Ch 2: The Funeral

chapter excerpt from novel
Sisters In Arms

Chapter 2: The Funeral

(You Meet My Mom’s Family)

         There was something unreal about the thick and heavy sky, the rain slapping my head, and the festive feeling that accompanies every big event, even if it is a funeral.
         At Cheyanne First Methodist we met Shelley and Dave, and I felt relief wash over me. Seeing my brother and sister again made me feel just this side of normal.
         Shelley hadn’t changed much, though she’d grown her lustrous, black hair long again. Dave’s glasses were thicker, his hair really short, spiky. It made me smile, remembering he once had hair longer than Shelley’s, carrying protest signs on the lawns of the State capital.

         "Hannah!” A strident voice rang across the foyer and my Aunt Dorothy pushed through the crowd. There were rumors long ago that something wasn’t sitting right with Dorothy, but my mom always said, Oh that Dorothy! She’s the youngest and the youngest always act like that!

         Aunt Dorothy was also the largest. She folded my mom up in her arms and they hugged. She looked up, saw us standing there, but only had eyes for my brother. "There he is! There's my nephew!"

         Now, Dave is the star of my family. Dave has a doctorate in psychology and the only one of the extended family to ever make it that far. It was a huge deal and because of it everyone in the Donovich clan forgave him for being half Filipino. Not so, the rest of us Cordovas.

         “How are you doing, you big shot, you?” she greeted him sweetly. Her sons, all five of them, stood lamely by, watching. I remember being a kid and playing with the oldest one, Corey, liking him a lot, and the thought struck me that Dorothy had never hugged her sons the way she was hugging my brother now.

         She turned to me, looked me up and down, and asked, "Is this your wife?"

         Help me, Jesus. Shelley clapped a hand to her mouth and made like she was coughing.
My mother didn’t offer any corrections. She just stood there as if she were in the eye of a storm. I think she was on input overload.

         “No that's Julie -- you remember Julie and Shelley, your nieces?" That was Dave’s reply, but Aunt Dorothy didn’t even have the savvy to look embarrassed. I don’t think her faux pas registered. She babbled on, not listening. Something about how proud everyone was and the weather was horrid and how she had always been interested in Psychology. Her sons were grinning and she just waved a big paw, threw her arm around my mom and walked her away, jabbering about Grandma.

         “Kiss my butt-beans,” I muttered and went to look for some coffee. Shelley, Dave and I were the only dark-tinged people in attendance at Grandma’s funeral. It must have been a little odd for everyone else to have us milling about. Three mudfish in a tank of lobsters.

         I was so used to it, I never noticed it anymore. We grew up with these odds. It always seemed harder on my pale-skinned and raw-boned relatives, than on us. And even though we knew we were dark, we never felt that much different from anybody else. But inevitably, a bitter claw would crack us upside the head in the tank now and then.

         As I scanned the foyer looking for a way
to scavenge some coffee, I passed Uncle Ed with a styrofoam cup in his hand. Uncle Ed was married to Aunt Anna.

         “Well, hello there,” he said, smiling.

         “Nice to see you again, Uncle Ed,” I replied. “Where’d you get the coffee?”

         He pointed to a table down the hall, white linen cloth, large silver urn. I headed that direction and he followed me like a dragging tail pipe.

         “So that’s how you girls keep your skin so tan and creamy- all that coffee!”

         I honored him with a polite laugh. “No, really it was all that brown soap we used.”

         “Well, I admit it,” he went on congenially, “I’m a coffee addict myself.”

         “Uh-huh.” I spooned creamer into my cup. So that’s how you keep your teeth so brown and creamy. Uncle Ed slithered off somewhere and gratefully, I sipped the hot brew. Yeah, Methodists had their shit together. The church my mother raised me in would go up in a blaze of brimstone, if there was such a thing as coffee on the premises.

         “That stuff is bad for you.” I heard a familiar voice. I turned and saw Auntie Ruth standing there. For once, I was taller than she. She stood there looking at me expectantly, with her aren’t you going to worship me? face. It made me think of Miss America waiting for the crown to settle on her head.

