“Oh shit, I forgot,” he breathed. “It’s okay.”
Turning in his lap, Adrianna looked into his sad eyes, her heart breaking a little more. “Maybe I can call them and reschedule for later in the week.”
“No,” Jack insisted. “You can’t do that, you know it wouldn’t look good and this is important.”
Adrianna thought for a while and then said, “I’ll come down Monday after the interview. I’ll take a train or a bus.”
“It’s a three hour drive, Ade,” he sighed, shaking his head. “That means it could take up to five on a train or bus, I don’t want you to have to do that.”
“Then I’ll rent a car and drive myself,” Adrianna insisted.
“No, it’s okay.”
“Jack, I want to be there for you! Please, let me do this,” she begged. After all he had done for her she at least wanted to help him on the day he was going to bury his father.
Seeing her distress, Jack smoothed his fingers over the wrinkles in her forehead and relented. “Okay.”
They ate their breakfast in silence; the both of them too lost in their own thoughts to carry on a conversation.
Jack sat uncomfortably in his navy suit and stared at the mahogany casket that contained the remains of his father. Even though he knew he was dead, he stared at his chest, waiting for it to rise and fall with a breath. Looking at a body, lying so still and pale, was unnerving no matter who it was, but being that it was Jack’s father disturbed him all the more. He had been upset when he learned his sister had chosen to have an open casket; he wanted to remember his father as strong and lively. Now when he closed his eyes and thought of his dad he would picture the waxy looking shell of a broken man.
When he arrived at his father’s house in his hometown just outside of Springfield, Jack’s sister regarded him coolly, reminding him of a Stepford wife. Her hair that was much lighter than his was twisted up on the back of her head and even though they weren’t going anywhere, she was dressed in a pink skirt and white blouse. She had flown in from Wisconsin alone, choosing to leave her two daughters at home with their father. When Jack asked her why, she had said there was no point in bringing his nieces or brother-in-law to the funeral of a man they barely even knew. She was going to fly home to them Wednesday morning.
Jack was comforted by his mother, who was also at his father’s house with her live-in boyfriend Denny. She was really the one who needed comforting though, crying on her son’s shoulder and apologizing to him.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” she had wept, tears falling from eyes as blue as Jack’s. “I begged your father for years to get help, you know that, don’t you?”
“I know, Mom,” Jack had murmured, rubbing his mother’s back soothingly. “We all tried to help him.”
He sat in the front row of wooden, padded chairs reserved for the family of the deceased while his mother held onto his hand and kept wiping at her eyes. For the last hour and a half, friends and relatives passed by them to offer condolences, while Gillian stood at the casket greeting the mourners. Seeing her there in her black dress and pearls as she smiled sadly at the kind words being spoken to her, Jack wanted to punch his sister in the face. How was he related to anyone so phony?
Looking at his watch, he saw there was another half hour left of the viewing and then another hour before Adrianna was due to arrive at his father’s house. Man, he really wanted to see her. He had missed her since leaving Saturday afternoon and even though he knew it was a bother for her to rent a car and drive all the way down there, he was glad she was doing it.
Finally, after what felt like forever, Jack sat down at the old patio set on the deck behind his father’s house. He had shed his jacket in the living room and now loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top buttons of his white shirt, feeling like he was now able to take a breath for the first time that day. Leaning back in his chair and relaxing a fraction, he took a sip of beer and was glad for some alone time before Adrianna was due to arrive. Watching the setting sun disappear behind the line of trees, Jack finally felt a semblance of calm for the first time in three days. The feeling didn’t last long, however, because Gillian joined him just a few minutes later.