It felt weird to introduce them. It felt like different parts of myself were meeting one another for the first time. The others seemed completely unphased by it and exchanged handshakes.
"Don't think it has escaped my notice that you haven't paid your respect to your daddy," my meema's voice said at my side, low and angry and disapproving.
"All do respect, ma'am," Dade started, surprising me, "don't think he owes that man anything." True, he had stood up for me as a kid, as a teen. But that had always been to the shits we went to school with, never our elders. We both knew better than that. I guess things changed when he grew up. Because no one, no one, talked to my grandmother that way.
"Dade Murphy!" she whisper-yelled at him. "How can you say such a thing? I saw you at your daddy's wake. You collapsed beside his casket."
I felt a knife twist inside at that information, knowing I hadn't been there for him. "Yes, ma'am, I did. But my daddy never broke my arm in two places," he said, his eyes daring her to contradict the fact.
And, of course, she tried. "He fell out of a tree!" she objected, reciting the story she made me tell the hospital when she brought me.
"Yeah? Then explain the finger-shaped bruises he had on his wrist when he showed up at my house after."
Fuck. This was going to get ugly if I didn't put a stop to it.
Despite the words feeling rancid on my tongue, I held up my hands at them. "It's fine. I'll go up," I said and shrugged at the head shake Dade was giving me.
"Want me to come with?" Alex asked, touching my arm.
"No, pumpkin, I got this," I said, turning away from the group and making my way down the aisle. Each step felt more and more weighted. It had been so long since I had seen him. His face had become blurred around the edges in my memory. I remembered him in strange, fragmented parts: his fisted hand around the neck of a handle of scotch, his bruised knuckles from hitting me, his belt, the hazy nothingness of his eyes that were the same color as mine, the way his hair would get greasy when he was on a bender. I forgot what he looked like as a whole picture. I took a deep breath and took the last step, resting my hand on the side of the casket and looking in.
The pieces fit back together, giving me the image of a man who had been the worst parts of my childhood. He looked older, wrinkles I didn't recognize by his eyes, graying at his temples, thinner without all the sugar from the booze. The makeup gave his skin an almost orange tint and his lips were an unnatural pinkish red. But it was my Pops alright.
I expected to maybe feel a punch of grief sucker me from the side. But it didn't happen. All I felt was a sort of resigned acceptance. That was the end of that. There would be no mending bridges, no reconciling, no nothing. It was over.
I moved to cross myself and something bright caught my eye, something tucked discreetly between his arm and body. Curious, I reached down and fished it out, pulling it up with a weird twist in my stomach. It was a snow globe. Not only was it a snow globe, but it was a snow globe from Maine. That was where Amelia was from. I didn't have to know it to know it. She put the most important snow globe there with my father, the one that held all her secrets, like maybe my father did as well. Fuck.
I tucked it back where she had put it, pulling his sleeve over it to hide it better, then turned. I had been watching for hours, waiting for her to show her face. But she hadn't shown. I was fucking sure of it. She hadn't been there.
I moved away from the casket, walking toward the back of the room where the funeral director was standing in his dull gray suit, his face a blank mask. "Was Amelia here?" I asked, not caring if people wanted to jaw-jab about my interest in her.
"Funny you ask that, son," he said, looking suddenly interested. "She came in here an hour before services and asked if she could pay her respects. That's not usually done, but you should have seen her..." he said, shaking his head almost sadly.
"Seen her?"
"Yeah. Eyes all puffy, tear-stained cheeks. I didn't think y'all would mind if she paid her respects in private. They were close, y'know."
"Yeah. No, sir, I don't mind at all. Excuse me."
Why would she have felt the need to show up early and beg for favors? Why wouldn't she come in and pay her respects like everyone else did?
I wondered those things, but mostly what I was really wondering but was pretending not to, was why she wouldn't want to let me help her through her grief.
Yeah I didn't want to think of that because it made no damn sense at all.
There had been a second (unnecessary) viewing after dinner and by the time I dragged my ass back to the apartment, I was too drained to go over to Amelia's like I had been planning to. There was no reason. I would see her bright and early at the funeral the next morning. I would talk to her then.--The church was packed ten minutes before the service was set to begin. I sat in the front row with my meema, trying not to roll my eyes every time she dabbed at her completely dry eyes. Behind me was Breaker, Alex, and Dade, all respectfully silent. I hadn't caught sight of Amelia, but I also hadn't made a show of craning my head over my shoulder to look around either. Father Sanders droned on endlessly, reading passages, addressing the congregation, talking about heaven and forgiveness while my grandmother made choking noises beside me.