Sorority Sisters (31 page)

“Worse yet, I'm starting to get the idea that I always will be.”

“Matt—” I say, pulling away from him.

“I know, right?” he says, interrupting me before I can even begin to voice all my many objections to what has to be blatant exaggeration. “How pathetic can you get? I think I've got the unrequited love routine nailed.”

“No, don't,” I say. “Please stop. You're not pathetic.”

“The way I see it,” he says, kissing my brow, my nose, my cheek, my neck, “it's only pathetic if I sit back and don't do anything about it. So I'm not going to do that. Now that I'm older and wiser, I'm going to do a lot about it. I'm going to give you my best shot.”

He kisses my mouth, a searing kiss and leaves me shaking from my soul out to my skin.

“I figure you're going to go down like an enraged rhino,” he says lightly, his hands wrapped almost casually around my waist. “But you will go down,” he teases.

I burst out laughing, his arms around me, his smile lighting up my house, and my life, like a beacon.

“Laurie?” Megan says.

I jerk away from Matt. “Yes. Megan.” I run a hand through my hair; my hands are shaking. “Are you ready to be tucked in?”

“I don't need you to do that,” she says, her eyes as cold as ice chips. “I can see you're busy.”

I've just been slapped, and I feel slapped. Before I can order my thoughts, Matt steps in.

“She's never going to be too busy for you, you can count on that,” Matt says. “I've known Laurie a long time. In fact, I've known her for as long as I knew your mom. Your mom, she was something. Definitely unforgettable.”

Megan is standing in the doorway, her bathrobe wrapped around her, her hair tumbling around her face, her expression carefully neutral. I never noticed before how a carefully neutral face on a child practically shouts terror.

“You knew my mom?” Megan asks, coming into the kitchen half a step.

“I met her in college. In fact, I met her the same night that I met Laurie. That was quite a night,” Matt says, leaning against the kitchen counter near the table. “Can I get a refill?” he says to me, indicating his glass. I nod and give him more milk. He takes the glass and sips it, looking at Megan. “You look a lot like your mom, but I guess you know that. I was always sorry we lost touch.”

“How did you meet?” Megan asks, taking another step into the kitchen.

Matt sits at the kitchen table and leans back, stretching his legs out. The light over the kitchen table illuminates him, creating a glow like a fireplace in a cold room. Matt is holding center stage and beckoning us to join him with every word he speaks. “It was at a party. No one loved a party like your mom. I guess you like parties?”

“They're okay,” Megan mumbles.

“Now you sound like Laurie,” Matt says with a grin. “She was never the party animal your mom was.”

“I like parties,” Megan says, lifting her chin. “Today was a party and I had fun today.”

“Me, too,” Matt says. “Thanks for letting me come, and for letting me stay. I had such a good time that I don't want to leave. Laurie's good company. I lost touch with her, too, and I've missed her. I hope I don't have to miss her anymore.”

Megan shifts her weight from foot to foot, looking down at the kitchen table. Matt sips his milk. I am afraid to move, afraid to break this moment.

“You can stay. I don't care if you stay,” Megan says.

Matt pushes a kitchen chair out with his foot, toward Megan. “Have a seat and I'll tell you how I met your mom and about how she gave me the worst nickname a guy could ever have.”

“She did?” Megan's eyes light up and a smile touches the corner of her mouth. She sits in the chair and leans her elbows on the kitchen table, staring at Matt, and then staring at me. “Did she? What was it?”

I smile. “I'm not sure it was Ellen who did it. It might have been Karen.”

“It might have been you; you were there too,” Matt says, “but it was Ellen. You think I'd forget that? I haven't forgotten anything. Not anything.” He's staring at me, his eyes so blue and so gentle and so full of meaning.

“Tell me!” Megan says, grinning. “What was it? Was it really bad?”

“As bad as it gets,” Matt says, grim faced.

“Come on!” Megan says, laughing.

“Well,” Matt says, looking at me, “I guess I can tell you. As long as it doesn't leave this room and as long as I have a big bowl of popcorn to go with my milk . . .”

