on her hips, she’s not
putting up with any bullshit.

Bill shrinks back a few
inches. Even so, he’s still a giant, albeit a somber one, dressed in his black
three piece suit that struggles against his shoulders, chest, and arms.

“Please,” Catherine says.
“It’s okay, Angie.” Catherine gets up and Bill swallows her with his arms. Her
tears bead off the fabric of his suit.

Bill breaks the hug and
leans to my mother.

“Beth, I … I don’t know
what to say.” His face cracks with emotion, making it almost impossible for him
to complete his sentence. Abandoning words, he wraps his arms around her. Mom
smiles through the tears.

“You don’t have to say
anything.”

Bill can only nod. He clasps
hands with Glen and Rob, then moves to console Jude.

Celeste gets on her tippy
toes and tugs Bill’s sleeve.

“Uncle Bill?”

“What is it, honey?”

“Where have you been?”

“Sorry I’m late,
Celeste.”

She shakes her head. “Not
what I meant. Why don’t you come around anymore?”

Bill glances at Angela.
She’s rigid, her back to the wall, chin thrust out. They regard each other for
a moment, then she looks away as if the sight of him hurts.

“It’s … complicated,” he
says.

“Why?”

“Sometimes … sometimes
adults have issues that make it hard for them to be with other people.”

“For how long?”

“It depends.”

“Why?”

“It’s just one of those
things you’ll understand better when you get older, honey.”

“One of what things?”

“Does she always ask so
many questions?” he asks Cat, who nods. Rubbing a thumb along Celeste’s cheek, he
says, “My God, you’ve gotten so big.”

She fills with pride. “I
growed a whole inch last time Mommy took me to the doctor. Think I’ll be as big
as you one day, Uncle Bill?”

“Maybe, Celeste. Maybe.”

Watching Celeste interact
with her godfather, my oldest friend, the man whom I consider my brother
initiates a war of emotions in me. Should I be pissed at him? I’d made my
peace, but as my life passes before my eyes, those old sensations, the old
hurts … it’s like I’m experiencing them for the first time all over again. Not
fun; living through them once was bad enough. Could they be nothing more than
leftovers from my forfeit life, or am I truly feeling them?

I’m not so sure.

“Uncle Bill, lookit what
I drew.” Celeste runs to the foyer and comes back with a few sheets of paper,
changing gears the way only a person of her age can. “Gramma Beth and Aunt
Angie helped me, but only a little bit.”

Bill’s hands tremble as
he leafs through each page. He goes through them four times. “These are
wonderful, Celeste. You’re going to be a great artist one day, just like your
dad,” he says, looking at Cat. “Have you seen these?”

“No. Not yet.”

He begins to hand them
over. Celeste is excited to hear what her mother has to say, bouncing from foot
to foot. I’m also curious to see what she’s come up with. That I’ll miss the
little things like seeing her artistic creations attached to the refrigerator
door by alphabet magnets, class projects made of construction paper and too
much glue, dioramas of dinosaurs and planets, fills me with a sense of loss so
profound it staggers me.

Only now do I realize I’m
feeling all of this, every last emotion, new and old, current and remembered.
It’s coursing through my core. The pain, the anguish … all of it. I have been
this whole time, and I’ve been kidding myself into thinking otherwise. The
closer the end gets, the stronger the feelings become; happy, sad, and
everything in between.

Risking giving anybody
the chills, determined to get a look at the last creative endeavor of Celeste’s
I’ll ever see, I move in closer.

Closer.

Closer.

Almost on top of them
now, huddled around the artwork.

The funeral director
approaches my wife and places a pale hand on her shoulder.

“It’s time, Mrs.
Franchitti,” he says in his soothing baritone. “We should be getting to the
cemetery now.”

Catherine nods weakly.
Tears leak from her red, swollen eyes, but she doesn’t move a muscle to wipe
them away. She lets them fall … one after the other. The pictures drawn by my
daughter’s hand disappear into Cat’s handbag. She’ll look at them later,
something I’ll never be able to do.

The director turns and
regards the silent crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if
I can have your attention, please? We’ll be leaving for the cemetery shortly.
I’d ask everyone to please exit through the front …” I want to scream at him.
Yell at him to please stop, to give me a moment to see something as silly and
insignificant and important as a child’s scribbles before I disappear. “Now, if
you’ll please,” he gestures to the door, “the family would like some time alone
with their loved one. I ask only that immediate family and pallbearers stay
behind.”

