Comfort Woman (34 page)

I looked at Sanford as I had looked at my mother, fitting him in the space between my fingers, and slowly, slowly, with infinite gentleness, brought my fingers together until he shrank smaller than the lines in a standard obituary, smaller than newsprint.

“I have to leave you, Sanford,” I called out, while he slammed his weight against the door. I watched him rub his shoulder, then dropped my hand and closed my eyes. With my mother's voice filling the apartment, her words swirling around my shoulders, I thought how easy—in a pinch, with a blink—it was to make someone disappear. “Goodbye,” I told him. “My mother is calling me.”

Reno and I fought over my mother's body.

“What's this? And this? And this?” I pointed into the rented casket, at the black eyeliner circling my mother's eyes, the blush slashing across her cheeks toward her temples, the bright-orange lipstick, the feathered headpiece perched on her piled hairdo.

“What?” Auntie Reno placed her hands on her hips. “Whatchu trying for say?”

I glared at her pursed lips, done up in the identical shade of tangerine as my mother‘s, and snorted.

“Whass your problem? If you no like Koral Kiss, then I change em; I know not everybody can wear em like me.”

“Yeah, Reno. It's the lipstick. And the purple eye shadow—looks like somebody beat her to death. And the clothes and the hootchy-kootchy feather thing—straight from the strip show in Vegas or what?” I leaned over the coffin. “This isn't my mother,” I told her. “This is you. Just like it's always been you.”

Reno slammed her hands down on the edge of the casket so hard the feathers on my mother's headpiece quivered. “Goffunnit, girlie. You wait. You da one leave dis in my hands. You da one say, ‘Auntie Reno, I no can dress my maddah. Auntie Reno, I no can fix her face. I no can touch one dead body. I no can even write one suckin' obituary.' ”

She marched around my mother, toward my side of the coffin. “So what den? If her own daughtah not goin' take care her, den who? Me. Auntie Reno. Thass who. And dis dah tanks I get.”

Instead of backing up when she stomped toward me in her tottering heels, I stepped forward. “Oh, Auntie, thank you thank you thank you,” I sneered. “Always, all my life, I've been thanking you. And for what?”

“What!” Auntie Reno screeched, bringing the mortician running into the room. “For what—for what?”

The mortician smoothed the front of his coat and cleared his throat, oiling his voice. “Ladies, may I assist you in some way?”

Reno turned toward him, bringing her hand to her forehead. She wobbled, the bulk of her body threatening to drop onto the young man. “I sorry, sir,” she breathed. “For one moment, I was overcome wit grief.”

The mortician touched her on the shoulder, a practiced move: sympathetic yet unintrusive. “I understand. This is a difficult time for the ones left behind.” He glanced at my mother. “She was a beautiful woman,” he said, then, looking back at Auntie Reno, added, “Your sister?”

I snorted, and Reno fluttered her eyes. “Jus' like. I dah one help her when she first move to Hawaii. I dah one gamble on her, give her her first job.” She raised her voice and, turning her face from the mortician to give me stink-eye, said, “I dah one manage her business, take care her daughtah when she was, ah, feeling indispose.”

I forced a laugh. “Thank God for Auntie Reno,” I crooned into Reno's scowl. “What would we have ever done without her?”

“You bettah believe it, sistah,” Reno spat.

The mortician lifted his hand in my direction, placing it tentatively between Reno and me. “Uh, you must be Ms. Bradley, daughter of the deceased.”

I ignored him. “Oh, I believe it, Reno. And what would you have done without my mother? Without all the money she made for you? How could you have made all those gambling trips? How could you have sent all your own kids to Punahou—at least until they got kicked out?”

Reno slapped the mortician's arm down and narrowed her eyes. “What exactly you tryin' for say?”

The man inched toward the door. “Eh, Frank! Frank,” he called toward the front room.

I glared at him. “Do you mind? We're trying to have a private conversation. »

Reno pushed at my shoulder. “Eh, no take it out on him, he's jus' doing his job.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Unlike some people, leaving dah dirty work for others.”

The mortician backed against the door. “Frank, I said, try come,” he shouted, his job English fraying under stress. “Please! Dis only my first week, and look, get one 911 in here!”