         Auntie Ruth was the second youngest of the Donovich women and had no children. We never knew who was defective or not, her or her late husband. We were not allowed to talk about it. Not having kids was a great blow to the adulthood Ruth fancied. She borrowed other mothers' children occasionally so she could play at being mommy, but when they fucked up, which was every ten minutes or so, she sent them back home in disgrace. I remember being part of one of her mommy fantasies. And of course, I let her down.

         I’d heard her health wasn't all that good and I felt a twinge of pity for her, even though I could still hear her evil snapping in my little girl head. “Why can’t you say thank you? Don’t you have any manners? And please use a napkin!”

         She was so small and fragile, I wanted to hug her, but I knew she would push me away.

         "Hi, Auntie Ruth,” was all I could give her.

         “What are you going to do with that stinky plant?” she said. I was still holding the lily. Before I could say anything, she turned and walked toward the awful organ music warming up the sanctuary.

         Man, I hate funerals for the same reason I hate weddings. It's always the same thing. But, I’d never been to a funeral where they showed pictures on a large movie screen. It was really quite nicely done and I liked seeing my grandmother's photos up there. I’d never seen her so young! Or my grandfather - he looked completely soused in every photo and I hadn't realized he was so short. All that I remember of him is whisker burns and the smell of booze.

         My mom and her sisters were seated in the front row of the church. They sat in rank of oldest to youngest. First, my mom, then Anna, Ruth, and finally, Dorothy. I thought that was rather precious; they sought order when they could.
         Dave and Shelley sat with me in a padded pew about halfway back, watching the pictures flick by. As the movie screen clicked on photo after photo, the noise coming from that front pew got louder and louder. The sniffles. The grief. Then a picture of Auntie Ruth, flashed on the screen. She was standing next to Grandma in the picture and Auntie Ruth looked about fourteen.

         "Ohhhhh, that's me!" she brayed. The sob echoed throughout the church. I gripped my hymnal trying not to laugh.

         A few more pictures clicked and then Aunt Dorothy started absolutely wailing. Contestant number two, I thought uncharitably. I could feel the spirit of competitiveness roll through that front pew; a competitiveness that has no place at funerals, but nonetheless certainly comes along for the ride.
         Aunt Anna was stoic. She was the one I secretly adored. The tallest of the four sisters, and stunningly gorgeous, I never saw her when she didn't have a warm smile on her face, except today. Where the other sisters had their moments of boisterous and sometimes embarrassing behavior--including my mother, I don't think I heard more than one or two sentences out of Aunt Anna at a time. She was reserved and to me, she was a princess.
         The drama between Ruth and Dorothy continued throughout the service, subsiding only when the hymns drowned it out. Anna never cried.
         And my mama, bless her broken heart, just sat quietly next to her. Occasionally, a tear would roll down her cheek and her hanky was always handy.
         I have never seen my mother grieve openly. Prayer meetings don’t count. You’re supposed to cry at those, I guess, because whenever my mom came out of one of those, her eyes were always red and she was wiping at them and smiling. I always thought that was weird, but none of my business. Anyway, I’ve only seen her really cry once. Long ago, she carted me off to Auntie Ruth’s one afternoon. I sat on Auntie Ruth’s plastic covered couch while my mother wept openly and loudly about my father. This is a scene I should not have seen, but I saw it. My father had left. I saw him pull out of the driveway in his old Buick station wagon. My memory tells me there was a fight, but I can recall none of it. I can only remember sitting on that couch feeling awkward and brave and wishing I did not have to see my mother cry like this. Later, my dad came back and they both acted like nothing happened.

         In the foyer, as we left the church to go to the gravesite, I saw my cousins, all of them; Dorothy’s boys and Anna’s two daughters. They saw me too, but nobody exchanged greetings. We just never really knew each other. I remember as kids, we were not so wary of each other; we played together. But something happens when you get older. Walls go up that I still don’t understand and you can’t talk anymore. And I can’t handle rejection, so I was not about to walk up to them and be looked through as if I were a ghost.
         My mom rode with her sisters in a limo. Shelley rode with me to the graveyard.

         “Where are you staying?” she asked me.

         “The Super Eight right outside of town.”

         “How long?”

         “Don’t know.”

         “Mama asked if we could come down to look at Grandma’s things.”

         “Oh man. I don’t wanna do that!”

         “Me either, but for her—-“

         "Really, all I want to do is get out of here,” I said. “The clouds are killing me.”

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