A Star is Born (21 page)

“And this is Moira,” I said as she stepped up to take Derrick’s place.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Mitchell,” she said.

My mom grabbed her hand, pulled her in a bit, and said, “Take care of my boys.”

“Absolutely,” Moira said simply, rather than trying to argue with her that she was going to be back on her feet in no time—those statements always pissed me off whenever I heard someone say such things. You’re lying in a hospital bed, at death’s door, and people are trying to argue with you. No, I don’t think so.

“I love you all very, very much,” she said before closing her eyes again. Within a few seconds of her closing her eyes, though, everything changed. One of the machines that she was attached to started to loudly protest that something was wrong. Another one, not wanting to be left out of the game, started to do the same thing.

Several doctors and a couple of nurses rushed into the room. Someone, I don’t remember who, herded us all outside out of the way. We couldn’t see what was happening, but it didn’t sound like business as usual. We were all so stunned that we couldn’t talk. We simply stood there, huddled together, hanging on to one another, hoping that this nightmare would end and we’d all wake up. But it didn’t.

A while later—I have no idea how long since time didn’t seem to work the same way at such events—the curtain was pulled back and people started to exit the room. We kept looking, but none of them would look at us; they all kept their eyes averted or down. Finally, the doctor that I had talked with one night—was it really only last night?—came out, looked at us, and walked over.

The doctor guided us into a nearby room.

“What’s happening?” my dad asked.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” she started. “Her injuries were too severe. I’m afraid she’s gone.”

Everything seemed to go whitish—the world seemed to fade a little—I felt light-headed. This couldn’t be happening.

I guess Bill was feeling the same, by the look on his face. Derrick and Moira held back and remained quiet.

I don’t know why I said this, but the first thing I thought to say was, “Now what?”

Surprisingly, my dad answered. “Now I call the police, and the charges go from aggravated assault to murder.”

Showing no visible emotion whatsoever, he simply stood, pulled out his telephone, and called the police. Very matter-of-factly he relayed the news to someone that he had clearly talked with some time before we got here.

That call finished, he looked at us and simply said, “I really need to get out of here for a while.”

The doctor asked a question that still seemed wrong. “Do you want to see her one last time?”

“No,” he said. “I can’t…. Can one of you handle…?”

Moira stepped forward. “Of course. I’ll talk with them and take care of things. Go.”

And he was gone. I always forgot that he was of a generation where men were stigmatized by showing any emotion in public, especially vulnerability. He probably needed to go off somewhere by himself before he lost it. I wish it wasn’t so, but if that’s what he needed then that’s what he needed.

“I’d like to see her,” Bill said.

“Me too,” I said weakly.

The doctor led us around the corner into what had been my mom’s room in the ICU. All of the machines were now disconnected and quiet. There was no more beeping or chirping or any other sound, which oddly seemed comforting, in some twisted sense. She lay on the bed as if asleep. The only difference was that she wasn’t moving. Her chest wasn’t rising or falling. She was still. So very, very still. I guessed it really was so. She was gone.

I stepped forward, leaned down, and kissed her forehead. “I love you. Be at peace.” I stepped away.

We had never talked about this, but Bill copied my move. Derrick and Moira then guided us out of the room and into the small room we had just been in moments earlier. A nurse came in with some paperwork and asked us a variety of questions: Did we have a funeral home we wanted to use? Where was she born? Who were her parents? When was she born? I could handle those questions since I knew the answers.

That task completed, the nurse left us alone and the doctor came back.

“You’ll want to start notifying people. Feel free to use the phone. Stay as long as you want. If I’m not here when you leave, I’m so very sorry for your loss.” She gave each of us a quick hug and then was gone.

The Calls

I
HAD
never in my life been through this experience, so I didn’t have a clue what the protocol was or what I was supposed to do. Fortunately, for me at least, Moira had.

“Do you have names and phone numbers for family members, Mark? I’ll start calling them for you.” I numbly handed my phone over to her. I gave her the names of my mother’s brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, and key family friends.

“Okay. I’ll start calling people. Derrick, can you stay and help me with this?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Bill, take Mark back to the motel, or better yet for a walk around the block. We’ll make phone calls for half an hour, and then maybe we can all meet at the diner to talk some more.”

“Okay.” Bill led me out. It was odd. He was trying to be protective of me while I knew that he was hurting as much as me, so I was trying to be protective of him. We made quite a pair. We left the ICU and then the building. I couldn’t sit, so we walked around the block once, then again, then again.

“I feel numb, Bill.”

“I know. Me too.”

Several people clearly recognized Bill, but apparently the expressions on our faces showed our grief or numbness or distraction because no one tried to talk with us. I was more thankful for that than for anything else.

Half an hour later we were in the diner, where Moira and Derrick were already seated in a booth off to the side. We quietly slid in beside them as they each ended a phone call. Moira handed my cell phone back to me and gave us an update.

“We’ve reached over half the people you identified. Where we didn’t get a person, we left a voice mail message for them to call us. We did
not
leave the news in a voice mail message. That is not the way to learn that a family member has died. I left my cell phone number and asked them to call me as soon as possible. We’ll keep trying.”

“How did people take the news?”

