over her with his patient brush and his dentist tools and pronounce, Here lies a woman .
So the grief started out stunted and deformed and pretended and only realized at the end, when they filled in the hole. Thatâs why you see those little crosses and wreaths all up and down the highwayâpeople canât let go of the dead because we create the illusion of burying them alive, or if not alive, then not entirely dead either. You end up suffering your grief alone with nothing but the memory of that lifelike body lying in the cold airless dark all alone, listening to the descending convocation of politic worms.
Maybe thatâs why I hated my father so much at that moment. He was moving on, eating his pie and drinking his bourbon and already thinking about tomorrowâs redhead. Maybe he could do that because he had a chance to say goodbye to her, while I had avoided her telephone calls and slept through her last attempt to reach out to me. Who was I to judge the dryness of his wrinkled face? Where were my own tears?
âDidnât she know I was staying the night?â I asked Dad.
âWho?â
âThat redhead from the funeral.â
The bastard didnât answer. He got up and put his plate on the kitchen counter and poured his ice out in the sink. I followed him, my insides buzzing like a horsefly, itching to shoot my heart out of a cannon against the white hump of his infidelity.
âI guess thereâll be no end to the pussy now,â I said, spat.
He set his glass in the sink. I think I grieved him more than the passing of his wife of fifty years. I always was his favorite. At least I got to be somebodyâs favorite. âDo you think your mother was stupid, Jackie?â He stared out the kitchen window into the dark.
âNo.â
âDo you think she could be married to me all these years and not know?â
âDo you think she enjoyed living a lie, Daddy?â
âYour mother enjoyed being married to me. She accepted what came with that, the good and the bad. I canât help the way I am. I loved your mother, but I loved other women, too. Some of them very dearly. It wasnât just the sex, but thatâs all you could ever see. Ever since you were a little girl, youâve never been able to love more than one thing or one person or one idea at a time. Youâre either mad in love, or youâre crazy with hate. Youâre old enough to know by now that people are nothing if not a ratâs nest of contradictions. Even the people we love.â
âYeah, I keep forgetting how complicated you are,â I stabbed from hellâs own heart. âHow many sacrifices you made to keep your marriage together. But thatâs all over now. Youâre free to chase all the tail you want.â
He passed without looking at me, shuffled wearily down the hall and climbed to the top of the stairs. He stopped with his hand gripping the wooden rail. He looked old. He had aged a hundred years before my eyes, this frail, tottering old drunk. âIâm going to bed.â
I stayed downstairs, because I had to finish something, even if it was only a bottle of whiskey.
Â
10
I WOKE ON THE PORCH SWING ABOUT eleven in the morning , my throat as dry as an old eraser, the singing of the birds in the trees like fingernails clawing the blackboard of my skull. Dad sat in a glider rocker reading the morning paper, a tray at his elbow with two glasses and a sweaty pitcher of orange juice. I grabbed an empty glass and poured it to the brim, downed about half of it before I started tasting the vodka. I surfaced long enough for a breath of air, then finished it off and wiped the crust from my lips with the back of my hand.
âHave another,â Dad said, so I did.
We sat on the porch and drank a pitcher of brunch while the unseasonably warm morning turned into an unseasonably hot day. He read his paper and I read my fortune in the bumps on my tongue. We said
So the grief started out stunted and deformed and pretended and only realized at the end, when they filled in the hole. Thatâs why you see those little crosses and wreaths all up and down the highwayâpeople canât let go of the dead because we create the illusion of burying them alive, or if not alive, then not entirely dead either. You end up suffering your grief alone with nothing but the memory of that lifelike body lying in the cold airless dark all alone, listening to the descending convocation of politic worms.
Maybe thatâs why I hated my father so much at that moment. He was moving on, eating his pie and drinking his bourbon and already thinking about tomorrowâs redhead. Maybe he could do that because he had a chance to say goodbye to her, while I had avoided her telephone calls and slept through her last attempt to reach out to me. Who was I to judge the dryness of his wrinkled face? Where were my own tears?
âDidnât she know I was staying the night?â I asked Dad.
âWho?â
âThat redhead from the funeral.â
The bastard didnât answer. He got up and put his plate on the kitchen counter and poured his ice out in the sink. I followed him, my insides buzzing like a horsefly, itching to shoot my heart out of a cannon against the white hump of his infidelity.
âI guess thereâll be no end to the pussy now,â I said, spat.
He set his glass in the sink. I think I grieved him more than the passing of his wife of fifty years. I always was his favorite. At least I got to be somebodyâs favorite. âDo you think your mother was stupid, Jackie?â He stared out the kitchen window into the dark.
âNo.â
âDo you think she could be married to me all these years and not know?â
âDo you think she enjoyed living a lie, Daddy?â
âYour mother enjoyed being married to me. She accepted what came with that, the good and the bad. I canât help the way I am. I loved your mother, but I loved other women, too. Some of them very dearly. It wasnât just the sex, but thatâs all you could ever see. Ever since you were a little girl, youâve never been able to love more than one thing or one person or one idea at a time. Youâre either mad in love, or youâre crazy with hate. Youâre old enough to know by now that people are nothing if not a ratâs nest of contradictions. Even the people we love.â
âYeah, I keep forgetting how complicated you are,â I stabbed from hellâs own heart. âHow many sacrifices you made to keep your marriage together. But thatâs all over now. Youâre free to chase all the tail you want.â
He passed without looking at me, shuffled wearily down the hall and climbed to the top of the stairs. He stopped with his hand gripping the wooden rail. He looked old. He had aged a hundred years before my eyes, this frail, tottering old drunk. âIâm going to bed.â
I stayed downstairs, because I had to finish something, even if it was only a bottle of whiskey.
Â
10
I WOKE ON THE PORCH SWING ABOUT eleven in the morning , my throat as dry as an old eraser, the singing of the birds in the trees like fingernails clawing the blackboard of my skull. Dad sat in a glider rocker reading the morning paper, a tray at his elbow with two glasses and a sweaty pitcher of orange juice. I grabbed an empty glass and poured it to the brim, downed about half of it before I started tasting the vodka. I surfaced long enough for a breath of air, then finished it off and wiped the crust from my lips with the back of my hand.
âHave another,â Dad said, so I did.
We sat on the porch and drank a pitcher of brunch while the unseasonably warm morning turned into an unseasonably hot day. He read his paper and I read my fortune in the bumps on my tongue. We said
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