Page 88 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

He leans forward on his desk like he’s going to negotiate with me. “Still you continue.”

“Mom says my stubborn streak is from you.”

“Hm.” He wipes one hand over his mouth and chin, gazes down and then at the wall behind me before meeting my eyes. “How’s your mother?”

“Settled in the condo.”

“Good.” He fiddles with his tie, and I know from recent experience I don’t have much more time with him being uncomfortable—able to be cracked open—before he changes back into the bear he is. I have to go for it.

“I’m sorry about what happened that day,” I start, knowing he’ll understand I mean the day I lost it on him and Mom. “I’m not sorry for telling you how I feel, but I am sorry how it came out. It wasn’t the right way to express myself.”

He casts his eyes down again, and I wait for him to say something. He doesn’t utter a word, doesn’t even let out a breath.

“I’m trying to…make amends, I guess.”

No response.

If he’s not going to interact with me, I’m not sure what else to say. In all of my rehearsals, I didn’t plan for silence.

“I think, um, I think we’re all pretty messed up from Ray’s death, and we need to grieve in whatever way we have to, but I’m tired of fighting with you and Mom. This is hard enough as it is.”

He blinks his gaze up to the ceiling. His throat works on a swallow, and when I think he’s going to speak, he doesn’t. Instead, he wipes at the corner of one eye before tilting his head toward me, waiting for me to go on. The quiet show of emotion dents the armor around my heart. He’s not a robot.

I wonder what it is he’s thinking right now, but he’ll never tell me. I wish he would.

“You and I never got along, and it’s okay,” I acquiesce, working on that particular understanding for weeks with Maryanne. It’s been challenging, to say the least. “I wanted to come talk to you to see if we could move forward, maybe create some kind of relationship that’s different from what we had. Better.” I clear the lump from my throat. “Unfortunately, I’m the only kid you have left, so it’s me or nothing,” I say, forcing my voice to be light and teasing.

His face is blank. He doesn’t think I’m funny.

“So, what do you think of…my offer?”

He considers me, picks up a pen, then promptly sets it back down before stacking some papers. “Yeah, sure.”

I perk up. “Yeah?”

He tips his chin toward his door. “Talk to Lisette for my schedule.”

“Oh.” I know what that means. It’s a brush-off. It’s an I’ll call you after a first date. My own father’s ghosting me.

“Welp.” I leave the bag of Ray’s belongings I brought for him on the floor. “We saved these for you, if you care.” I don’t want to expend one more second of energy on this man and pivot to leave, but on the way out, my eyes snag on a picture. It’s a framed 8 x 10, placed in the middle of his floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. I stop to admire it.

It’s an old family photo. The four of us on the boardwalk at the beach. Mom and Dad stand behind Ray and me, and I must have been eleven or twelve years old at the time. We’re all smiling. Dad has on a tattered baseball hat, and Mom’s wearing a neon-green top. Ray’s nose is all freckled, his hair shaggy and curling at the ends, while I’m sunburned, my fingers up in a peace sign. We look truly happy.

“It’s my favorite,” Dad says gruffly behind me.

I turn over my shoulder to find his attention is on his computer screen. I’m not sure what to make of the statement or the fact that he even has this picture up. Just when I think I can hate him, I can’t, though he doesn’t raise his eyes or make a move to me, so I see myself out.

As Lisette types away on her keyboard, she glances up to offer a friendly hello. I wave at her. I’m not going to bother checking my father’s schedule. If he really wanted to work on our relationship, he could tell me his schedule himself or, hell, offer up any other idea.

I stick my arms through my coat and begin to put on my scarf when my dad calls out from his office, “It’s good to see you, Cass.”

His head poking out from his door reminds me of Ray with the way it’s cocked to the side. He offers a flat, closed-lip smile, and I guess it’s better than nothing. Like Maryanne told me, I don’t know what he’s going through. I can’t control what he does, but I can control my reaction to it. I change my mind and make an appointment with Lisette before heading to the elevator and back outside to the subway entrance so I can travel uptown.

Professor Row agreed to meet me at a diner in Harlem, and I arrive early to get some writing done. With a steaming cup of coffee and my laptop open, I pour my emotions from the last hour onto the page. My fingers fire across the keyboard, a steady staccato, my hands typing the words before they’re even fully formed in my mind.

I didn’t think I was allowed to grieve, I write. Faced with an incredible loss, everyone goes through the same emotions. The sadness, anger, denial, it’s all the same, really, but I didn’t think I was permitted to experience those things when my brother passed away.

I don’t have children. I don’t know what it’s like for my child to die, but I witnessed the suffering of my parents. They both bore that worst-nightmare scenario physically. They still do. The evidence is in the lines of their faces, the gray strands of hair, the hunched shoulders. My brother stole a piece of me when he died, so what must it feel like for them? Their whole self dying? It has to be terrible for them, I thought. More terrible than it is for me.

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