first one through.
I stood by the guest book and greeted everyone along with Dave and Max. I was as much a part of the mortuary staff as I was Carl’s niece, and if I thought of myself as staff, I wouldn’t have to be a part of “them.”
My father stood beside the coffin all night. He wouldn’t leave Carl’s side and kept swiping his nose with a white hanky that had his own initials embroidered on it in navy stitching. He shook people’s hands and, for once, he wasn’t doing it for attention. He wanted to be there, next to his brother, whom he had taught to ride a bicycle and who had worn Dad’s shoes and pants long after Dad had outgrown them.
Then I saw Mammaw and Papaw. They came in through the back and were in terrible shape. As mean as Papaw was, he didn’t deserve this. Mammaw looked red-eyed and confused. They had lost a child. She couldn’t invent a salve for this kind of hurt.
When Dad saw his parents, he hurried over and set up chairs for each of them. He asked Mom to get them coffee. I was watching someone I didn’t know.
Even odder than seeing Dad as a loving brother and caring son was the image that hit me as I walked into the formal room (what I called the “body” room) of the mortuary. I was older now and didn’t need to be lifted up to see inside the casket. I glanced at Uncle Carl lying there, and from that angle, me standing at the foot of the coffin (a Batesville solid maple with beige crepe interior), Carl looked exactly like my dad. I hurried to find Jamie and made him stand in the exact same spot.
“He looks like Dad,” he said.
“ Exactly like him.”
I gave myself a few minutes to fantasize that it was Dad and felt surprisingly unhappy, even sad. Dad was violent, but I didn’t want him in a casket. I didn’t know what Jamie was hoping, but both his fists were clenched.
My big brother was too cool for me to hug, so I wrapped my sweaty fingers around his narrow wrist. We stood there a long time.
The next day we followed Kilner and Son’s black hearse through Elk Grove and onto Highway 64 for the slow ride through Galesburg and then up County Line Road to tiny Clover Hill Cemetery, where all the Petersons were buried. Seeing the hearse in front of us and all the cars pulling to the side of the road as we passed overwhelmed me with grief—for Carl and Aunt Evelyn, for Tim, Ben, and Paul, and for everything that constantly went wrong. I cried for the first time that year. I was afraid I might never stop.
Chapter Ten
During the first week of summer break between fifth and sixth grades, all the kids in Galesburg were out on their ten-speed bikes or playing softball behind the community building over by Granda’s.
The Whitmore kids and I were playing army. We had a stash of plastic weapons (no real guns allowed) hidden under the pine bushes and snacks concealed in a dead log out in the field behind our house. There were two teams, five kids each, hiding from one another, trying to steal snacks and weapons.
If you were shot or captured, you were marched, blindfolded with a red bandana tied around your head, to the Whitmores’ white wooden shed, where you sat on a plastic milk crate until you got so bored and hot you just walked out and started playing like you hadn’t even been captured in the first place.
Kyle and I were rounding the corner of Mrs. Shaw’s house when we spied Jamie and his friends playing basketball. Jamie had just gotten a brand-new Wilson basketball hoop and backboard that Uncle Dale had nailed up on the telephone pole that stood beside our driveway. Jamie was too old to play army. He played basketball instead. For the past year the only time I saw him without a ball or a pole-vaulting pole in his hand, he was either eating or in church.
Kyle and I decided to engage in a surprise attack. He would shoot off an impressive amount of popgun bangs from his silver pistols while I ran onto the court and streaked off with the ball. This shit made Jamie so
I stood by the guest book and greeted everyone along with Dave and Max. I was as much a part of the mortuary staff as I was Carl’s niece, and if I thought of myself as staff, I wouldn’t have to be a part of “them.”
My father stood beside the coffin all night. He wouldn’t leave Carl’s side and kept swiping his nose with a white hanky that had his own initials embroidered on it in navy stitching. He shook people’s hands and, for once, he wasn’t doing it for attention. He wanted to be there, next to his brother, whom he had taught to ride a bicycle and who had worn Dad’s shoes and pants long after Dad had outgrown them.
Then I saw Mammaw and Papaw. They came in through the back and were in terrible shape. As mean as Papaw was, he didn’t deserve this. Mammaw looked red-eyed and confused. They had lost a child. She couldn’t invent a salve for this kind of hurt.
When Dad saw his parents, he hurried over and set up chairs for each of them. He asked Mom to get them coffee. I was watching someone I didn’t know.
Even odder than seeing Dad as a loving brother and caring son was the image that hit me as I walked into the formal room (what I called the “body” room) of the mortuary. I was older now and didn’t need to be lifted up to see inside the casket. I glanced at Uncle Carl lying there, and from that angle, me standing at the foot of the coffin (a Batesville solid maple with beige crepe interior), Carl looked exactly like my dad. I hurried to find Jamie and made him stand in the exact same spot.
“He looks like Dad,” he said.
“ Exactly like him.”
I gave myself a few minutes to fantasize that it was Dad and felt surprisingly unhappy, even sad. Dad was violent, but I didn’t want him in a casket. I didn’t know what Jamie was hoping, but both his fists were clenched.
My big brother was too cool for me to hug, so I wrapped my sweaty fingers around his narrow wrist. We stood there a long time.
The next day we followed Kilner and Son’s black hearse through Elk Grove and onto Highway 64 for the slow ride through Galesburg and then up County Line Road to tiny Clover Hill Cemetery, where all the Petersons were buried. Seeing the hearse in front of us and all the cars pulling to the side of the road as we passed overwhelmed me with grief—for Carl and Aunt Evelyn, for Tim, Ben, and Paul, and for everything that constantly went wrong. I cried for the first time that year. I was afraid I might never stop.
Chapter Ten
During the first week of summer break between fifth and sixth grades, all the kids in Galesburg were out on their ten-speed bikes or playing softball behind the community building over by Granda’s.
The Whitmore kids and I were playing army. We had a stash of plastic weapons (no real guns allowed) hidden under the pine bushes and snacks concealed in a dead log out in the field behind our house. There were two teams, five kids each, hiding from one another, trying to steal snacks and weapons.
If you were shot or captured, you were marched, blindfolded with a red bandana tied around your head, to the Whitmores’ white wooden shed, where you sat on a plastic milk crate until you got so bored and hot you just walked out and started playing like you hadn’t even been captured in the first place.
Kyle and I were rounding the corner of Mrs. Shaw’s house when we spied Jamie and his friends playing basketball. Jamie had just gotten a brand-new Wilson basketball hoop and backboard that Uncle Dale had nailed up on the telephone pole that stood beside our driveway. Jamie was too old to play army. He played basketball instead. For the past year the only time I saw him without a ball or a pole-vaulting pole in his hand, he was either eating or in church.
Kyle and I decided to engage in a surprise attack. He would shoot off an impressive amount of popgun bangs from his silver pistols while I ran onto the court and streaked off with the ball. This shit made Jamie so
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