Between Octobers

Four Days And Counting

Evan—Four Days and Counting

Though it feels like the world should stop and pay its' respects, it keeps spinning. Time goes on, taking me further from her.

There are no words to express the absolute furious contempt I hold toward myself for allowing this. There's no excuse. I should have been there. Then we wouldn't be here.

Lily's holding the baby. He's perfect and beautiful and so needy. I've got nothing for him. For Ethan Daniel Matthews.

I can't get my shit together. Things are happening, people are moving, but I can't focus. I'm here, but not really there. I've got about three feet of clarity; and beyond that, it's as if there are no true shapes. Only fuzz on a blank slate.

I can't eat or sleep, or think past that moment I found out she wanted to talk. What was happening to her at that moment? Was she still at home, did she hear my messages? Who broke the coffee pot? Who swept the shards into the trash? 

I gave very specific instructions not to let anyone in unless they verifiably, personally know Grace, but there's lots of fuzz behind us.

We're not in a church because I can't bring myself to set foot in one. I'm so angry and full of shit, I'd probably catch fire at the threshold. Her vicar, Tony Something, an Italian Southerner as far as I can tell, is conducting the service here, at the cemetery. She's being laid to rest in one side of our mausoleum. Sol's nearby, in the family plot beside his father. There are people outside the gate, people on the grass, people, people, everywhere.

Noah's hands are shaking around a folded paper. I try to reassure him, but my comfort sounds like random words strung together. I hear myself tell him he's strong, he can do this, and it doesn't make sense to me. I've got no idea what he's doing.

His eyes are dry and red as he stands. His suit's sharp, shoes shining through the rain as he walks the carpet set atop the grass, sheltered by the tent. When he reaches the podium, he unfolds the page and mumbles.

"Mom wrote this just after my dad was killed." He clears his throat. "'I live a small life. When it's my time—long after all chances of greatness have passed me by and I've humbly settled with my remarkable family—I expect to have a small funeral gathering. This is good, because grief makes people crazy. I don't want anyone to make a fuss over me. But funerals aren't for the guest of honor, are they?'"

He stops and takes a deep breath. "'I hope that when people think of me, they remember I truly believe that the next life is the best life and the purpose of this one. All I want are a few friends and no tears. If Lily outlives me, she'll get to play dress-up one last time. And though I don't really care one way or the other what happens, I might like it if she chose something silly and inappropriate. Like me. Rainbow wigs and clown noses all around.'"   

Noah looks up from the paper and pans the crowd. "You're wrong, Mom. You lived larger than you thought. We're all here because we love you."

I'm sitting, wondering what's happening as people actually applaud. When he takes his seat back beside me, I see he's wearing a red clown nose. He opens his palm, where there sits another. He offers it to me, along with the paper that's folded again. I take them both, but the nose won't stay on.

Her script stares at me from the stapled pages. Half of one page is highlighted. The part he's read from. The other page has my name and that's where I start reading. An entirely different entry photocopied from her diary.

"It's ridiculous," she writes. "In such a short time, he's become an intrinsic part of me. He's beautiful and funny and I know I'll never have enough, or get tired of him. I may get tired from him (Evan snores so loud! It actually wakes me up at night. I'm thinking of checking him into a sleep clinic!) But never tired of him."

 After her casket is in place, the service ends. The crowd starts to disperse. A woman steps towards Lily and introduces herself. I hear the name Esther and look up from the ground. There's a young girl clinging at the womans waist. The girl's wearing a brightly colored dress, and her mother's dress is black, covered in tiny little fluff balls. The kind cheap t-shirts get when you sleep in them. She says she knew Grace through a women's shelter. And I remember her.

I took Grace down to Vine Street to show her the star of James Dean. I'd been offered the role of Jim Stark in a remake of Rebel Without a Cause. I was excited about it and Grace thought it was a horrible idea. I was too old for the part, she said, and remakes are overrated. As we stood, talking, Grace spotted a homeless woman. Esther's mother. We crossed the street so Grace could talk to her. I remember bristling when the woman, reeking of alcohol, asked her for money. She said it was for a taxi to go visit her daughter, the clinging girl. Of course, Grace gave her all the cash she had on hand. When we got back to the car, I told Grace she was naïve to think that this woman was going to use it for anything besides drink.

She'd looked at me with her large, lovely eyes. "It's her money now. She can use it for whatever she wants."

The sound of a chuckle pulls me from my musings. It's Lily and the homeless woman. They're laughing over something Grace did with a bag of dinner rolls. I make a mental note to ask Lily about it later.

Behind them is another woman, underweight with missing teeth. She knows Grace through a church charity called Food Closet. They used to chat about life and her addictions. Grace listened and never judged her. She says that my wife, the aggressive retreatist, told her, "Anything worth having is worth fighting for." She smiles and I know that, to her the fight is for sobriety.

Maria joins Noah as he takes Caleb towards the car. Lily listens closely, shifting Ethan from one arm to the other, as the line that has formed slowly moves.

I take the baby before Lily's arms give out. Staring down at his sleeping face calms me. I pretend I'm a fly on the wall and just listen.

Each person has a story, some way that Grace affected them with her kindness or her simple honesty when they needed it. She made them all feel valued just by being who she was. This is what Noah meant when he said Grace was wrong. The fuzz is actual people. They may have barely known her, but they loved her. And she loved them. So, they're here.