CHAPTER FOUR
As the golden light of morning filtered through her curtains and into the bedroom, strong enough to alert her eyeballs and seep into the dark space where dreams should have been, Alice awoke.
She immediately reached over to George’s side of the bed, then remembered he would not be there; he would never be there again. She ran over yesterday’s events in her mind, breathed a deep sigh, then got up and went about preparing for the day. She had lots to do.
After showering, she headed downstairs to fix a breakfast of oatmeal for herself. Out of habit, she ended up making more than she needed, taking George into account. As she was putting the extra away, she thought about the calls she had to make to her children. She tried to answer anticipated questions in her mind, running a back-and-forth conversation between herself and herself pretending to be Elaine or Drew.
She decided to call Drew first.
Alice felt her heartbeat quicken, not dissimilar to the feeling she had gotten when she was in the supermarket and she felt George’s life slipping away.
Drew answered on the first ring, his voice bright and full of life.
“Hi, Drew.” She took a deep breath. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”
Through all her practicing, she could think of no better opening than the first thing she had thought of.
“Is it Dad? What happened to him?”
Drew’s voice was now a bit alarmed, going up a pitch.
“Drew, my darling, I could never hide anything from you—you’re too sharp for your own good, you know.”
“Mom, what happened? Is he in the hospital? Did he have another heart attack?”
His voice had risen more.
“No dear, I’m afraid he’s beyond getting help from a hospital. Andrew…” She sighed, preparing herself for the upcoming onslaught of questions. “Your father is dead—he…he died yesterday.”
A few seconds of silence passed before Drew bellowed into the phone: “
Dead?
Mom, are you serious? I mean I know you wouldn’t be kidding but…well how come you’re just telling me? What the hell happened?”
Alice shrugged although she knew he could not see her.
“Honey I’m so sorry—I just…I just had to get myself together. It was all so very difficult—and quite sudden. I’m not quite sure what happened to him yet. They’re probably doing some tests to find out. All I know is yesterday, I went to the supermarket and when I got back, he was gone.”
“Mom you know I would have come there at once—you didn’t have to go through yesterday alone!”
She nodded.
“I know, darling. But I really needed some time to myself. Just a little, honey. I hope you understand.”
Although in her mind’s eye she could see him holding a hand over his forehead, digesting the information, getting ready to ask more questions, she quickly continued: “I’m planning the funeral and donating some of his things. I’ll need your help passing on his clothes and everything, and going through some of the documents—you know I’m not good with all of that money stuff.”
“Yes, yes of course. Geez, Mom, I can’t believe you didn’t call me right away! And why are you getting rid of his stuff? Wouldn’t you want to keep some of him around a little longer? For memory’s sake or something?”
Drew’s voice had calmed down a little. It seemed he was trying to talk as normally as possible, probably for her sake, but his voice was still a little too high-pitched to be normal. She could hear the confusion and the pain behind his words, the apology for shouting earlier, for letting his emotions get the better of him.
“Memories, my dear, are exactly why I don’t want to keep any of those things around. It’s hard enough as it is. I prefer not to be reminded of what I’m missing. Only a clean break will keep me sane.”
Drew sighed.
“Well, whatever, Mom. I’m flying down today. I’ll see you soon and we’ll talk and figure things out. Christ!”
“I love you, Drew.”
She heard him sigh again. “I love you too, Mom.”
His phone disconnected.
Alice still felt the conversation had gone better than expected. She wasn’t so sure she’d get the same result with Elaine.
Alice looked at the phone and hesitated. Elaine would be even angrier that she had waited a day to share the news. But then again, Elaine was always angry with her. This would just be adding more wood to the fire.
Alice got her fingers ready to dial, yet still could not bring herself to call her. She put the phone down, went to the kitchen and pulled out a notebook and pencil from one of the drawers. She would do a little planning first.
She started jotting down notes.
Reverend Brown would probably preside over the funeral. And she already knew which plot she would put George in—except she wasn’t so sure that’s what she wanted to do with him. The eraser part of the pencil pushed against the corner of her mouth as she thought about whether to have him cremated or buried.
She had never given a second thought to burial before, but now, cremation seemed a more fitting way to go. She considered using the internet on the computer Amber had insisted she get to help her decide but figured none of it really mattered ultimately; either way George would be in a small place.
She decided on cremation—that way, she could still have him and decide later what to do with his remains.
Alice made a note to pick out an urn.
She also realized that she would probably have to use the computer to do more research about the whole process after all—how it was done, where she could do it. She was tempted to just use the phone book and look through the yellow pages as she had always done, but she might as well use the machine.
She went over to the small room near the family room where the computer was located and started it up. When it was ready, she did a search for cremation. Once she read up on it, she decided to have a service before the cremation, then made a note about the various container options, and was taking note of crematoriums that had come up in a search when she remembered she had to prepare an obituary and a funeral notice for the local newspaper. She would need to choose a photo of George, ready a list of relatives to include…
The telephone rang.
Alice’s heart beat even faster than before.
She had a feeling about who it was but hoped she was wrong.
Maybe it was Andrew calling back or perhaps someone with results from tests run on George—although results probably wouldn’t be in yet; George was no priority.
The last thing she wanted to hear was Elaine’s angry voice on the other end of the line.
“So did you plan to call me, mother?”
The word “mother” was drenched in so much sarcasm, Alice almost thought she felt it seep through the receiver and felt like washing her hand and cheek immediately.
“Elaine, dear, of course I was! I just had to gather myself a moment—talking to Drew brought up so many…”
“So you can call Drew, but you couldn’t call me? I had to hear it from him?” Elaine screeched. Alice winced. Like Drew, Elaine’s voice also got high-pitched when she was emotional, but hers was like hearing nails rake across a blackboard, like icicles stabbing her eardrum.
