Justin Kramon (11 page)

“Maybe she was being a thoughtless bitch,” Finny offered.

“You don’t know that,” Poplan said.

“You don’t know my mother.”

Poplan stayed in the room while Finny packed, sitting on Finny’s bed. Every once in a while Finny would say, “It’s okay, Poplan. You don’t have to sit here all day.”

“I don’t mind,” Poplan said. “It’s good to have company.”

Soon Finny could hear the girls coming back from their classes, chatting about their scores on quizzes, how much homework they had.

“Karina farted in humanities,” Finny heard Nora say.

“She’s a humanitarian,” Brooke answered. And then some laughing and snorting.

On other days Simone or Jean or Nora might knock and come visit Finny for a little while, but today nobody knocked. The voices seemed to get quieter as they approached Finny’s door, as if the girls were observing some sort of decree. Finny had the sense that word had gotten around about her dad, or at least that the others knew something was wrong with her, since she hadn’t been to any of her afternoon classes. She had an odd feeling of being isolated by her grief, the way Poplan quarantined girls who had caught a cold or the flu. Finny felt sick herself, like no one would want to touch her or be near her. Loss always did this to you, pushed you in a corner where no one wanted to go.

Later Judith came in, after her lacrosse practice. She was sweating, and had a purple bandana tied around her hair. She looked lovely, and for the first time Finny resented her for it.

“I heard,” Judith said. “My God, Finny, I’m so sorry.” Then she noticed Poplan on the bed. “Hi,” Judith said to her.

“Hi, Judith,” Poplan said, and Finny heard the effort Poplan was making to be friendly. “You know, I think Finny might want some time to herself, to get ready now.”

Judith looked at Finny. There was a moment of silent struggle between Poplan and Judith, over who would get to stay with Finny.

Finally Finny said, “If you don’t mind, Judith, I’m just not up for talking now.”

Judith took the hint. “Oh,” she said, and Finny could see she was surprised, and a little offended. Judith hated losing, no matter the circumstances. “Actually, I was planning to head to dinner early anyway. I just needed to grab some clothes.”

Judith gathered an outfit from her closet. Before she left the room, she walked over to Finny, who was standing in front of her own closet.

“I am so sorry,” Judith said, and gave Finny a long hug. “Look, I know you’re not up to discussing anything now, but give me a call when you feel up to it. I hope you can come back soon. I’ll miss you, Shorty Finn.”

Finny felt her eyes fill up again. “I’ll miss you, too,” she said.

Then Judith took her hand like she was going to shake it. But instead Finny felt a cold metal object placed in her palm. She looked at Judith, and Judith smiled sadly. Finny knew it was the black lipstick.

“Thanks,” Finny said.

She didn’t call her mother that afternoon. She knew Laura was too overwhelmed to deal with anything, and she figured she’d get all the information from her brother when she got home. Poplan said she would drive Finny to the airport. When Poplan turned on the car, some lively Irish fiddle music blared through the speakers, and Poplan had to hurry to turn it off. “Sorry,” she said. They fell silent for the rest of the ride. The last thing Poplan mentioned was that she had some cousins in Virginia she visited a lot, and that she’d love to stop by and see Finny in Maryland during a vacation sometime if Finny wouldn’t mind a visitor.

At seven-twenty Finny boarded the plane that would hurtle her back into a very different world from the one she had left only ten weeks before.

Chapter
11
A Sad Time

The Haberdasher Funeral Home was just off Reisterstown Road, one of those four-lane commercial havens lined by strip malls and representatives of every chain store under the sun. The funeral home was an olive-green A-frame house with black shutters, nestled between a Target and a John Deere outlet. Inside, the floors were varnished pine, the walls wine-colored. The doors between rooms opened by a latch rather than a knob. The windows were small and square, and the strangled light that pushed through them left the house dim and shadowy, even in the middle of the day.

Which was the time now. Laura had brought Sylvan and Finny along to help her make decisions about the funeral. She’d read an article the night after Stanley died that said a grieving widow must bring people with her to the funeral home with whom she can discuss options, because she won’t be in a condition to make appropriate decisions herself. This proved to be true in Laura’s case, as evidenced by the fact that she’d brought her children here.

