Authors: Robin Antalek
He walked back over to Bella's house, stoned and feeling bad about leaving Bella all alone to take a bath. The windows were dark in front, but that didn't mean everyone was asleep. He held up his hand and waved. Then he felt like a fool and dropped his arm down by his side and shuffled off down the road.
At home he found his father sitting at the kitchen table dunking Chips Ahoy! into a mug that said #1 Dad. His eating habits, never great, had deteriorated while Sam was at school. Soy sauce packets threatened to take over the entire kitchen table.
Sam sat down across from him. His father pushed the package of cookies in his direction. Sam took one and they chewed in unison. Sam scraped the chair over to the counter to get a glass for milk. When he got back to the table he ate three more soggy cookies and made a flower pattern out of sauce packets on the table.
“How's she doing?” his father asked.
“Okay, I guess.”
His dad nodded, a cookie halfway to his mouth. “It would have to be hard to be a daughter and lose your mother.”
Sam squinted over at him. Did he think it was any easier to be a son and lose your mother? “I wouldn't know.” He still couldn't get the picture of Bella with smeared red lipstick all over her face out of his head. What was wrong with him? He had real feelings for Bella. He just didn't know what to do with them.
His father closed his eyes briefly and then reopened them. “Do you want to go to the funeral together? Or are you going earlier?”
Sam looked at him, horrified at the thought of having to return to the Spade house before the funeral. He'd been planning to meet up with the boys and sit in the back of the church. This would be only the second funeral he had ever attended in his life, the first being his grandmother's memorial service, where Michael read an excerpt from
Walden
and afterward they went out for lunch. A week later UPS had delivered his grandmother's ashes in a brown box.
Through cookie crumbs Sam mumbled, “I'll go with you.”
His father nodded. “Everything okay? Did you talk to your professors and tell them you would be gone?”
Sam winced. He had just received a notice in his campus mailbox from his counselor saying that he was yet again treading the waters of academic probation. He doubted he and his professors would have anything positive to say to one another at this point. “I'm good, Dad.”
His father nodded. “You'd better get some sleep, Sammy. You look wiped out.”
Sam pushed back his chair and carried his glass to the sink. Before he left the room he looked back at his father. He was
mid-dunk and he caught Sam looking. He raised a cookie in salute and Sam waved back, then shuffled off to his room, dropped onto his bed fully clothed, and fell into his second hard sleep of the night.
The blazer Sam
had worn for his high school graduation was still hanging in his closet, a navy-and-gold-striped tie looped around the hanger. He went into Michael's room and found an acceptable white shirt and pair of khakis and dressed for the funeral. The sleeves of the blazer were too short, but Michael's long-sleeve shirt made up for it. Sam was probably just a little over six feet by now, closing in on Michael's six-two. He was still waiting for the angles of his body to fill out. No matter how much food he consumed it didn't seem to stick. He knew from seeing his father's high school graduation photo in his grandfather's bookcase that he looked exactly like him at that age.
Sam nicked his chin shaving, took two Advil, and borrowed a belt from his father, and he was ready. He needed a haircut, but there was nothing he could do about that now. His father looked solemn in a navy suit and overcoat, the same outfit he wore to work every single day.
They left so early they stopped off for coffee and doughnuts and ate them in the car with the heat running. The temp on the dashboard read eleven degrees. Before his dad slipped on the defroster the windows fogged around them, and Sam appreciated being hidden from view for those few minutes, even if it was only in the parking lot of the doughnut shack.
They found a seat closer to the front than Sam would have liked, but his dad slid into a pew and he had no choice but to follow. He didn't want to look around, so he kept his head down. Before he did he caught a glimpse of the altar, with pots of that
pointy red Christmas flower surrounding the coffin that held Mrs. Spade. The coffin was a deep, shiny wood. Sam wondered if the flowers were left over from Christmas or had been purchased especially for this occasion.
Behind Mrs. Spade was an organist playing an appropriately somber few chords over and over again as the pews slowly filled in. When the family finally arrived at the church, the pews were packed. Bella walked in beside her father. Her hair, usually a mass of waves, was pulled back into a severe clump at the base of her neck. Her skin was pale, her blue eyes appeared to take up most of her face, and her lips were unstained. She was wearing the fur coat.
