Birthright

Nora smacks me on the chest.

“I’ll say something if you really want me to.”

“No,” she says, “don’t. I’m sure you’d say something clever, and then the whole east side will start gossiping about how I was laughing at my own husband’s funeral.”

“Can’t have any gossip, can we?”

“They’ll talk anyway, you know. I saw the reporters outside the funeral home, taking pictures. I’m pretty sure that one guy got a shot of me.”

“They’ll blur them out before printing. I’m sure it will be a nice write-up about what a great guy he was and all. If they don’t, I’ll personally burn down the building. How’s that sound?”

“Like overkill. Seriously, Nataniele,” Nora says, her voice slightly calmer, “if you want to keep up pretenses, you need to learn to control that temper of yours.”

“What pretense am I supposed to keep up?”

“The pretense that you aren’t exactly like Pops.” She turns on her heel and stomps toward the parking lot.

“She’ll get over it,” Pops says. “Nora is trained to this life, and she knows the rules.”

“She never talked to you like this,” I grumble.

“Your mother did.”

“Nora isn’t my fucking wife; she’s my sister.”

“Still family.” Pops leans in closer. “If you had a fucking wife, maybe Nora would have someone else to bitch to instead of you. You gonna get that done?”

“I’m working on it,” I say with a sigh. “I told you that.”

“I don’t see her here.”

“She’s new to town, Pops, and we only just met. I’m not about to introduce her to this lot at the cemetery.”

“Maybe she isn’t the right one.”

“Jesus H. Christ, Pops! You’re the one who put a damn target on her before I even decided to talk to her!”

Pops glares at me, but I don’t back down. Father Brian’s voice calling from the doorway pulls me away from my father and to the car behind the hearse.

The ceremony at the gravesite is tedious. I keep telling myself it can’t last forever, but I begin to wonder. As Nora cries, Twos rubs her shoulder compassionately, whispering in her ear. I have no idea what she might be saying, but it does seem to calm Nora down a bit.

Father Brian stands stoically beside the casket, Bible in hand. The afternoon sun hits his mostly bald head, casting shadows around his lined face. He finishes his readings, we pray, and my sister walks slowly to the casket to retrieve a rose from the arrangement.

“Finally,” I mutter.

Family members hover around, waiting for me to give them leave, but I’m not about to do that until Nora is ready to go, and she’s still standing next to Jack-in-a-box. I press my lips together to keep from laughing at my internal joke and step away.

Twos places her hand on the casket, eyes closed, and Nora smiles at her. She reaches for Twos’ hand, and they take a few steps away, but Nora refuses to go far. Threes walks up to his sister, speaking quietly to her, and Antony stands nearby, head bowed. He’s much better at feigning grief than I am, clearly.

I stand off to the side in blissful solitude for only a moment before I feel a presence behind me. I glance over my shoulder and tense.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask in a low voice.

Janna Ramsay leans up against the tree next to me, arrayed in a long black dress and a veiled black hat. The heels of her shoes sink partway into the soft earth.

“Why, paying my respects, of course,” she says, unable to stop smiling. “I do appreciate it when you Orsos kill each other off.”

“You are not supposed to be here. Go back to the west, wicked witch, or I might have to drop a house on you.”