The house was lit only by some electric lights that looked like candles, encased in glass jars that were mounted on the walls. The floors creaked as the Shorts toured the facilities. Finny could hardly believe they were getting ready to put Stanley’s body in the ground. She kept thinking of her father’s face completely still, like he was sleeping, and that seemed the closest she could get to accepting he was dead. She remembered him telling his stories, reciting his quotations, and she couldn’t find a way to fit that liveliness into the picture of him lying motionless in a coffin. She remembered the letter he’d written her only a few weeks before, all those feelings he’d never been able to share.

But she stopped herself. He was gone now, drained from the world like bathwater from a tub.

Mrs. Haberdasher was a short and very stout woman in her sixties who walked with a cane and whose nose always seemed to be twitching as though she had an itch there. She wore a green velvet cap like a loose-fitting beret. She walked slowly, and knocked her cane against the floor with every step. Mr. Haberdasher allowed her to lead when they were walking. He was a demure man, tall and with the approximate body type of a string bean. His voice was soft as a whisper, his yellow-gray hair silky as a baby’s.

“Now,” Mrs. Haberdasher said, “there are two basic options for coffins.” She was indicating the two options displayed on tables in front of the Shorts.

But before she was able to explain the options, Mr. Haberdasher let loose a gigantic sneeze that echoed in the small room.

“Holy Christ!” Mrs. Haberdasher yelled, and jumped away from her husband, much more dexterously than you would expect a woman with a cane to jump.

Mr. Haberdasher shrugged and wiped his nose on his shirt cuff.

“Now,” Mrs. Haberdasher said, coming around to the coffins again, “as I was saying, there are two options to consider. The first, to your left, is the standard coffin. Made out of wood, with the tapered shape. And we can offer you a variety of interiors and exteriors for that. The second is a casket: rectangular shape, made of—” She was unable to finish the sentence, though, because her nose began to twitch. She rubbed her finger against it, but it was of no use, and very soon she let out a sneeze that equaled—if not surpassed—her husband’s previous accomplishment. Mrs. Haberdasher’s sneeze was accompanied by a cry—of pain or surprise, one couldn’t tell—as if she’d been struck down by an arrow.

“Mother of
God!”
Mr. Haberdasher yelped, and jumped away from his wife. It was the first time the Shorts had heard him raise his voice, and they watched to see what he would do. He proceeded to inform his wife that she had taken five years from his life, and that people in China would suffer aftershocks for days.

Laura watched the exchange between husband and wife with a blank expression. It was the look she’d had since Finny had gotten home. Laura had greeted Finny at the airport with a kind of joyless smile on her face, telling Finny how great it was to see her, as if Finny had just come home for a vacation. It seemed that some spell of dreaminess had been cast on her mother. Finny wanted to shake her, tell her to focus.

Mrs. Haberdasher completed her explanation of the difference between a casket and a coffin, and after some deliberation, Finny and Sylvan persuaded their mother that a metal casket would be the best option for Stanley. The shape would allow them to place various items in the ground with their father, such as some of his favorite books and his Bach records. They would even be able to engrave a message on the casket as a memorial to Stanley. They decided it would say:
Here lies a great man.

“Now,” Mrs. Haberdasher said, “I think that’s a very sensitive choice.”

“Yes,” Mr. Haberdasher said, and nodded.

“We just need to go over some of the services you would like for the burial.”

“Services?” Sylvan said. He’d taken on the role of spokesman, seeing that Laura wasn’t going to do it.

“Transporting the body, for example,” Mrs. Haberdasher said.

The body
, Finny thought.

“Yes,” Mrs. Haberdasher said, “for the—”

But before she was able to finish the statement, Mr. Haberdasher interrupted with a wallop of a sneeze.

This time Mrs. Haberdasher leapt with remarkable agility onto the table where the casket was displayed, seating herself next to it. She put her hands over her ears and began to make various assertions about her physical condition, including the fact that her ears were bleeding and her organs were all “crushed up against each other.”

Mr. Haberdasher shrugged and wiped his nose on his shirt cuff.

