The Dearly Departed (8 page)

She was waiting with her golf bag when the driving range opened at nine. After paying for the largest bucket of balls, Sunny walked past the rubber mats to the grassy area that separated the beginners from the experts. She began with short irons and worked her way up to her woods. An older couple arrived in matching cruise-line sweatshirts, stretched in tandem, then addressed each ball with their lips moving, as if reciting lessons. Even with her head down, Sunny sensed when their bucket was empty, when the husband had simply instructed his wife to watch her.

“You the pro here?” he finally called over.

“I wish,” said Sunny.

As she returned her empty basket, the man behind the counter asked, “Any interest in a member-guest tournament coming up next weekend in Sunapee?”

“Can't. Thanks.”

“Up here on vacation?”

“No I'm not,” said Sunny.

For the wake, Regina Pope dressed her two-year-old son in miniature grown-up clothes—gray trousers, white shirt, red clip-on bow tie. He owned only sneakers, which would have to do—no disrespect intended. It was too warm for the little patchwork madras sports jacket, dry clean only, that completed the outfit. He was Robert, without nicknames, and to his mother, especially in his dress-up clothes, the most beautiful boy in the world.

Coach Sweet decided to skip the wake and make an appearance at the funeral. Or maybe the reverse. Milling around a coffin, he'd be obliged to speak to Sunny, while at the funeral he'd sign the book, hang back, and still get credit for doing the decent thing. He could call the guys who were still in town, and they could form a kind of honor guard—some goddamn ceremonial thing like that. Nah. It wasn't Sunny who had died. It was her mother, the ex–legal, ex–medical secretary, who could rattle off her daughter's rights chapter and verse. Mrs. Equal Opportunity. Mrs. Title Nine.

He'd send his wife.

When Dr. Ouimet hired Margaret Batten to fill in for Mrs. Ouimet following her gallbladder surgery, there was a conspicuous change in office routine: Margaret didn't leave early or come in late; didn't berate him for spending too much time with a patient; didn't tie up the phone while refusing to add a second line. Margaret was calm where his wife had been rattled, and forgiving to the cranky and the sick. Insurance companies reimbursed him for services the first time the paperwork went in, and patients surrendered co-payments before they left the office. Dr. Ouimet convinced his unsalaried wife—whose gallbladder had been removed through laparoscopy, and whose recovery was all too quick—that they
should
gut and remodel the kitchen the way she'd been asking for years, and, yes, she could act as general contractor, however long that took.

He was shocked that Chief Loach didn't call him personally to break the news. He should not have had to hear about Margaret across the breakfast table, his wife's mouth forming the words of the
Bulletin
headline as if they were gossip rather than personal tragedy. He cried as he reread the story himself, then dialed Margaret's home number, praying for a case of mistaken identity. He wept throughout the day to himself, in the bathroom, garage, and car. He couldn't eat. He blamed himself: Margaret, who rarely took a sick day and never brought her personal medical concerns to work, had complained of a serious headache for the past few weeks.

“Are you taking anything?” he'd asked, not looking up from his paperwork.

“No,” she said.

“Well, there you go. We have a miracle drug called aspirin that you could try,” he'd said with a distracted smile.

All he could think to do was run a half-page ad in the
Bulletin
announcing that the offices of Dr. Emil Ouimet would be closed for one week out of respect to his devoted and beloved employee, followed by a stanza by Robert Browning that he copied from
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.

“Beloved,”
said his wife. “A married man doesn't use that word about another woman, especially a divorcee.”

“A widow. And I was speaking for my patients.”

She rattled the paper and asked from behind a page as frivolous as Living/Arts, “How long would you close the office if
I
died?”

“Don't ask foolish questions,” he answered.

Even though the theater was only two blocks from the motel, Dickie Saint-Onge picked Sunny up in his stretch limousine. He asked her about pallbearers and, because calls had come in, about her mother's favorite charity.

“I should know,” said Sunny.

“The ladies like the homeless, and almost all the men support the Shriners.”

“It should have something to do with the theater—maybe an award at the high school, a memorial scholarship.”

“For who?”

“I haven't thought it through. Maybe a graduating senior who wants to study acting.”

Dickie took out a pocket notebook and made a notation with a miniature pencil.