Alice gathered herself. “That’s what I’m saying dear—I was about to but…”
“Mother, I can’t believe
you’d do this! My father just died and you didn’t even have the decency to call me?”
At least the shrillness has left her voice a little,
Alice thought as she tried to block out Elaine’s anger; she didn’t want to get infected. Best to remain numb.
Elaine let out a short, loud breath, as if to calm herself. “You know what? I don’t even know why I expected anything more from you, even in a case like this. Goodbye mother.” Elaine slammed the phone down, leaving Alice holding her receiver from her ear but it was too late—her ears rung from the force of the rage from the other end.
Alice didn’t even get a chance to ask Elaine if and when she was coming over, or better yet, tell her the best time to come. She guessed she would of course show up, but Alice wanted to be prepared for the exact moment so she could get ready for Elaine’s frost.
She supposed she could call back and ask her for the information, but she wasn’t about to do it right then; Elaine needed time to cool off.
Alice couldn’t believe she was so afraid of her own daughter, that she feared talking to her again, but she couldn’t help it—the phone call left her feeling like she’d been threatened by a bully who was meeting her by the lockers at three o’
clock. Alice put her fingers to her temple in an attempt to soothe the headache she felt coming on. Between Elaine, Abigail, George’s other old friends, and whoever else decided to show up, she knew this would at least be an interesting, if not horrendous week.
Alice headed back upstairs toward her bedroom, deciding to double check that she had rooted out all of George’s things—all that were ready to be eradicated. When she was satisfied that she had, she went over to his side of the mattress and got the keys to the nightstand drawers from underneath it.
She felt excited to have access to those nightstand files at last. George had made it clear she should keep away although he never actually said those words out loud, never verbalized those wishes. She inferred it from his protectiveness of them, from how secretive he’d been about them. He would usually take what he needed or put whatever he had taken out back in, slam the drawer shut, then lock it. He had told her once that he just wanted to make sure not just anybody could get in there and look around. He kept the keys on him, putting the keys under the mattress only when he was ready to go to bed and she remembered being amazed that he remembered to lift the mattress and take the keys with him every morning when he was going to work. There had been one morning that he had forgotten, but from then on, he started putting his briefcase under the mattress too, the keys inside. He couldn’t leave without his case so he never left the keys home again. Alice hadn’t even known at the time that he’d left the keys until she followed him once he came home and started running up the stairs, only to see him slip the keys into his pocket. He looked at her as he did it, as if studying her. She figured he was looking for signs that she had shuffled through the contents and they realized in the same instant what did—or did not—happen.
Alice opened the top drawer first. She assumed the more immediate and up-to-date stuff would be there, the older or less important archived information in the bottom drawer. Just as she expected the top drawer was full of paper, but it was surprisingly more organized than she had anticipated. It wasn’t like a regular nightstand at all; George had hanging folders and file folders inside—he had actually filed everything! And they were labeled! Alice was not sure when he had done all of that because the last time she had caught a glimpse of him opening that drawer, she saw papers everywhere in disarray; it did not look like one could sift through it easily at all. She figured he must have organized it in those couple of days that she had gone to Drew’s place to help him nurse his son back to health from the flu after his wife of six years had deserted them six months ago. From what she gathered of Drew’s marital situation, his wife felt he was too much of a softie and she had left him for someone she thought wasn’t. Alice supposed it was her own fault—perhaps she had babied him too much.
Alice couldn’t think of another time George would have had the time to do all that organizing. She wondered if Elaine had helped him.
Alice began looking through the folders. The hanging file labeled “Letters” was empty—perhaps he had meant to transfer the letters from the closet into it. The one labeled “Finances” was full however. There was a file for their savings account, letters and statements, and the same went for their checking account. He also had information regarding an account he had started for the grandchildren, and a file for the letters he’d received from his job about his recent retirement. He’d been so proud to have accomplished his goal of retiring by age sixty.
There was a file for their old credit card accounts, one with investment information and other files she expected to see. But one of the file folders caught her eye for its sheer strangeness, its complete lack of relation to anything Alice could fathom: a file labeled “The Thomas Gibson Projects.” She started leafing through the papers of “The Thomas Gibson Scholarship Fund” first. There were thank-you letters at the beginning of the file, letters from students who had been helped by this fund, letters from parents thanking George and the organization for their assistance. The file also contained letters from other establishments involved, regarding the logistics and setup of the whole project.
The rest of the papers told the story of George’s initial brainstorming, his efforts at organizing the fund, his recruitment of others to the project—both individuals and organizations. Alice even thought she recognized one or two of the individual names. He had a long-term plan, a general development plan, plus fund-raising information for the project as well as further evidence of his eventual success at getting it off the ground.
She skimmed the mission statement:
The Thomas Gibson Scholarship Fund, a division of The Thomas Gibson Projects, was established in 1990 for minority educational assistance, particularly African-American males.
At the back of the file were a few newspaper clippings, a bit discolored by age. They told the story of a young black boy who’d been accused of raping a white girl many years ago. He’d been beaten up and killed by an unknown group. The final clipping in the stack revealed that the girl had lied, and that the boy, Thomas Joseph Gibson, had been innocent after all. The accuser had come clean about it eventually out of sheer guilt over the boy’s death. The clippings all dated back to 1973. Alice vaguely remembered the story.
There was also a clipping from an Indiana newspaper from 1998. George was pictured shaking someone’s hand, a gentleman about the same age as him. The article talked about his contributions, his assistance. He was being thanked for his help with one of the Thomas Gibson projects.