Soon options were being tallied. In the main room Mr. and Mrs. Haberdasher stood behind a wooden counter that came up almost to the wife’s head. Mrs. Haberdasher had to keep shuffling to a back room, knocking her cane as she went, in order to check various prices and options. Each time she left the room, she walked past Mr. Haberdasher and said, “Your feet, sir, are in my way.”

“Because you have chosen to walk over them,” Mr. Haberdasher informed her in his whispery voice.

“It would be impossible not to,” Mrs. Haberdasher shot back, “seeing as they take up half the floor.”

At last a final price was settled upon, and handed to Laura on a sort of scroll that the Haberdashers must have preferred using on such an occasion. The scroll lent a solemnity to the proceedings, which a printed receipt might not have carried. Finny had never had such a strange feeling as when her father’s price tag was handed over the counter to her mother. Laura eyed it. Finny suspected she wasn’t even reading the numbers.

“Now, do you want to take care of this today?” Mrs. Haberdasher said.

“Certainly,” Laura blurted out. Then stood there, waiting.

“Mom, your credit card,” Sylvan said.

“Oh,” Laura said, “of course,” and handed the Haberdashers her card.

“I am very sorry for your loss,” Mrs. Haberdasher said to the Shorts as she swiped Laura’s card.

“Thanks,” Sylvan said.

“It’s a tough road, young man,” Mr. Haberdasher said.

“Are
you
the expert?” Mrs. Haberdasher asked him.

He shrugged and wiped his nose on his shirt cuff.

And then, as if in response, Mrs. Haberdasher released an echoing shriek of a sneeze, which caused Mr. Haberdasher to actually run around the counter, and then half a dozen strides away from his wife.

“My ghost just departed,” he said, when he’d finally come to rest.

The burial was the next morning. Mr. Haberdasher drove the hearse, and he seemed to take great pride in the duty, wearing a black chauffeur’s cap he reserved for the occasion. Mrs. Haberdasher navigated. Finny saw the little woman hop into the cab of the hearse, like a jockey mounting a horse, already informing her husband that he was the last person
she
would choose to drive for
her
last ride. She sat on the armrest between the driver’s seat and passenger seat, and as they all pulled out of the funeral home, Finny saw her directing Mr. Haberdasher with her cane, pointing to road signs and passing traffic.

The graveyard was not far from the funeral home, and the Shorts followed the hearse in their car. They stood around the grave. Finny recognized a number of the mourners—faces from her father’s office Christmas parties, her parents’ dinner parties, family reunions. She saw Aunt Louise, rubbing her ball of tissue across her nose. Mr. Hedgwick was there, the farmer who cleared the Shorts’ driveway in the winter with his tractor and who’d let Finny play with his golden retriever puppies. There was Arnold Arnold—a cruel joke by his parents—who used to give Finny rides to soccer games when she played on the Cockeysville rec team. And Kitty Plinket, who always wore red and had shown Laura how to dance the tango.

Earl, of course, was not there. Finny knew he would have wanted to come and that Laura would have objected, so Finny decided she wouldn’t tell him until it was over.

When the priest said the line about “As for man, his days are like grass …,” Finny burst into tears. Sylvan put his hand on her back, and she watched the rest of the service through bleary eyes.

Then they were lowering the casket into the ground. A few symbolic shovelfuls of dirt were tossed into the hole. There was an awful tapping sound when the dirt hit the metal casket, which made Finny erupt into tears again.

And then it was over. The mourners were saying how sorry they were, telling Finny and Laura and Sylvan how much they’d miss Stanley. Aunt Louise offered her condolences, a hand clasped to her breast as she spoke to Finny. There were the sounds of doors clicking, motors starting, a man telling his wife they needed to stop for gas on the way. And finally, Mrs. Haberdasher could be heard informing her husband, as they got back into the hearse, that his feet were very much in the way.

After dinner that night, Finny excused herself and went upstairs. She sat on her bed, staring at the dark window. She knew her brother would come, and in ten minutes he did. She heard a knock on the door, and opened it.

“Hey,” Sylvan said.

“Hey.”

“I want to tell you what happened with Dad, since it doesn’t seem you’ll ever get the full story from Mom.”

Finny nodded. Motioned for him to come in. He shut the door and they sat down together on the bed.

“She’s acting crazy,” Finny said.

“She just can’t handle it. It’s like she’s overloaded.”