“I'll make the popcorn!” Megan says, leaping up to run to the pantry.

“And you're going to have to promise!” Matt calls after her.

I walk over to him and lay my hand on his shoulder; he looks up at me and it's all there in his eyes, everything.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“For what? Sharing my humiliation with the next generation?” he says.

I lean down and kiss him quickly on the mouth, before Megan comes back into the room, struggling with the cellophane covering the popcorn package.

“See how easy I am?” he says, laughter shining out of his eyes. “Why didn't you take advantage of me twenty years ago?”

But I did. I did take advantage of him.

“Okay, what was it?” Megan says, putting the popcorn in the microwave and setting the time.

“I don't have my popcorn yet,” Matt says.

“Stall tactic,” I say, shaking my head. “Time to man up.”

“Going for irony, huh?” Matt says, winking at me. “Okay, here goes.” He leans forward and Megan leans toward him; the microwave whirs, the sound of popcorn popping an intermittent backdrop. “Lavender Barrette. Your mom called me Lavender Barrette.”

“She did?” Megan squeals. “Really?”

“Ask around,” I say, pouring Megan a glass of milk and setting it in front of her. “There are a million witnesses.”

“Unfortunately, that's true,” Matt says, sighing.

“And now,” I say, leaning down swiftly to kiss Megan on the top of her head, “a million and one.”

Spring 1997
–

“Laurie?” Megan calls.

“Yes?”

“Laurie!” Megan says, louder, her voice strident and shocked.

I get up from the kitchen table and the Sunday paper and my fresh cup of coffee and my bagel with cream cheese and walk toward Megan's bedroom. “What is it?”

By the time I get to the closed door of Megan's bedroom, I can hear her muffled crying. When I open the door, I can see why. Chester, the black Newfoundland-Lab mix we picked out from the pound together, the dog that was going to make us a family, the dog that would turn my pristine house into a hairball-covered home, the dog that would be someone for my new daughter to love in a strange home, is lying at the foot of Megan's bed, taking up more than half of it. Chester, his eyes shut and his head resting on one extended paw, is still. He's too still.

I look at Megan, her back pressed against the closet door, her hand over her mouth, her eyes shedding tears.

I look at Chester, at his rib cage, and I confirm what Megan already knows. Chester is dead.

“Oh, no,” I say. “Chester. Oh, God, Megan.” I hold out my arms to her and she rushes across the room into them. I can't make myself go to Chester. Megan clearly can't either.

We hold each other, crying. I rub her back and she grips me tighter.

“I was just talking on the phone,” Megan says over her tears. “I was walking all around him and he was alive; I know he was. And then I hung up and I asked him if he wanted to go outside.” She cries harder. “And he didn't move. So I said it again and I rubbed his head, and he didn't move. He was stiff. He's dead. What are we going to do? Oh, Mom.”

She stiffens in my arms, but I hold her just as I did before, just as tightly; my breath does not change and my heart does not stop, but this is the first time she's called me Mom.

“We're going to call the Exclusives, and we're going to bury Chester in our own backyard, and we're going to send him off the way he deserves. Don't you think? Don't you think he'd like that?”

She loosens her hold on me and looks up into my eyes. Her light blue eyes are red and puffy and her nose is swollen and drippy, and she's the most beautiful girl I ever saw.

“Yeah. I do,” she says, her voice small and tight. “I can't touch him. Can you? I can't do it.”

“Neither can I. We need a man. Let's go call one, okay?”

“Okay.”

We walk out of her room together, arms around each other, sniffing in perfect harmony.

 * * *

I
know I dug a hole here once already, to plant that Japanese maple,” Jim says, stepping on the shovel and pushing it deep into the earth. “The next time I dig this same hole, just throw me in it.”

“You want to trade jobs?” Matt says. Matt is carrying Chester out of Megan's bedroom in her comforter, slung over his back like Santa Claus. Chester weighed one hundred and twenty-eight pounds.

“Just bury him in the blanket,” Megan says. “He loved that blanket.”

“He's sure going to love being buried here, isn't he?” Karen says. “It's so beautiful.”