Sam watched Bella take her place among her nieces and nephews in the front pew. One of them tugged on her shoulder and another climbed into her lap and the coat slipped, revealing a pale shoulder and a strap of black. Sam flashed back to her body beneath the coat the night before, the way it had opened to reveal Bella in nothing but a pair of panties. He felt a twitch in his crotch and, embarrassed, twisted away from his father, willing it to go away, focusing instead on a stained glass window of a saint crying tears of blood.
During the service Sam contemplated Bella's perfectly straight posture as she stared at a place beyond her mother's coffin. He had no idea what was said. When the service was over Mr. Spade got up and approached the coffin with his sons and touched the spot near the top, near Mrs. Spade's head. His sons followed their father, but Bella remained seated. When the organist played louder, Bella finally stood and gathered the children, who stayed clustered around her, and she ushered them forward, her head down. One of the smaller kids turned and waved, but Bella
continued on, carefully avoiding eye contact with either the attendees or her mother's coffin.
At the reception
Sam and his father parted. Sam was surprised by how pulled together the house was less than eight hours after the previous night's gathering. There was a fresh bar set up on the large kitchen island and platters of food covering the lengthy dining room table. Bella's brothers' wives seemed to be running the whole thing.
Sam ran into Frankie Cole and followed him out onto the back deck, where Bella was curled up in the coat on the lounge chair, flanked by Ruthie and Mindy. Everyone else was huddled around the fire pit trying to get something started. Sam looked around; they all appeared to be wearing a variation of their graduation clothes.
“The wood is wet, morons,” Frankie offered as he poked at the firewood stacked on the deck, covered only by an icy shelf of snow. “Snow, ice, all of it makes water.” He shook his head as Peter Chang lit another twisted piece of paper and held it up to the kindling. There was a sizzling sound followed by a tendril of smoke and then nothing.
“Just let it go,” Mindy said, coughing and waving a hand in front of her face. “Please, know when to stop.” Mindy and Peter had been an item briefly the summer before they went off to college, and ever since then she spoke to him like she was his ex-wife.
“Here, this will keep us warm.” Stephen produced a bottle of vodka from inside the folds of his voluminous gray coat. He set the bottle down on the deck and wrestled a stack of plastic cups from his pocket. No doubt he had swiped everything from the bar
on his way through. He poured generous shots and handed them all around.
Everyone, including Bella, raised a glass. No one spoke, and Sam fixated on Bella's bottom lip as it trembled. “To Mrs. Spade,” he said in a rush as everyone tossed back the shots. The vodka burned going down. Sam knew that alcohol was the worst thing to drink when you were cold, that it triggered some sort of false positive effect in your bloodstream, but it wasn't as if they were going hiking. They were sitting on Bella's deck, their own houses all within a two-block radius. So they filled their cups again and again until the bottle was empty and they were all feeling the heat.
Mindy and Ruthie refused to relinquish their spots by Bella. Sam looked over at her and mouthed the words
Are you okay?
She nodded and smiled back and then looked away as Ruthie whispered in her ear.
“Hey, you have any food in that coat?” Peter pointed at Frankie, who flattened his pockets with his palms and shook his head.
Sam was closest to the door, and everyone looked at him expectantly. He shrugged. “Fine, I'll go.”
On his way down the hall he passed the bathroom and went in and shut the door to take a leak. The medicine cabinet was open, as if someone had been looking for something. Sam took a survey. There was the usual spare razor and blades, the half a dozen hotel soaps and tiny bottles of shampoo that seemed to collect in every spare bathroom, a bottle of Tums, and aspirin. He closed the door and blinked at his reflection, surprised to see himself there. It was entirely possible that he'd had too much to drink on a stomach of doughnuts and coffee.
Just like the night before, being in the back of the house and walking to the front was like entering another world. The
decibel level was higher and people were everywhere. Sam caught sight of his father leaning against the wall near the front door, a sandwich raised to his mouth, nodding at something Henry Wild was saying. Mr. Spade, Mr. Wild, and Sam's father all worked for the same firm. Sam's father swallowed his giant mouthful and laughed at what Mr. Wild had to say before he took another tremendous bite of his sandwich.