“Don't announce it yet,” said Sunny.

“What about pallbearers?”

“I did that,” said Sunny.

Dickie took her list and read it aloud. “Very nice,” he said. “I've used every one of them before. Dr. Ouimet called me and volunteered for the job. I was hoping you'd pick him.”

Dickie had a ring of keys, one of which opened the stage door after a half-dozen tries. He left Sunny in a dressing room, alone, sitting at a peeling vanity table, numbly surveying the pots of cracked makeup and dirty brushes.

“I've got to admit,” said Dickie as he returned, “I had my doubts about doing this off-site. But it looks like she was a head of state. And more flowers where these came from. You ready?”

“Is anyone here yet?”

“My wife and my mother,” said Dickie. “They come to everything I do.”

“Do I know your wife?”

“I met her at school in Albany. Her father's a funeral director in Plattsburgh.”

Sunny stood up and quickly sat down again.

“You're okay,” said Dickie. “I'll be right there, moving people along, directing traffic. I've got Kleenex, Wash 'n Dri, Tic Tacs, water, whatever helps. Just nod and shake their hands. They usually do the talking.”

“It's not that. I should have done this earlier. Isn't that what people do—have a private good-bye?”

Dickie walked over to the vanity stool and helped her up, a boost from around her shoulders. “She looks like she's sleeping. I promise. She looks beautiful, if I do say so myself.”

“Do I have a few minutes? Before anyone gets here?”

Dickie took a diplomatic quick-step away from Sunny. “Absolutely. I'll ask my mother and Roberta to step outside.”

He looked at his watch, bit his lip.

“I don't need long,” said Sunny. She left the dressing room, walked between the maroon velvet curtains that her mother had patched in her pre–leading lady days.

The coffin was parallel to the orchestra seats and surrounded by potted lilies. Margaret looked small and alone. Worse than asleep—unreachable, irretrievable. Sunny moved closer. She could see that her mother's brown hair was parted on the wrong side and that her lips were painted a darker shade of red than Margaret had worn in life. The dress was out of season: black, V-necked, long-sleeved, and ending in a point at each wrist. It needed pearls, a locket, a pin, a corsage—something.

“Mom?” Sunny whispered.

The footlights and the lilies flashed white at the edges of her vision, and her knees sagged.

Roberta Saint-Onge, who'd been spying on Sunny from the vestibule, yelled for ammonium carbonate, for a cold, wet facecloth, for a chair, for help, for Dickie.

 

W
ith a firm hand on the back of Sunny's neck, Roberta Saint-Onge repeated, “Head
down.
The head has to be
down.
”

“I'm okay,” Sunny murmured. “You can let go now.”

“Head between your knees,” ordered Roberta.

“You're hurting me.”

“How long does she have to stay like this?” asked Dickie.

“However long it takes for the blood to drain back into her head.”

“It's there,” said Sunny. “Let
go,
for Crissakes.”

Roberta did, petulantly, as if a referee had called a jump ball and repossessed the disputed goods.

“You're still pale,” said Dickie. “You might want to touch up your cheekbones with a little color.”

“I'll be okay,” said Sunny. “Give me a minute without the headlock.”

“This isn't the first time we've encountered this,” said Roberta.

“I never fainted before in my life,” said Sunny.

“It's a shock to the system,” said Dickie. “No matter how close you were or what kind of parent she was or how well or poorly you got along, you only have one mother.”

“She was a fantastic parent,” said Sunny.

“Of course she was,” said Dickie.

“We grew up around it,” said Roberta. “We're both third-generation funeral directors, so sometimes we lose sight of the fact that it's so much more than the corporal remains of an individual.”

“What she means,” said Dickie, “is that we understand very well that it's someone's mother or father or husband or wife, and we can empathize, but we're professionals and we don't have the exact same
physiologic
response to the death of the loved one as our client does. We
share
the sorrow, but at the same time we have a job to do.”

“Hundreds of little jobs that have to be performed seamlessly,” added Roberta. “Our goal is to be as helpful yet as unobtrusive as possible.”

Sunny rubbed the back of her neck and asked what time it was.

“It's time,” said Dickie.

“You stay right here,” said Roberta. “Everyone will understand—”

“I don't want anyone's understanding! No one has to know I fainted.”