Page 15 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

“Mm, interesting.” I nod solemnly.

“Aunt Cassie,” Lucy says, tugging on my hand, “wanna play with us?”

“I can’t right now. I have to talk to your mommy, but maybe later.”

“Okay, you can be Snow White ’cause you look like her,” Lucy says.

“No! I wanna be Snow White!” Lara snatches the doll, and they begin to argue over who is what princess, and I use it to make my escape. I thought filling out my tax returns was hard, but explaining death to a child may be the hardest thing to do. Besides, possibly, actually dying.

I search for Shayna in the large dining room, recently redone kitchen with granite countertops, and the living room with a huge flat-screen TV, but she’s nowhere to be found. Taking a peek out the window to the patio, I finally spot her wrapped up in blankets with a cup of something steaming on the table in front of her. Seeing her alone, looking awfully un-Shayna-like with no makeup and her hair a mess, I’m concerned for her. When I slide open the back door, she keeps her eyes on the brown-tinged grass and the swing set when I say, “Hey.”

She has that haunted look. The same one as my mother.

“I didn’t think you were home when no one answered the door, and I used my key. Sorry.”

She sips her drink but says nothing.

I pick at the grooves in the tiled table. “The girls seem to be doing okay. That’s good.”

She runs her fingers through her hair, her nails painted a delicate pink, and for once, I wish she’d show me some of her self-indulgent annoyances, some sign of life. It’d be better than this silence.

I can’t take it and resort to the question I’ve grown to hate over the past few days. “How are you?”

She gestures to the swing set. “We bought it for the girls’ birthday two years ago. RJ spent almost all night putting it up to surprise them first thing in the morning.” She wipes at her eyes. “He came in after midnight, soaked in sweat, cursing up a storm that the directions were wrong. But he finished it.”

I focus on the swing set. Its normally vibrant green color appears dull in the overcast gray light.

“He wasn’t a great husband, but he was the best dad,” she says, and there’s a hint of guilt in her voice. She turns to me then. “I’m not sure what I mourn more, his death or my marriage.”

“Yeah,” I mumble, thinking I should say something, but I’m out of my depth. “I have to find some—” I clear my throat of the words stuck there “—clothes for the burial. To pick out what he’s going to wear.” I assume she’s going to have an opinion. Fashion is her thing, but she doesn’t move.

“You know where the bedroom is.”

I stare at the side of her face, hoping I can shame her into helping me. When it doesn’t work, I roll my eyes, opening the door to go back inside.

“Cassandra.”

I hate she always uses my full name. Guess it’s the way Raymond felt when I used his name. I turn back to her. “Yeah?”

“Pick anything besides the Bruce Springsteen T-shirt or that horrid plaid suit.”

I huff out a laugh. That horrid plaid suit is a red monstrosity he bought for Christmas last year, bow tie included.

“Okay,” I tell her and head upstairs to their bedroom. It’s mostly clean and white, a pristine oasis that I know for a fact caused many a fight between the two of them because Ray was more of a slob than I am. They may have been married for a while, but she could never quite get over his untidiness, especially in the white bedroom.

I slip off my shoes before I cross the threshold, afraid my boots might have microscopic pieces of dirt on them that would drive Shayna batty. A few weeks ago, I might’ve purposely left tracks to get under her skin, but I don’t have it in me anymore. I help myself to the closet, pushing three-fourths of Shayna’s pink and cream wardrobe out of the way to get to Ray’s. His button-downs and ties are haphazardly hung up, along with a couple of pants and hoodies. A bunch of baseball hats are stacked up on a shelf with scores of sneakers lining the floor.

Carefully examining each article of clothing, I wonder what the purpose of this is. Why put him in the ground in a fancy suit—or any clothing, for that matter? It’s not like he needs them wherever he is now. Or wherever he is not. Our parents stopped taking us to church in middle school, none of us particularly religious, so considering what Ray would wear to the pearly gates is silly.

I close the closet and open drawers, looking for something cotton. Natural fibers would be better for the environment, right?

I plop down on the floor, his athletic shorts and baseball shirts surrounding me, remembering the time he convinced me to play hockey with him when we were kids. The game consisted of me standing in front of the garage without a helmet for protection as his goalie while he smacked a plastic puck at me. My legs were covered in bruises for weeks. That was when I took up reading books instead of following him around.

Coming across Ray’s old but treasured Bruce Springsteen T-shirt, the white one with Bruce in a dark silhouette with his guitar, I bring it to my face. It’s soft and worn and still smells like him. I stuff it in my bag, then settle on his coaching shirt and plain black pants to bury him in. I second-guess myself on shoes and boxers—because does he really need those?—but grab them both anyway, just in case his journey to the great beyond requires a clean pair of undies.

Back at home, I find a note in Aunt Joanie’s pretty cursive. She’s dragged Mom out of the house to get her hair and nails done, and Dad is who-knows-where, so it’s quiet for the first time in days.

It’s lonely yet not all that different since it happened. I play the White Album on the vintage record player I bought in Williamsburg, to spite the way Ray made fun of me for being so cool and different and unlike anyone else. The bastard.

---