The Dearly Departed (16 page)

“What if she knocks on the door?”

“Bill! Were you born yesterday? You say, “I'm Fletcher Finn's nephew. He's loaning me the room because he's staying at the lake. Or better still, say, ‘Miles Finn's nephew.' That's my father.”

“What if she asks me stuff about you or him?”

“Say, ‘I haven't seen Uncle Miles since I was a little kid.' ”

“After that? After I sleep there for one night, can I come back here?”

“Forget it! You are
not
coming back here.” Fletcher sat down on the couch and raked the fingers of both hands along his scalp and up to the ends of his hair. “Let me describe a scenario, and you don't have to admit or deny anything. If you stole the truck, you could drive it back to where you took it. The owner would have to call the police, and say he made a mistake; it wasn't stolen after all. Run it through the car wash first for extra points, like you're paying for the joyride.”

“Are you a cop?”

“Would I be harboring a criminal if I were a cop?”

“You could be a crooked cop.”

“I'm a political consultant.”

“Are you rich?” asked Billy.

“That's a rude question. Why are you leaping to that conclusion?”

“You have this camp, and you're giving me your motel key.”

“So? I paid for two nights. It'll serve the old lady right.”

“Did you bring any food with you? Or CDs?”

“No. Look. Stop bugging me. Take it or leave it. You broke into my house and now you're asking for references. Just tell me I'm not an accessory to any crime if I shelter you for a night.”

“I didn't do anything,” said Billy. He looked fifteen, and his T-shirt read
MAY
12–14,
TOUR DE CURE
.

“I'm not going to find an underage Gypsy in a shallow grave out back, am I?” Fletcher grumbled.

Billy walked into the kitchen, touched his forehead to the refrigerator, then retraced his path. He stood before the screen door and surveyed the yard. “I thought I might've got into some trouble, but I found out I didn't.”

“Such as?”

Billy turned around. “This sounds really bad, but everything turned out okay, so I'm not guilty—”

“Just tell me what you didn't do.”

“Nothing. I already told you. No one got hurt.”

Fletcher walked over to the phone and put his hand on the receiver. “What didn't you do, Billy? Besides breaking, entering, trespassing, and/or statutory rape?”

Billy smiled nobly. “I didn't kill a cop,” he said.

 

G
one were the twin beds with the flimsy headboards, the whitewashed rattan night table, the pagoda wallpaper. Every surface was a shade of gold now—burnished, lacquered, or spun with metallic threads. Margaret had turned their mother-daughter barracks into a boudoir, with tassels and Chinese influences, red lightbulbs, and a wide, outspoken bed.

Sunny had intended to start the packing with her mother's clothes but changed her mind as soon as she opened the closet door. It wasn't just the sight of the flannel dusters next to the chiffon or the satin mules alongside creased patent-leather pumps that paralyzed her but the unexpected smells of her mother's cologne and sachet, the stray brown hairs on lapels, and the Styrofoam heads holding her First Lady wigs. Least bearable was a long white zippered garment bag, advertising, in gothic letters,
FAYE'S BRIDAL FINERY
. It was set apart, given pride of place on the crowded rack. Sunny didn't look inside; didn't slide the zipper down to see what weight of silk, what length of train her mother had picked without a daughter's intervention or her maid-of-honor vote.

She closed the closet door and lay down on the green-gold iridescent bedspread. Matching pillow shams and bolsters lumped under her neck and crowded her elbows. When had this interior decoration happened? She closed her eyes. A conversation returned to her: Post-Christmas, half listening and uninterested, she had approved a new color scheme before her mother described a chemical that could be painted on old wallpaper to make it peel off like an omelet cooked on Teflon.

Sunny sat up and turned down the edge of the bedspread. Sheets. Pillowcases. Sooner or later she'd have to change them. Or should she? Was it wise to wash away the last molecules of skin and fibers and hair that linked this bed to her mother? She thought of calling Joey Loach and asking if the town or the state or the FBI wanted these percale striped forensics, but knew he'd only talk of unambiguous autopsy results, of acceptance and denial.

She moved to the kitchen, where the refrigerator presented its own set of heartbreaks: the last dozen eggs; a carton of low-fat pineapple cottage cheese; a foil-covered form that was surely a chicken leg attached to its thigh; two brown bananas, a quart of buttermilk, an open can of cling peaches, a six-pack of V-8, a box of baking soda dated 1/1/96.

She walked over to the sink and parted the curtain above it. Through dead-headed lilacs were the small, ragged backyard and ancient aluminum clothesline. The outdoor thermometer registered ninety degrees. On the other side of unkempt bushes was the seventeenth tee. Sunny could hear voices, the good fellowship of a male foursome. She used to stand at those bushes, waiting for a break in play before slipping onto the course. “You're lucky,” the diplomatic members used to say as they waved her through and complimented her swing. “Wish I lived on the course,” as if it were a luxury to sneak onto a private club from the grounds of a pauper's cottage. She'd always pictured that if one day she won a major, she would look directly into the camera and thank the pro of the King George Links, King George, New Hampshire, for pretending she was invisible throughout her formative years.

She turned back to the kitchen. As soon as she'd moved one set of glasses back to their original shelf, she lost interest in the task. Regina would want to know that she was home and staying for a while. She looked up Randall Pope and dialed. Whoever picked up the receiver on the first ring spoke no words. Sunny heard noisy breathing, then a smacking of lips against the mouthpiece.

“Robert?” she said. “Is this Robert? Is your mommy there?”

“Mummy,” he repeated.

“Can you get your mommy?”

“Mummy car.”

Sunny sighed. “Did Mommy go out?” she tried.

“Mummy car.”