Reno bustled over to the man. “Hush you, boy,” she clucked, patting his hands. “No worry ‘bout us. We jus' havin' one difference of opinion.” She smiled. “You was saying?”

The man rubbed his hands across the thighs of his pants. “No, really,” he said, pasting a smile across his face. “I nevah said—I wasn't saying anything. In fact, uh, if you'd please excuse me, ladies, I, uh, should check on the arrangements for the next group.”

When Reno moved toward him, saying, “No need go; we finished here,” I grabbed at her arm. The man escaped.

“Reno,” I said. “We are not finished.”

“Den what?” Reno yelled. “I wen ask you before: Whass your friggin' problem?”

“And I told you, Auntie Reno. It's you,” I said. “You my friggin' problem.” I stretched toward my mother's head, snapped the feather off the hat, and waved it in front of Reno's face, where it dangled at an angle like a furry finger. “Ever since I met you, you used us. Used my mother, treated her just like a puppet on your string. I watched you over the years, saw how you got when she went into her trance—tike every minute was gonna make you richer and richer. And it did, didn't it? Never mind that she might not have come back to us each time. You never cared about her. Or me, either. Just about what was in it for you!”

Reno reached for the feather, but I jerked it from her hands before she could touch it. “Thass not true,” she protested. “Outta the goodness of my heart, I—”

A laugh, hot and harsh, melted my throat. “Cut the crap, Reno. It's me you're talkin' to. Not my mother. I know you made a ton of money off us.”

“Now listen, honey—”

“Don't call me that!” I shouted. “How dare you call me that, like we're so close, when you never invited me even once into your home!” I threw the feather at her. It fluttered, then drifted into the coffin between us.

Reno dropped her chin. “I sorry,” she whispered, her lids flickering as her eyes tracked the feather. “I nevah even tink. I jus' figgah I always see you at your maddah's. But you know, you nevah wen ask, either.... »

I shrugged. “Whatevahs.” I felt drained suddenly, numb. I sank into a folding chair set up next to my mother's coffin and leaned my forehead against the black lacquered wood. “Whatevahs, Reno. I'm tired. I don't care anymore. Keep everything,” I whispered. “The money doesn't matter to me. You're the only person I got left, and I can't even trust you.”

“Beccah,” Reno said, settling her body onto the seat next to mine. “If your maddah wasn't laying dead in front of us right now, so help me God, I slap your head jus' for tinking what you tinking.” She raised her arm, as if to put it around my shoulders, hesitated, then let it drop back to her side. “You was her daughter, dah one come from her own body. But you nevah know shit about her, did you?”

Reno grabbed my shoulder. I tried to shrug her away, but she pushed down, tightening her grip. “Get up,” she said, using me to lever herself up. Then she pulled at me until I stood. “And look. Try really look at your maddah.”

I looked into the coffin once again, surprised when a tear fell from my face onto my mother‘s, splattering against a Maybelline bronzed cheekbone.

“Dis what I see,” Reno said. “One tough woman. You tink she so out of it all the time, Beccah? Dat she so lolo I can jus' steal her money—not dat I would, mine you—an' she not goin' know it?”

I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes.

“If you tink dat, den you dah one dat's lolo.” Reno leaned over and placed a palm against my mother's cheek, moved her thumb to blot a smudge of lipstick. “I tell you, your maddah knew me like no one else. Dat was her gift. She would look into a person's heart and know em—their heartache, their weakness, whatevah. Because she knew suffahrin' like I no can even imagine.”

“Reno,” I asked, interrupting, “what did you know about—”

Reno threw her hands into the air. “Eh, no ack up wit me again, girlie,” she said, misunderstanding my question. “I telling you I know what I know. Your maddah was one survivah. Das how come she can read other people. Das how come she can see their wishes and their fears. Das how come she can travel out of dis world into hell, cause she already been there and back and know the way.

“An' I tell you someting else,” Reno said, prodding me in the chest bone with her pointing finger, “before you disrespect me or your maddah again. She knew what it was like for be one orphan, having to beg for everyting, every scrap of food or whatevah. She no want you to know dat feelin‘, like you all alone, no one to turn to. She love you more dan anyting in dis world. So she take care you.”

