The Big Shuffle (9 page)

Finally the benediction. The congregation adds their own murmured and scattered “amens,” the organist lays into some dirge, and we begin to file out. After being crowded with so many people the sanctuary is now warm. Walking directly behind the casket I can briefly see my silhouette reflected in the high gloss finish. Suddenly a wave of anxiety begins in my feet, then travels up to my stomach, through my chest and throat, and bursts out the top of my head.

I
N FRONT OF THE CHURCH WAIT A HEARSE AND BLACK LIMOUSINE
with engines struggling against the cold. Steady streams of white smoke spill from their tailpipes and melt into the late winter afternoon air. People going to the cemetery are offered a flag to place on their car. Toward the back of the parking lot Officer Rich and Al help the town's one full-time librarian start her car with jumper cables. Mom has been taking the little kids to story time there every Thursday mornings at ten as far back as I can remember.

Eric and I are both surprised when Bernard points us in the direction of the limousine. Neither of us has ever ridden in one before. A few kids rented them for the prom but certainly never any Palmer children. Dad would have lain down in the driveway underneath the wheels if we'd hired a limo. It's a good thing he isn't here to see this. Bernard nudges me forward and whispers, “You can't ride in a
taxi
to the graveyard!”

Gil takes their Volvo and Bernard drives our car with Aunt Lala and the little kids back to the house. It's been decided that the burial might be too traumatic for them.

Uncle Lenny stands by the open car door until Eric, Louise, Teddy, and I are safely inside. Eric digs something out of his coat
pocket and hands it to the driver through the partition. In a minute the haunting words of Leonard Cohen drift through the back of the car:
I did my best, it wasn't much, I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
and then the droning chorus of
“Hallelujah.”
The limo has a really great sound system with speakers on all sides of us. Music has always defined the moment for Eric. He can tell you where he was and what he was doing when he first heard any song. In fact, I often think he would have enjoyed playing an instrument in the school band if Dad hadn't always been so rah-rah about sports.

I glance over at Uncle Lenny to see if he's going to disapprove of the unusual music selection by either saying something or just giving us a look. However, with his great beard and mustache all neatly combed out for the occasion, he takes on the appearance of an old philosopher who has been to many different kinds of funerals and finds that they all pretty much get the job done in the end.

“Were you in the navy?” Teddy asks Uncle Lenny.

I had also assumed this was the case because he's wearing a blue military uniform with brass buttons and a white cap with a black visor that has a gold anchor on the front. Dad's family is mad for uniforms. At one point they had someone in just about every branch of the service.

“Thirty years in the United States Coast Guard,” Uncle Lenny replies in his gruff voice. “After retirement my brother Bill and I set up a charter fishing business in St. Thomas.”

“Is that where you live?” asks Teddy.

“Most of the time. Unless I'm driving a boat for someone, working with a wreck crew, or running down pirates.” Uncle Lenny winks at Teddy on the word
pirates.

“Cool,” says Teddy. Though it's obvious by his furrowed brow that he's not sure whether or not to believe Uncle Lenny
about the pirates. “I'm going to be a navy SEAL—they always bring back their dead.”

A
navy SEAL?
This is the first I've heard about Teddy's military aspirations. Last I knew he wanted to be a baseball player.

“Uncle Sam would be mighty lucky to land such a strong intelligent young man as yourself,” Uncle Lenny says with great seriousness.

Teddy sits up straighter in his seat. With jug ears that stick out like shutters even with a hat on and a gangly frame that seems to bend with the wind, Teddy is used to being mercilessly teased about his career opportunities, not complimented.

The limousine rolls past houses that have drifts of snow reaching practically up to the roofs. Clouds of smoke bellow from chimneys and rise toward the heavens like holy offerings. The snowbanks along the sides of the street are so high that, when there's no traffic light, it's necessary to inch out into the intersection to check for oncoming cars.

At last we turn down the road that runs adjacent to the cemetery and pass headstones that look like rows of gray mailboxes surrounded by a chain-link fence. The long car comes to a slow stop a few yards away from where a crowd with winter coats buttoned up tight and scarves wrapped around their faces has gathered.