“Hard to say. We’re total strangers to them, so their instinct is to hide any emotional response. Also, the news is too fresh. One person was terribly upset.” She checked her list of names. “Him,” she said, pointing to one name.

“My mother’s uncle, the judge. They were always close.”

Our waitress was clearly able to read our faces and our body language and knew that we were deeply traumatized and in no mood for conversation. She recommended the daily special. We all simply nodded and agreed that it sounded as good as anything else.

Suddenly I looked up with alarm. “You guys are missing filming! What are they gonna do with you both gone?”

“Don’t worry, Mark,” Derrick said. “We’re sort of crucial to the show. We’ve got a couple of episodes recorded and edited and ready to go. We can afford to miss some time. And besides, even if we didn’t, there is no way we’d be anywhere other than right here with you guys. Just not gonna happen.”

Since I was seated beside him, I simply reached around and hugged him. And for some reason that was what did it for me. I hadn’t intended to do so, and I was as surprised as everyone else when I suddenly burst into tears. I didn’t want to cry in public, but I couldn’t stop it. It just happened, and I finally just gave in and let it happen. Derrick put his arms around me and held me, doing his best to comfort me.

After it was over, I couldn’t have told you a single thing he said to me during that time, but I know that his words were of comfort and gave me assurance that I was not alone. To the best of my knowledge, Bill had not yet cried, and of the two of us he was the one more prone to tears, so I didn’t know why he hadn’t lost it yet, but he hadn’t. I knew that it would happen; I just didn’t know when or where.

Our food arrived just about as my tears were winding down. Much to my surprise, my dad walked past the window of the diner as we sat there. He looked up and saw us just when I looked out and saw him. I motioned to him to come in and join us. The diner was quiet, which must have meant that it was not some peak mealtime. We were able to pull a chair up from a neighboring table so that he could sit at the head of the table with us. He ordered the same thing we were having, although I don’t think any of us could tell you later what it was. It could have been the best thing ever prepared in any kitchen anywhere in the world at any point in human history. We were just not in a frame of mind to savor anything. We simply ate for sustenance.

“We’re gonna have to notify people,” he started.

“Moira and Derrick are already doing that,” I answered.

Looking at them, he nodded and said, “Thank you.”

“Mark, this is a hell of a thing to do to you, but I… I… I’m gonna need your help with the funeral arrangements. I don’t think I can do that. I’m sorry to do this to you, but can you go meet with the funeral home tomorrow and see what they need? I want everything to be nice for our final farewell. She knew everybody and everybody knew her, so I’d expect a packed house. We won’t be able to fit in the funeral home, so you’ll probably have to use the church. We’ll need to do calling hours, a couple at least one evening, maybe two. That can be at the funeral home or the church. I don’t care.”

“I’ll take care of it, Dad. Don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks, Mark. I… thanks.”

“I know Mom worked out of the church, but did she have any great attachment to it? Where I’m going is, is the minister from there the right one to ask to… speak?”

“I don’t even know the man. Your mom probably knew him to identify him, but she didn’t go there for services of any kind. I don’t know what kind of a job he’d be able to do, since he didn’t even know her. But I don’t know who else to ask.”

“I’ll do it.”

We all looked up in surprise. Yes, it was Bill who had spoken. “I owed her everything. I owe her my life. It would be an honor if you would let me speak at her funeral.”

Bill and my dad had a moment, simply looking at each other. Then he nodded and said, “Bill, that’s a beautiful thing you’ve just offered. Are you sure you’re gonna be able to do it?”

“I’ll give it everything I have if you’ll let me.”

My dad held out his hand and Bill held out his and they shook hands. The handshake turned into a hug, with the two of them standing beside the table. They both cried, but none of us moved to stand—they had each other for comfort. We would just be in the way.

Arrangements

W
E
ALL
stayed at the motel again that night, none of us eager to return to the house that bore the signature of my mother’s personality everywhere we turned. While we sat at the table and afterward, well into the evening, Derrick and Moira’s phones kept ringing as people called them back in response to their earlier messages. In each case they relayed the news with grace and concern and dignity, even though they had given the same message dozens of times already.

The next morning, Moira and Derrick accompanied me and Bill to meet with the funeral director. I didn’t know the man and didn’t like my interaction with him, but he was the only show in our little town so it was him or nobody. We went over the options and details. I had never realized how expensive funerals were until we started to go over the options available. It seemed ridiculous to me. Just when people were at their lowest, their weakest, perhaps their most guilty points, then these guys came at them, encouraging them to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on someone who was dead and gone.

Bill knew me well enough to know how I was thinking. He whispered to me at one point, “Don’t look at the prices. Just pick what you think she’d like.”

And at that point I reached a decision; a question was answered that I didn’t even know had been asked: she was going to be cremated. Sure, we’d have the body for the calling hours and the funeral, but after it was over she was to be cremated. I told this to the funeral guy, who told me that he couldn’t “rent” a coffin for short-term. I told him, “Fine,” and turned away. I pointed to one made of my mother’s favorite wood but told him to get rid of the hideous pink satin interior and replace it with a nice powder blue. He started to object, but I simply looked at the man and crossed my arms.