“Is this a catered funeral? Because I'm starving,” Pi says.

“Touching,” I say. “Always the heartfelt comment at the precise moment.”

“Believe me, it's heartfelt. I left before I ate. Because you called,” Pi says, staring at me.

“Okay, fine, let's just turn it into a party,” I say, looking into Megan's eyes, getting her silent approval. “First order of business: who's calling Diane?”

“I will,” Megan says, “but don't bury Chester without me.” Megan runs through the backyard to the house.

Matt says, “She wants to be a mourner. She couldn't have volunteered to be a pallbearer?”

“You want to be a pallbearer, but you can't pitch in and be a gravedigger?” Jim says to Matt.

“That about covers it,” Matt says, handing Jim a beer.

The hole is dug and Jim climbs out of it, my Japanese maple sitting off to one side, its roots looking naked and vulnerable.

“Boys, get over here and lower Chester into the ground. After the service, you guys will be in charge of covering him over,” Jim says.

“Okay, Dad,” Ben says. “When are we doing that?”

“As soon as Megan gets off the phone,” Jim says.

“You ever notice how girls are always on the phone?” Ben says.

“Every day of my life,” Jim says.

“Honey, that Japanese maple can't have its roots exposed for too long, and I was thinking that, as soon as Chester is buried, could you dig a hole right behind him and a little to the left for the tree? That way, it's almost in the same place and it will be a nice grave marker for Chester. Plus, it was too close to the fence before. This spot will be better,” Karen says.

Jim looks at her, one arm resting on the shovel handle, dirt on his knees and his hands, and says, “Are you sure Chester died of natural causes? Because I'm starting to think this was all a ploy to get me to move that tree.”

Matt clinks his beer can against Jim's with a grin, and they both upend their cans in unison.

The boys have dragged Chester in his blanket over to the edge of the hole.

“Do we just push him in or what?” David asks.

“Oh, something more tender than that,” Karen says.

“Push him quick, before Megan gets back. Chester won't know the difference,” Jim says. David, Charlie, and Ben look at me. I nod, and, enshrouded in a cream-and-blue paisley comforter, Chester tumbles into the dirt.

“Well, that was heartfelt,” Pi says.

“Here comes Megan,” I say. “Nobody tell her about the shove!”

“Diane says she wishes she could be here for the service, but that she'll play ‘Taps' at six o'clock, her time, and we should all salute the grave in unison then,” Megan says. She looks a little better, a little more of the sparkle back in her eyes. This was such a good idea.

“Okay, so who's going to say the words over Chester?” Karen says.

“I will,” Pi says. Pi gets up and walks toward the grave, looks into it, says, “See ya, Chester,” and walks back to her lawn chair. “When are Holly and Bill due to show up? It's so rude, being late to a funeral.”

“Pi, you have the soul of a Mongol,” Karen says.

“We Hawaiians are a sturdy breed,” Pi says. “Is it time for the luau?”

“I just want to say,” I say, holding Megan's hand, “that my favorite memory of Chester is when we first brought him home and he hid his head behind the couch and he thought we couldn't find him. Remember when we called his name, standing right there, and his black butt just wagged and wagged? He really thought he'd outsmarted us.”

Megan smiles, tears forming in her eyes.

“My favorite Chester memory is the time we took him to David's soccer game and he broke the leash and ran off with the soccer ball in his mouth,” Ben says. “That was a good game.”

“My favorite is when he walked me home after I fell off my bike and hurt my knee,” Charlie says.

“What about when he picked up that box turtle and dropped it on your foot?” Jim says.

“That was a moment, all right,” I say. “What about you, Megan? What's your favorite Chester moment?”

“When we first saw him and picked him out,” she says. “When he wormed his way onto my lap on the drive home from the animal shelter, so warm and happy. And then he peed on my lap as we pulled into the driveway.”

We all laugh, even Megan. No, mostly Megan.

I put my arm around Megan and she wraps an arm around me. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “But I will be. Thanks for this. Mom.”

I hug her close and we watch in silence as Karen's sons fill in the grave.

Thank you, Chester.

Spring 1999
–