Chairs rustle as people
alight from their seats and form a neat, orderly line. The quiet is deafening.
Only a rustle of fabric, a shuffle of feet on carpet, and muffled sobbing break
the quiet while the assembled file out.

Angela gives Catherine
one last hug before leaving with the twins.

Almost everyone is gone
now; friends, extended family, co-workers, old classmates, and neighbors … all
gone. Only Catherine, Celeste, Jude, Rob, Mom, Glen, Bill, Mary Jo and
Pat—screw it, I’m not calling him Colonel anymore—and two of my cousins are
left behind.

This is going to suck.
There is no doubt in my phantom mind that this will be the toughest of it all.
For everyone. It will be the last time any of my loved ones lay eyes on me. The
actual lowering of the coffin into the ground won’t be a picnic, but this
intimacy … it’s crushing.

I wish I couldn’t feel. I
don’t want to feel anymore. Not this. Anything but this.

Mary Jo and Pat are
first. They kneel before my coffin, begin their quiet goodbyes, and cry. It
doesn’t surprise me coming from Mary Jo. Pat is another story. I’ve only seen
the mighty Colonel cry twice: at his daughters’ weddings.

I’m flattered beyond
words.

Jude and Rob are next.

Rob, quiet as ever, says
a fair thee well—
after
he adjusts his glasses.

Jude does something unanticipated.
She smiles and finally divulges the secret of where she buys her never ending
supply of odd T-shirts. Little does she know I hear her every word. The
information does me no good now, but the sentiment is one hundred percent Jude.
I’d have been disappointed if she hadn’t injected her own brand of crazy humor
into this. Perhaps she knew I’d haunt her silly ass otherwise.

The Currings say their
final goodbyes and move to the side.

Mom leans on Glen for
support as they walk toward me. Her armor is disintegrating. After a long
moment of silence, she breaks down.

“He’s gone, Glen. My son
is gone.” Her words are stifled and wet and filled with sorrow.

“I know, dear, I know ...
shhhh.” Glen rubs her shoulders soothingly, ignoring his own emotional torrent.
They may be an unconventional couple, but Mom and Glen will be fine because
they have each other. That makes me happy.

“Good bye, Richard,” Mom
says, and kisses my cold forehead. “Rest in peace, Baby Boy.”

Jesus, I want to cry. If
I still had eyes, I suspect I would. Mom’s always been so strong and
determined.
Unshakable
. I can’t recall a time she’s ever broken down
like this, other than the dim memories I have of my father’s funeral from over
two decades ago.

Mom and Glen make room
for Bill. He takes a moment, kneels.

“Rick,” he says, head
resting in his hands, “I know you can’t hear me …”

Says you, buddy.

“… damn.” He grinds his
teeth. “I want you to know that I loved you like a brother. If I could change
things ... if I could go back and make better decisions …” I can hardly hear
him through his crying. “I hope that, wherever you are, you’re looking down on
me and know how sorry I am.”

With a deep breath and a
swipe at his tears, he gets up and walks away.

“Are we gonna say g’bye
to Daddy?”

Here come Celeste and
Catherine, hand in hand. Now for the hardest part. The two most important
people in my life, the two I love above all others, look down upon me.

“Yes, Pookie Bear,”
Catherine says. “We are.”

They reach the kneeler. Celeste
has to stand on it to see me, as kneeling would provide nothing more than a face
full of wood. Nice, highly polished, very expensive wood, but wood nonetheless.

Catherine opens her mouth.
Nothing comes out. Instead of speaking, she rests her forehead on the edge of
my casket. I watch as she places her hand on my chest, and the parlor lights
reflect off the C&R charm bracelet in a brilliant display.

Celeste pats her back.

“It’s okay, Mommy,” she
says, sniffling. “I miss him, too.”

So damn innocent. Too bad
reality had to swoop in and shatter it.

“I know you do, Celeste.
I know you do.” It’s all Catherine can do to get those words out.

Catherine pulls herself
together and stands up. She leans into the coffin and kisses me for the final
time.

“I love you, baby. Really
really. Goodbye, Ricky.” She picks up Celeste so she can hug me.

“Bye bye, Daddy. Wuv you.”
Her voice is muffled, face burrowed into my chest.

Seeing her tiny hands
wrapped around my empty body makes me want to scream. It makes me want to
scream that life isn’t fair. It makes me want to scream that
death
isn’t
fair. Nobody should have to be subjected to this, on
either
side.

Love you guys, too.

Always will.

Really really.