The driver comes around to open the door, and a gust of wind rushes inside the back of the car. Suddenly there's a splinter in my heart and I feel faint. I don't think I can make it. I tell Eric to go ahead without me. But he takes my arm and practically holds me up as we walk toward the grave. A crust of ice covers the ground and crunches under our feet as we pass the gray skeletons of trees.

I don't hear a word of what the minister says as she recites above the gaping hole, a dark gash in the white landscape. Eric
stands next to me with his head bent and his eyes lowered. Louise is across from us, looking effortlessly pretty even while grieving. Without makeup her skin is pure ivory and her lips are the deep and velvety red of roses. Yet as the coffin is lowered her features become tense, as if she's suddenly in pain.

Only Uncle Lenny is looking up now, his craggy and weatherworn face resolutely staring at the sky, studying the wind and the clouds. His soup strainer of a mustache has little icicles forming at the bottom.

Off to the side, behind some people I don't recognize, is the familiar trademark boating cap that belongs to my old pal Cappy, the local bookie. Like most citizens who make their living in the gaming professions, Cappy believes that you don't change anything, including your clothes, when you're beating the odds in life. His restless eyes dart from person to person as if he's searching the crowd for a card cheat.

Cappy must have read about the funeral in the newspaper. Still, I'm more than a little surprised to see him here. Cappy tends not to attend such community functions where he'll run into his clients and, more important, their wives. Most townspeople are aware that he's a bookmaker, organizer of card games, and general fixer. Though Cappy considers himself more of a therapist, in that he keeps people from depression and even suicide by helping to maintain their hope of cleaning up on a long shot.

I'm vaguely conscious that the drone of human words has finally trailed off. A smoke-blue veil of dusk settles over the graveyard to make it hazy and ethereal, like a dream dissolving, and the cold breeze sounds full of whispers. It's as if the rustling trees are saying this will be the first of many funerals, that the distance between the dead and the living is no more than a heartbeat and a breath.

Who will be next? I can't help but wonder. Will it be our resident daredevil, Francie? In a family as large as ours, sometimes shouting “Look at me” isn't quite enough. And who will be the last, departing the cemetery alone, leaving behind eleven Palmer grave markers all in a row? Maybe one of the twins, seeing as they're the youngest. Whoever it is, I can almost hear Dad reminding the last one to turn out the lights.

The crowd begins to disperse and I realize it's finally over.

Cappy catches up with me as I'm about to climb into the limo. “Hanging in there?” His breath makes smoke in the wintry air.

I shake my head as if it's too early in the game to be setting any firm probabilities.

“Tough break,” says Cappy. “The Big Casino.” He nods up toward the sky. “You know that you only have to pick up the horn if you need some lettuce.”

“Much obliged, Cappy,” I say. And I really do appreciate his offer. Cappy is not exactly known for extending interest-free lines of credit. In fact, it's usually quite the opposite. However, if you insist upon calling Cappy a con artist, then it would have to be with the emphasis on the second word, given that it's highly creative how he separates people from their money. Afterward his customers often leave feeling good, or at the very least with a philosophical air, the way one might exit a gallery.

Only Cappy isn't satisfied that he's done enough to improve my psyche. He takes my elbow, leans in close, and says, “Listen, two frogs fell into a pitcher of milk and it was too slippery to climb out. The first gave up and drowned. But the second one had gumption, and he kicked until eventually the cream turned to butter and he climbed out.”

I assume this is Cappy's version of when the going gets
tough, the tough get going. Fortunately he makes his money betting on sports and not as a motivational speaker.

Everyone else is in the limo by now, and the driver is waiting for me. I give Cappy a quick hug and climb inside the warm car. The snow along the winding road has been packed down hard from all the traffic and it squeaks under the tires. As we slowly make our way through the cemetery gates it's hard not to feel I've left my childhood behind along with my father.

W
HEN WE TURN INTO OUR STREET, THERE ARE CARS PARKED
everywhere. The drapes in my front window have been pulled wide open and people are milling about in the living room. For some reason it didn't occur to me that the general public would be coming back to the house. But apparently this is how funerals work.

