Read Online Personal Effects by E. M. Kokie - Free Book Online Page A

and Dad went into the office with the funeral home director. He left me with T.J.
    It took me forever to make myself inch out of the family-room doorway and walk over to the casket.
    The wood gleamed, reflecting all the lights around it. My hand shook where I forced it flat on top of the casket. I held it there until I stopped trembling. But it wasn’t enough. I could still feel the shaky terror. I needed to know I wouldn’t lose it in front of everyone. Both hands on the wood made me lean forward, and so I went with it until my face was pressed against the smooth, hard top of the casket, cold under my cheek.
    No way could Dad come out and find my eyes red. But I could hang on and wait for the room to stop spinning, close my eyes and wait for it to be over.
    Shuffled feet. Things moving around. A door somewhere, and some muffled conversation. A door closing. Everything more quiet.
    “Son.” I couldn’t answer, or move. “Son,” the man who wasn’t Dad said again.
    I turned my head, too heavy to lift.
    “I’m sorry, but they’ll need to open the doors soon. And your father . . .”
    He didn’t need to say any more.
    I pulled myself off the wood, stepped back, and swayed until the man caught my arm and sat me in the nearest chair.
    He leaned down, his face distorted, too close.
    “Want me to get your father? Or . . .”
    “No.” I knew he hadn’t actually heard me, because he kept looking from me to the door and back. “No,” I said again. “Sorry.”
    “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “Water?”
    I nodded. He jogged to the room off to the side and came back with a bottle of water. My hand shook, but I managed to drink most of it without spilling it all over my suit.
    “You gonna be all right?” he asked, moving an easel with pictures of T.J. closer to the casket. “You could go into the family room right there and lie down. We could close the door.”
    Fat chance Dad would let me hide in there. And he’d skin me alive if he knew I was being a wuss. Time to get it in gear. I chugged the rest of the water and made myself stand up, walk across the room, and throw it in the trash.
    The guy continued moving things around the casket: flowers, a low table with some cards on it, a basket for donations to a VA charity.
    “You sure you’re gonna be OK?” he finally asked after he’d adjusted everything twice and I’d made three laps of the room.
    “Yeah,” I said, ready.
    I walked right up to the casket and touched it, hand fine. As long as I didn’t look at the easel, I’d be fine. I stepped back so he could get to the table next to it and stood watch.
    “OK, well, you might want to go into the family room. I’ve got to do something here,” he said, motioning toward the casket.
    I wasn’t going anywhere.
    “I mean, I’ve got to open it for a second. Protocol.” He looked ready to freak himself.
    “Go ahead,” I said, holding my ground.
    He took a deep breath and shifted so his broad back would be between me and the casket, then he lifted it open. I moved fast next to him before he could shut it again. I knew not to look to the right, where there weren’t any legs. And I was too shitless to look left and risk seeing no head. So, I kept my eyes dead ahead on the arm I could see was there. I reached out and touched the arm. Over the fabric, but hard enough to feel it was solid. I was too chickenshit to do anything else, even to feel for skin, but I touched him.
    After, I bolted, so I didn’t see any more or hear the guy close the lid for the last time. But I manned up enough to touch him. To say good-bye. Then I puked and dry-heaved until I popped a blood vessel in my eye.
    By the time I snuck back through the side room, the casket had been draped with the flag and the main room was packed. I’d thought they’d said it was going to be a private funeral, family and close friends only. My family and close friends could fit in one car, Dad’s in maybe four cars, a bus if you count work