“I'm going to hang up now,” Sunny said. She heard the painful blare of numbers being pounded. “Robert! Hang up the phone,” she commanded into the din.

“Hello? Sorry,” said an adult male.

Of course Robert wasn't home alone; of course she should have expected an adult to take over, yet the sound of Randy Pope's thirty-three-year-old voice unnerved her. After a pause, and over the sound of the toddler yelling, “Nana!” she said, “This is Sunny.”

She heard Randy say patiently, “It's not Nana. Nana's taking a nap. This is Mummy's friend Sunny. Let
go.
We'll watch the tape when I'm off.” Then: “Sorry. He thinks it's his grandmother.”

“Could you tell Regina I called? I'm at my house.”

“For how long?”

“Till about dusk. Then back by dark.” As soon as she'd said it, she knew Randy would decode her answer: two hours, nine holes.

“I haven't expressed my sympathy yet. I hope you know how sorry I am for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“I couldn't make it to the funeral because I had a case I couldn't postpone. But I wanted to. I think you know that our mothers had become friends.”

“I know. Through the Players.”

“It had already been postponed once—the case, I mean. I couldn't get a continuance.” He waited. “I'm a lawyer now. Maybe Regina told you.”

“Your mother did.”

“I'm a litigator. Mostly criminal.”

“How nice for you,” said Sunny. She could sense the effort at his end, his search for something effectual and diplomatic.

“Regina's hoping you'll stick around for a while. She wants you to come over for dinner. She seems to remember that you liked her mother's salmon croquettes.”

Sunny couldn't answer; her throat was closing around any response, because it was not Mrs. Tramonte's but her own mother's salmon croquettes that Regina had liked and remembered, consumed in the bungalow kitchen with canned peas and mashed potatoes.

Randy said, “I guess I'd better go see what Robert's getting into. Does Regina have your number?”

“It hasn't changed,” she said, and hung up. Ten seconds later the phone rang.

“Sunny? Randy again. After Regina gets back, I was planning to run out and play nine holes.”

“And?”

“Well, I don't play eighteen all at once, because it leaves her alone for the whole day. Which isn't fair to her. I mean, she has him all week. . . . I'm encouraging her to take up the game. Maybe when Robert's in school. I gave her a set of lessons for Mother's Day. Which she hasn't used yet . . .”

“Are you asking me to play nine holes with you today?”

“Look. I know. Terrible timing. But you wouldn't have to make conversation. You could just get a feel for the old backyard. Front or back nine, your choice. And you don't have to have a beer with me in the clubhouse afterwards, either.”

Phrases formed that would revive dead carp and balls kicked into the rough by teenage feet, but she didn't want him to think that the old grudge trumped her grief. “There may be a thunderstorm,” she said.

“I didn't hear that,” said Randy.

“I heard a few rumbles,” said Sunny.

After a pause, he repeated, “I'm really sorry about your mother.”

“Thank you,” she said stiffly.

“Another time? I know Regina would like that.” He waited. “I guess I'll try to put Robert down. Catch you later . . . maybe on seventeen if the storm holds off.”

“I'll keep my eye out for you,” Sunny lied.

She couldn't predict which drawer or cupboard held the land mines disguised as grocery lists or recipe cards in her mother's neat hand. Even an envelope of expired coupons made her weep in memory of Margaret's brand loyalties: Ivory Snow, Fig Newtons, Lestoil, Aunt Millie's Marinara, Loving Care. She went back to the window, looked toward the green.

What kind of regression would a summer in King George represent? she asked herself. I'd feel the same compulsion I had as a child to entertain myself with golf. I'd play every day. I'd keep score. The dreams would start up again, first about club championships and then state championships, then bigger dreams, until I was seeing sponsors—a line of clothing, Sunny irons, Sunny woods.

And then I'd have to remind myself: I tried this for a long time, and I failed. I'm not fifteen. I'm not a prodigy. It's a hobby, not a career. I've not only closed the book on that, but I've retired—if one can retire from an amateur activity—and I'm a healthier person for it; possibly a happier person, if only I could remember, as I sit here in the kitchen of the house that killed my mother, what happiness felt like.

Sunny heard a car, saw highly polished black through the trees, and thought, Oh no—Dickie again. But it was a Volvo sedan instead of a limo, and its M.D. plates announced Dr. Ouimet. Sunny had always known him as portly, with a pale round face, no angles or bone structure visible, and in suits that suggested a big and tall–shop purchase. But this week's red-eyed mourner was trimmer, and his dark suit looked almost fashionable. He had sobbed throughout the service, propped up on one side by his noticeably unmoved wife and on the other by a grown son, who programmed computers in Rhode Island. Now, Dr. Ouimet's composure lasted only until his eyes met Sunny's. Dressed in a starched plaid shirt and khakis, he bobbed his way up the porch steps, tilted forward, arms outstretched, and wrapped her in a damp hug, patting the back of her head awkwardly with his soft, immaculate hand. “It's hit me so hard,” he explained. “It's almost embarrassing. I knew I wouldn't have to hold everything back with you.”

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

“I'm not a child. People die. I lose patients. I've lost friends, parents, grandparents. But this breaks my heart. And here I am putting you in the position of having to comfort me. I'm ashamed of myself. But I couldn't keep away.”

“It's fine,” said Sunny. “I wasn't doing anything.”

“There was such a mob,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you. I couldn't even get close enough to ask if you were all right. And at the wake, I'm afraid my wife did all the talking. Well, of course, she had to, with my blubbering.”

Sunny flashed back to her disappointment in Mrs. Ouimet, who'd shaken Sunny's hand and murmured stock phrases that would have fit anyone's mother, anyone's wake. “I'm touched that you felt this strongly about your administrative assistant,” Sunny told the doctor, who had finally detached himself from her.