Straight To Hell

Funerals are a lot like weddings. You invite people, find a minister, buy flowers and a new dress, and serve food. But unless the bride is up against a nine-month deadline, wedding planning is very open-ended. Funerals, however, must be quickly thrown together before the guest of honor rots away.

For three hours, I stood in a tiny, stifling room, as a parade of men and women I’d never met paid their respects. Carrie’s first visitor was a dumpy, gray-haired man in wire-framed, rose-tinted glasses, and a tie-dye T-shirt so old and full of holes that it might have been a survivor of Woodstock. He smelled of pot and pressed my hand so tightly that my knuckles rubbed together. “I’m really gonna miss Carrie. She was something, you know? One in a million.”

I nodded and mumbled, “Yes, yes. That’s true.”

He cocked his head. “You don’t look anything like her.”

I sighed. It seemed that my mother’s death would be very much like her life: the visit would be short, she would be surrounded by people whom I didn’t know, and everyone would find me disappointing.

When the dumpy man in the rose-tinted glasses finally shambled off, Jasmine slunk over. She’d come for moral support, but had been sitting in one of the plush chairs all evening, texting her friends. Her eyes were wide. “Was that who I think it is?”

I rubbed my temples. “Who do you think it is?”

“That old guy from that band. You know, the one from the sixties. The Happy Dead? The Grateful Zombies? Something like that.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” I had no idea what Jas was talking about, but it was easier to agree than try to make sense of it.

She leaned a little closer. “Maybe that guy is your dad.”

Leave it to Jasmine to make a bad situation worse. I had no idea who my biological father was. I’m pretty sure my mother didn’t know either. On the few occasions I’d asked, she’d scratched her head and said, “There are so many possibilities.”

As a child, I hadn’t given much thought to my biological father. In fact, if Simon hadn’t been Japanese, I might have thought he was my real dad. Although I went through a curious phase in high school, as I grew older questions about my sperm donor fizzled away. Now, the only time I thought of him was when filling out health history forms at the doctor’s office.

Jasmine continued to scan the room. “Maybe it’s that guy.” She pointed to a squat man whose turtleneck sweater made his large head and thin neck look like a light bulb. “Or that one.” She indicated a lanky transvestite in a silver lamé dress.

“Give it up,” I begged.

“Aren’t you a little bit curious?”

“No.” A lie since I was now looking over the male visitors. Please God, not that one, I thought as I watched a man in a hooded parka stuff his pockets with tissues. Used tissues.

“I’ll find out. Don’t you worry.” Jasmine floated off before I could stop her.

Ariel had refused to come to the visitation and had stayed home with Tommy. Grace, however, had solemnly asked to go along despite the fact she’d never met my mother. For the past two hours, my daughter had been lingering by the casket, alternately reading the cards on the flower arrangements and peering fearfully at her grandmother’s body.

Catching Grace’s eye, I held out my hand. She rushed over and hugged me tightly. “Grandma Carrie sure knew a lot of weird people,” she whispered. She indicated a pair of men in biker’s leathers and bandanas tied around their heads. They had matching eye patches and enormous, mutton-chop sideburns.

“Yes,” I wearily agreed. “She sure did.”

When my father came through the door, both Grace and I hugged him: me tearfully, Grace enthusiastically. My stepdad was accompanied by his current wife and Jas’s mother, Evelyn. As always, she looked like she’d just stepped out of the salon and dressed in clothes fresh from the drycleaner’s. I, on the other hand, was wilting like an uprooted weed on a hot summer day. My dress was as limp as the used tissue in my hand, and there were circles of dampness under my armpits.

Evelyn is a kind person, but she and I had never been close. Even so, she hugged me, something she rarely did, and whispered, “You’re a very good daughter.”

The unexpected compliment made me cry all over again, and Simon offered me a fresh tissue. Grace hugged my waist until I regained control.

“We thought we’d take Grace out for something to eat,” my stepdad said.

Immediately, Jas’s selective hearing kicked in, and she came over. “Can you drop me off at the movies? And I need some cash.”

Evelyn’s lips thinned. Jasmine’s childish behavior was one of the many reasons Evelyn had ousted Jasmine from the house. Simon, however, was already pulling out his wallet.

“Can we go to Chuck E. Cheese or McDonald’s?” Grace asked. “Or that place that has the double fudge sundaes with the sparklers on top?” Evelyn winced, but agreed. Evelyn and I might have been distant, but that didn’t stop her from being a doting grandmother.

After they left, my cell phone vibrated. It was a text from Ted, my ex-husband. “We need to talk.”

As much as I loathed my ex-husband and regretted our marriage, I hadn’t completely soured on relationships. In fact, I would have loved some male support. I longed for broad shoulders to lean on, and a strong hand to hold mine. I would have given anything for a cuddle under the covers after this long, difficult day. Now, the only thing I had to look forward to was a hot shower and an empty bed.

Ted texted again. “What are you doing right now?”

His callousness made my insides shrivel. I texted back, “I’m at the funeral home. My mother died. Remember?” With great effort, I kept myself from adding: a$$hole.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed a man watching me from across the room. I didn’t remember him coming in, not surprising since the evening had been a blur of unfamiliar faces. He had one of those chiseled chins that belong on male models, and thick, dark hair that begged to be tousled. His conservative V-necked sweater and leather loafers looked out of place among the flamboyant hippies and club kids.

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