Sam picked up a plate and began to make his way around the table, filling it with two of each kind of sandwich that was left. He balanced the plate in one hand and grabbed an unopened bag of potato chips with the other as the front door opened. He heard a chorus of greetings, and then his father shouted his brother's name above the noise. The door must have still been open, because there was a sweep of cold air along the floor, swirling around Sam's ankles. He headed toward the door, pushing through knots of people, curious to see if Michael had really shown up. His father had said he was too busy; the third year of medical school was too intense to even dream about asking for time off.
But now Sam could see that there was a commotion at the door, too many people attempting to funnel into one space. There was his brother in the center of it, his father reaching for him. Michael's cheeks and nose were pinched red from the air. He had a blue plaid scarf wrapped around his neck and a striped long-sleeve shirt tucked into his jeans, nothing else, nothing like a coat or a sweater that would protect him from the cold. He leaned back and said something to someone behind him, but Sam couldn't tell whom, because just as he did Mr. Wild stepped forward, blocking his view.
Sam started to back up, figuring he would have time to talk to Michael later. His friends were waiting on the food, and he
didn't want to have to hear everyone fawn all over Michael's arrival.
But then Mr. Wild stepped aside and the person behind Michael moved forward. She had dark, wavy hair and was wearing a long navy wool coat. Her back was to Sam but in her posture there was something familiar. Sam stepped closer just as his father looked up, made eye contact, and motioned Sam over with an exaggerated movement. Sam pressed forward, the plate in front of his chest, the chips tucked carefully under his arm. As he did his father said something to the girl with Michael and she pivoted slowly in Sam's direction. Even from a distance he could see the S formation of freckles on her left cheek.
Suzie Epstein.
“Sam!” His father pointed at Michael and Suzie as if Sam couldn't see them from five feet away. “Surprise, huh?” His cheeks were red and his voice was strained. Sam was unsure if it was a few drinks that had done him in or the fact that his son had shown up with the daughter of the man who had broken up his marriage.
“Hey, hey, yeah. Big surprise.” Sam looked at Michael and Suzie quickly, afraid to land his gaze in one specific place. Michael and Suzie?
“Thanks, I haven't eaten since last night.” Michael reached for a sandwich on the top of the stack. Dimly, Sam offered the plate to Suzie, who just shook her head.
“Wow, Suzie. Wow.”
“Wow, Sam.” She grinned. “Wow.”
“How long are you here?” Sam's father asked.
Michael held up a finger in response, swallowed, and said, “Got to leave tomorrow first thing.”
“Where is Bella?” Suzie asked in a soft voice.
Sam gestured over his shoulder. “Come on. I was bringing food to everyone out back.” He turned quickly and then felt too shy to check and see if Suzie was behind him. Of course she didn't need him to tell her where “out back” was located; she had spent more of her childhood in this house than in her own. Once they hit the long hall to the bedrooms she tapped him on the shoulder, and Sam nearly dropped the plate of sandwiches.
“Want me to take those chips from you?”
He'd forgotten he was holding chips between his side and arm. The bag felt kind of flat. “No, it's fine.”
At Bella's bedroom door Suzie reached around and twisted the knob. They stepped into the room and Sam tried to avoid looking at Bella's bed. Heat was rising up from his back to his neck and he was sweating under the collar. But Suzie wasn't paying attention to him. She was sprinting around the piles, her hair and coat flying behind her, getting to the deck steps before Sam.
Sam heard Mindy scream, then Ruthie. He stepped outside just in time to see Suzie take Bella in her arms as the girls burst into tears.
“It's about fucking time, dude.” Frankie grabbed the plate of sandwiches from Sam. He took two off the top and handed the platter to Peter.
Sam dropped the chip bag onto a chair. Stephen sidled up next to him and said under his breath, “Holy shit, she is hot. I mean, I always thought she was. But you know, this is even better than I imagined.” He gave an approving nod.