Reno grabbed my hand, and when I didn't pull away, she stroked it, rubbing my fingers between her own.

“I don' know if you know dis,” Reno said, “but dat Manoa house yours, free and clear.”

I twisted my neck to look at her, searching her face.

“Yeah, for real.” Reno smiled. “Your maddah smart enough for buy em outright, jus' before dat big Japanee real estate boom. I tell you, she made one killin' on dat house.”

I jerked my hand from hers. “I'm sure that made you happy. You must've made a nice commission.”

Reno clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Stupid, why you no lissen? I tol' you dat was before the market wen skyrocket; dah commission was manini.”

“I bet. Compared to what you were used to making off her trances,” I sneered, unwilling to give in and forgive.

Reno ignored me. “I'm telling you, your maddah was so sharp. You know she save all her money for you? She knew exactly what she made, down to dah last cent in dah Wishing Bowl. She even know wen you wen sneak money for school lunch, field trip, stuff li' dat.”

My mouth must have dropped open, because Reno laughed. “You nevah know, eh?” she said. “I tell you, my Vegas and Nevada was dah same way. You kids always tinkin' you can fool wit your maddahs.” She shook her head, her smile slipping. “No one could fool your maddah. She told me for set up one special account in your name. Check me every week too, cause dat's how good she know me. My strengt' and my weakness too.”

Reno waddled over to the makeup bag she had propped against the table supporting my mother's coffin and pulled out a square of linen. She rolled one end into a sharp point, then dabbed it into the corners of her eyes. She blew her nose, then sniffed. When she turned toward me again, her nose was red, the foundation rubbed away from the tip.

“Who you see?” Reno asked, gesturing toward my mother.

“My mom,” I said, without looking, without thinking. Then: “I don't know.”

Reno shook her head. “You better tink long and hard, Beccah. Den you better look again.”

Laid out in death, my mother looked shriveled, barely big enough to fill the coffin. I don't remember her looking so old; she was fixed in my mind's eye as a middle-aged woman. I must have stopped seeing my mother when I reached intermediate school. In Reno's flashy clothes and dramatic makeup, my mother looked like an old lady pretending at youth.

“Reno, I don't mean to reject what you've done,” I ventured. “But this isn't right. This isn't how I knew her or want to remember her. Not with the makeup and the fancy gown. Not with all the people paying money to see some kind of final performance, to gawk at her one last time.” I traced a finger over the crow‘s-feet beside my mother's lavender-dusted eyes, surprised at how smooth she felt, how soft.

“I think we should cremate her,” I said, unable to look up and face Reno's anger or disappointment. “Then I want to do something private, for just her and me, maybe, if you don't mind.”

I waited, my head bowed, fingers gripping the edge of the coffin, for Reno's screams of outrage, her accusations of ingratitude. I waited, my neck growing stiff, my fingers tight and cramped, until Reno cupped my chin, lifting my face. She smoothed my bangs, tucking them behind my ears in the way my mother had done when I was a child. “Do whatchu gotta do,” she said. “She your maddah.”

I closed my eyes, leaning into the fingers that felt like my mother's. “What about the big ceremony you've been planning?” I whispered. “What about all the gifts and money? You don't mind canceling?”

Reno combed my hair with her fingers, tickled my ears with her nails. Then, taking a deep breath, she said, “I ain't canceling.
I
goin' do what I gotta do, too. I still her friend and business managah.”

I jumped away from her, opened my mouth to yell, when she held up her hands. “Try wait, try wait,” she said. “Lissen: your maddah no need even be here. I jus' goin' hold one closed-casket ceremony. No one goin' know ‘cept me an' you an' her.”

“Oh my God,” I said. “That's too much even for you. You can't.”

“I got to,” Reno said. “Dis for her other self, dah one she showed to people. You know, Beccah, she was one business woman too. One performah.” She shrugged. “An' I already wen complete the obit, so no worry. Dah undahtakah sent em to dah papahs, goin' come out today.”