Welcome to Hell: Rediscovering First Love

“You got that right,” I said smiling at my newborn son. Grateful he was healthy.

Yancy was back in bed with morphine drip running through her veins once again. Resting comfortably I was told. Brad stood on the porch with Adin one arm around her shoulder. Standing on the porch with them, one step below was Pop with an expression on his face I couldn’t read. He waved to me as they shut the doors. I thought he looked sad. I smiled and waved at him clutching my son to my chest.

#

The baby and I were admitted to the hospital to stay for twenty-four hours. Kerry and Keegan were with me at the hospital enjoying our newest addition. There were three happy people fussing and cooing over our tiny baby. We were feeling very lucky. We had a story to tell him when he was older about how daddy delivered him in the back of his aunt’s car.

In my arms was my beautiful son perfect and healthy. My little kicker. We were discussing a name when the door to my private room opened. Glancing up I saw in my sister’s eyes the news she had to share with me before she even said the words. With the joy of my son’s birth was the intense pain of my mother’s death.

“No,” I cried out startling the baby in my arms. His wail outdid mine.

Kerry rose from his chair at my bedside and sat close to me on the hospital bed. He wrapped his arms around me giving me his comfort and strength. I could hear Keegan’s soft cry through my haze of pain. Adin walked into the room and touched her shoulder giving it a squeeze comfortingly.

“She died at nine,” Adin told me in tears that streamed down her face. “She was so peaceful Gabrielle.”

“Once Pop had her upstairs she told him Goodbye. She said she was done. She had been waiting to see the baby and now she could go.”

That explained his pained, sad expression. I buried myself in Kerry’s neck and sobbed. Adin took the baby from me and when my hands fell away. When they were free I latched onto his shirtfront and held on tight while the sobs wracked my body. She had only been waiting for my baby’s birth. She had told me so.

#

Walking up the front steps to Yancy’s house I dreaded going inside to the emptiness that I knew existed now that Yancy was gone. The spark that was her that filled this house with life was put out by her death. Lingering on the porch Kerry and Keegan were by my side and my son was in my arms. We had named him Samuel Jack Kerry McCoy. Samuel was Yancy’s father and Jack was after my dad and Kerry was obvious. I grasped Sam’s tiny finger as if the baby could give me the support and strength that I needed to face the grief of my mother’s death.

Sam’s little light blue one-piece outfit had a sailboat on the front. His feet were covered in bootie socks and a blanket was wrapped loosely around him. The day was warm and sunny. The sky a clear blue and cloudless. I glanced from Sam to Kerry to Keegan unable to take the last few steps to the door of my mother’s house. The baby wiggled in my arms drawing my attention back to him. I have to do this I told him silently.

Keegan opened the front door and held the screen door open for me. “Go ahead Mom,” she said urging me to make the final movements into my mother’s home.

In the foyer I glanced up at the balconies that led to my mother’s room. Taking a deep breath I handed the baby to Keegan. I started for the staircase when Kerry asked if he should go with me.

“No,” I replied. “I want to do this myself.”

Outside my mother’s bedroom door I leaned against the solid oak wood and closed my eyes hoping against hope that she would be inside when I opened the door. Taking a deep breath I opened her door and stepped inside. Brad and Adin had taken out the hospital bed and had placed my parent’s bed exactly where it had been before. Although I had been told Pop had not slept here since Yancy’s death. I could smell her in the room, her cologne; her shampoo whatever it was that reminded me of Yancy was there.

Overwhelmed I walked to her chair and sat down heavily. Just a few weeks before, I had sat here with her and she had held me in her arms as she had when I was a child. She’s gone, I told myself. She’s really gone. How could she leave without even saying goodbye?

Chapter Twenty-One

My sisters and I sent invitations to a party to celebrate the life of Yancy Dawson just as she had requested. The town of Hell probably thought we were looney but hey we were the Dawsons after all. They should be used to us by now. Even we thought it was a crazy idea but agreed she would haunt our asses if we didn’t follow her wishes. Pop wanted no part of it. I didn’t know who was worse Pop or myself following Yancy’s death.

Adin and Brad had returned to their home just blocks away from Yancy’s house. Keegan, Kerry and I were alone in the old Victorian with Pop the morning of the funeral. The private service was planned just like she wanted. The three of us were showered and getting dressed waiting for Pop to get dressed. Bone crushing dread filled me at going to the graveside service for my mother even more at having people over to celebrate tonight. I most definitely did not feel like having a celebration.

Keegan had gone to the funeral home to say goodbye to Yancy. Her personal feelings were that she couldn’t accept her grandmother’s death without seeing her one last time. I on the other hand had refused to see her in death preferring to remember her alive, full of life and piss and vinegar. That is what my grandfather had always said about his only daughter. She was full of life and piss and vinegar. It was funny the things that I remembered about her now that she was gone, the funny stories, her corny sayings, just Yancy being Yancy. A meddling, over bearing, nutcase but god I loved her. My breathing felt constricted in my chest by the grief.

I was seated at the old dressing table with a large oval mirror painted and repainted over the years to maintain its beauty. The stool I sat on, the fabric seat worn and familiar. I was in my room when Keegan came to find me. She was dressed in a simple black tank dress that flowed about her slender ankles. She wore laced sandals and a long hanging straight strand of pearls about her neck. Her hair was growing long. She had the front pieces tucked behind her ears and the ends just touched her shoulders. She had become a young poised woman to my surprise.

“Mom, are you doing okay?” She asked with concern.

“I just can’t believe she’s gone,” I told her sadly while putting on my make-up.

“Lucy is here to watch Sam,” Keegan said. “Maybe you would have an easier time if you saw her. We could go to the funeral home early,” Keegan suggested.

I shook my head no with my hand poised at eye level ready to apply mascara. “I can’t,” I told Keegan. “I just can’t do it.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and watched me finish my make-up. “You look good Mom,” she said finally breaking the silence between us.

“Thank you…” I was puzzled looking into the mirror behind me where she sat.

I applied my lipstick, a pale peach color that was glossy. Then lifted my double strand pearls to my neck where I struggled with the clasp. Keegan rose and came to stand behind me.