“Where are they?”
“With Mary Beth’s sister…Margaret…I’ve got to work out some kind of babysitting arrangement for after school.” He closed his eyes, and as if for the first time it occurred to him how much his wife had actually done for him, for his children. “It’s a fuckin’ nightmare,” he whispered, then, hearing himself, added, “Sorry…It’s still a shock.”
“I know.” The front doorbell rang and the rest of her brothers came into the house where their mother, thinking the family needed time to reach out to each other before the funeral, had convened them all. Maureen had hors d’oeuvres displayed on the breakfront in the dining room and on their father’s bar, which was still stocked with Irish whiskey and every other make of hard liquor.
They made small talk, drank and nibbled on tiny crab cakes, fruit skewered with toothpicks, vegetables and hot wings with ranch dip. Little smokies simmered in a Crock-Pot near a stack of corn chips drizzled with cheese. The television was turned on to the baseball game where the Giants were losing to the Mariners. Her brothers were clustered around the flickering images of men with bats and cleats and big wads of chaw in their cheeks.
To Shannon, the whole scene seemed surreal, as if somehow her mother was trying to make something normal out of the abnormal, trying to find a way of laying Mary Beth and her memory to rest. Before the funeral. Before the Flannery clan would have to face Mary Beth’s family at the service.
Well, it wasn’t working. Though no one acknowledged the fact, Mary Beth’s presence was more viable, more obvious than if she’d been alive. It was as if she were a ghost, listening in to the banal and inane topics of conversation.
All in all, the afternoon was trying. Conversation was strained, small talk favored over anything that might bring out tightly guarded emotions. Their mother alternately forced a fake smile or dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief.
Shannon quickly tired of telling her brothers that she was feeling better. Their concerned looks, gentle touches and soft-spoken inquiries only made the situation more uncomfortable. The injuries she’d barely felt this morning seemed somehow more pronounced. Her mother’s reference to the family curse was the worst, as bad as nails on a chalkboard. Shannon refused to comment, to be drawn into the conversation, and when Oliver said something about “thanking the Father for the family’s blessings,” she nearly gagged on a bite of overly salted crab cake. The headache she’d held at bay earlier came galloping back behind her eyes and, rather than get into an argument with any of her siblings or her mother, she retreated upstairs to the bathroom where Maureen kept her extensive selection of pills and remedies.
Shannon popped two coated aspirin dry, then sat on the edge of the bathtub, letting the breeze that slipped through the partially opened window cool the back of her neck. The house was hot. Stuffy. Beads of sweat prickled her skin and she lifted her hair off her neck in her fist.
She heard her brothers clamor onto the back porch. Lighters clicked and smoke drifted upward with the hushed conversation. As she had as a child, she blatantly eavesdropped. It was a habit she hadn’t broken, one created by exclusion, because her brothers, though always protective of her, had also kept her away from their inner circle.
Aaron’s voice was hushed, but she heard him say “birth order.” What the devil were they discussing?
Someone, it sounded like Shea, muttered something about Neville, but she couldn’t make it out.
Now she was really curious. She locked the bathroom door quietly, then stepped into the bathtub where she could look beneath the opaque panes to the crack that was open. Past the tattered screen she viewed the tops of two heads, black hair shining in the sunlight. Aaron and Shea, she thought, watching them smoke and converse in quiet tones near the grape arbor that offered a bit of shade from the sweltering sun. Hummingbirds flitted around the bird bath and bees droned in the garden lush with fuchsias, petunias, daisies and lavender.
So where were Robert and Oliver?
Under the porch overhang so they weren’t visible to her? With their mother in the house?
Excluded intentionally?
Why did she feel that there was something ominous in their gathering? They’d just stepped outside for cigarettes with their drinks and yet…
Rap. Rap. Rap.
Knuckles on the door.
Shannon nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Honey, are you all right?” Maureen asked, rattling the doorknob.
“Yeah.” She caught her breath, stilled her heart from the shock of nearly being discovered listening at the window. “I was just looking for some ibuprofen or Aleve.”
“In the medicine cabinet.”
“I found it.” Silently Shannon slid out of the tub and noticed that, thankfully, she’d left no footprints on the gleaming porcelain.
“Are you all right?”
“Just a headache, Mother.”
“I wish you’d go see that doctor again.”
“
I will. In a few days.”
Shannon flushed the toilet, then ran water in the sink. A few seconds later she opened the door to find her mother standing near the bureau, staring into the mirror and tucking a few wayward locks into her carefully arranged curls. “You sure you’re all right?” she asked, picking up a can of spray and shellacking her hair into place.