I discover that Mom and Dad's bedroom has been turned into a coatroom, the long wooden kitchen table is now covered with a white linen cloth and holds a buffet that has Bernard's fingerprints all over it. Big carafes of coffee and hot water for tea sit on a silver tray atop the sideboard.

Uncle Lenny and Aunt Lala come over to me. Between dabbing underneath her nose with a tissue, Aunt Lala manages to get out, “Your dad's brother Alan is snowed in at his army base in upstate New York. The storm we had yesterday is moving east. And your boyfriend, Clive, left a message that his flight was canceled due to a mechanical failure or something of the sort.”

“Craig,” I gently correct her.

“Yes, he said to tell you that he's awfully sorry.”

Uncle Lenny shakes his head from side to side and mutters, “Ship outta luck.”

Aunt Lala's eyes are still red from crying. “It was a beautiful service.”

“A-1 at Lloyd's,” adds Uncle Lenny. From the way he beams at me I take it that this is positive.

Adults stand around the living room whispering to one another like members of a secret society. It's not possible for me to turn around without someone hugging me and telling me how sorry he or she is. In fact, it begins to feels like we're playing hot potato and tossing me from one set of arms to the next between waves of coffee breath. When a woman asks me how I tell the twins apart, I feel sort of stupid admitting that it's only by the little blue ribbon tied around Roddy's ankle.

Suddenly I start to feel my stomach rising up inside of me. I run to the bathroom and throw up. Vomit gets in my hair, and this reminds me of how when I was a little girl my mother always held my hair back when I puked.

There's a knock on the bathroom door. “Hallie, are you all right?”

It's Aunt Lala. I open the door and race past her toward the kitchen, where Bernard is rinsing off a platter. Without a word I grab his hand and pull him along behind me as I search for a place where we can talk privately. Only everywhere I turn there's a clogged artery of mourners and the minute they see me they start saying how sorry they are and patting me like a lost puppy dog. It's too cold to go outside without digging our coats out from under that mountain on my parents’ bed.

Eventually I drag Bernard into the coat closet under the stairs and slide the door closed. It's where I used to hide from Mom and Dad when I was little. Mittens on strings and snow-suit arms are hitting us in the face. I'm practically hyperventilating.

“Hallie, what on
earth
is the matter?” says Bernard. “If you're
upset that I didn't consult you about the buffet, it's just because I thought it was the last thing you needed to be bothered with right now.”

Tears stream down my face as I collapse onto a pile of boots. “What am I supposed to
do
with these people—to
say
to them all?”

Bernard settles down on the mud mat across from me and our knees interlock. “Just listen to them for a moment, say thank you, and then move on.”

“But why do they all want to talk to
me
?”

“Because you're the de facto lady of the house right now.”

I let out an involuntarily snort at “lady of the house.” That'll be the day!

“They're being polite and paying their respects,” continues Bernard.

“How about the ones who ask what's going to happen?”

“Simply tell them that you're busy making arrangements.”

“What about the people who ask about Mom? Some haven't even heard she's at Dalewood!”

“Just say she'll be fine,” counsels Bernard. “And she will be.”

Suddenly there's a knock on the closet door.

“Who is it?” Bernard calls out in the singsong way he answers the door at home.

“Pamela Brunner.”

Bernard slides open the closet door a few inches and looks out from his place on the floor with his back up against a sled. “Yes, Mrs. Brunner, how may I assist you?”

“I was just wondering,” Mrs. Brunner says in a tone suggesting that it's perfectly normal to be sitting on the closet floor after a funeral, “since the cold cuts are almost finished, if you'd like me to put out the fruit plate.”

“If you would be so kind,” says Bernard. “There are some
mint sprigs for garnish in a plastic bag in the refrigerator and a box of chocolates on the counter.”

Mrs. Brunner nods and Bernard slides the door closed again.

“They keep saying that Dad's been laid to rest,” I continue. “Or worse, that we
lost
Dad.”