Kayla Sims
January 17, 2008

A FUNERAL AND A BEGINNING

My brother called me up for the first time in years- he didn’t bother with the formalities, he just said mom’s dying-- you need to get down here. It was a shock to hear his voice after all this time. I just sat there staring at the flowers, the ones that I hadn’t watered in a while and were slowly fading. I don’t know how long I sat there, but it must have been awhile, because by the time I moved the coffee was ice cold. I ended up using up a lot of minutes on a couple of calls. The first call was to the old family doctor to find out what was wrong, turned out it was advanced lung cancer. My girlfriend was next but I got the answering machine, so I just told her I’d be away for a while, that it was a death in the family, and that I’d have my phone if she needed me. My boss, who was fucking pissed because now he had to find another lawyer to handle my case for a while, and the client could be difficult, she was five foot three of pure blonde fury, well, she didn’t really want anyone else. She liked my style I guess. Then I called Delta-- they had a plane going into Georgia’s Cordele airport, which was about two hours east of the house, in about an hour and a half. I just picked up my copy of Cryptomicon by Neal Stephenson, my passport, a copy of my ticket and I got into the car hell-bent for the airport.

I ran into the airport, it was a Tuesday, so there weren’t too many people in there, thank God, because I only had forty-five minutes to make my plane. After takeoff, I called my brother, asked him if he’d pick me up. He said no, that he and his wife were out shopping, and I’d have to make it on my own. Asked him who was with mom, and he said that the neighbor should probably be there with her. I hung the phone up on him on that note. Apparently I still had that same quick temper with my brother that I’d always had, and I was quite sure no one on the plane wanted to hear about my damn problems with my brother.

See, my brother has always been selfish. Momma didn’t do much to help curb it, he was her darling angel, her obvious favorite. My little brother got just about everything he had ever wanted, and I didn’t. She never forgave me for being born. See, my momma was seventeen when she had me, and she had no idea who my father was. She’d nearly died in that back alley the night I was conceived. My grandparents being the devout Christians they were, they wouldn’t let her have an abortion, so she kept me.

About four years later, she met James, my brother’s father. Well, they fell in love right quick, and got married ‘bout a year later. William came a year after that. Will was everything momma wanted in a son, blonde haired, blue eyed, always listened to her, intelligent and a charmer. No matter what I did, I never could get momma’s approval. I was valedictorian, double varsity, and I still wasn’t enough. She couldn’t like me. Unlike everyone else I had black hair and green eyes-- a constant reminder that I didn’t fit in, and where I came from, wherever that was. I’m glad my grandparents named me, I’m quite sure that she would have picked something quite a bit more odious than Hunter.

Momma didn’t like me. She saw raising me as a chore, and a necessary evil, and she made damn sure I understood that. I spent a lot of time up on the top of the stairs, looking down on Momma, James, and Will, and looking at the perfect family that they made. The one that I wasn’t a part of. I did it from the time that I was five, to the time that I left home. As many times as I did that, James was the only one that ever noticed. It almost became my thinking spot. There’s a deep groove in the floor where I used to rub my foot back and forth.

Huh, I must have really been lost in thought, the plane has landed already. This one’s a small airport, and it isn’t that well kept. The flowers out front are withering away, turning into a sickly color that preludes the brown, almost before my eyes in this humid heat. There’s an auto shop down the street that rents cars out, and hopefully they have one that could take me to momma’s and back.

The place is called Johnny Lee’s Garage. I’d almost forgotten the lovely southern propensity for giving people two first names. Johnny Lee himself was pretty jovial, enough to be the redneck Santa hauling around bb guns in a big sack. He managed to haul me into a twenty minute conversation, at the end of which I had finally acquired a battered dark blue ‘94 Ford pickup, a brutal reminder of how people could talk about absolutely nothing for hours, and had a promise to return the truck extracted from me. Thankfully, no matter how dinged up the truck looked, the engine was running smoothly.

I managed to get there ‘bout two hours before sundown. The place was a two-story Victorian plus attic with a wrap-around porch, sitting on a six acre plot of land. William and James were out on the front porch, chatting. William’s wife was no doubt puttering around with her new purchases somewhere upstairs and probably making a mental catalogue of what would be hers when momma died. I asked them where momma was. James was the only one to grace me with an acknowledgement; he gave me a small sad smile and told me she was upstairs. I opened the front door, and walked in. The place looked the same as it did when I left when I was seventeen. Same old dining room table, only it was a little bit more battered with age, and it didn’t gleam like it once did. Her kitchen was as neat as it ever was, and the TV room, well, it still had momma’s touch, even if it was mostly James’ room. It was time to go upstairs.

My room had long since been changed into a storage room, guess that meant I’d be sleeping on the couch. My brother’s was still as pristine as it was when he left, I assume. Momma never did change anything when it came to Will. At the end of the hall was mommas’ room, I had to stop in front of that door, it would be the first I’d seen of momma in years, and I had to admit, it was much sooner than I’d rather.

“Hey, momma,” it had been a while since I’d talked to her, longer than I’d talked to my brother. The last time being the day I walked out of the door for the last time.

“Don’t just stand in the door gawping. Come in and shut it, you’re letting the heat out.” God bless her, not even cancer could keep her words from being sharp around me. Now we were on familiar ground. I knew how to handle this, it had two parts- sit down, and shut up.

“I have no idea why on earth your brother sent for you, you should have come on your own.” I would have if I had known, but nobody bothered to tell me.

“I suppose you were too busy with that insipid law firm of yours to bother.” Probably was busy, but my boss owes me over five weeks of vacation time. It wouldn’t have taken much arm twisting to get time off for this. And it’s not insipid.

“Have you managed to find yourself a girl?” I couldn’t help but smile at this, she thought I was hopeless in the girl department, just because my brother had already married, and I hadn’t.

“Yes, momma, I have.”

“She’s not one of those girls that you used to date is she?” She meant the kind that knew how to have fun. Always did assume that meant loose, but it hadn’t, not at all.

“No momma. She owns her own restaurant.”

“Hmph. One of those dives you used to go to when you were younger?” Now I had to try and keep from laughing.

“No momma. She owns Tiran.” Momma would be duly impressed, the reviews were damn good, and they knew about it, even down here in this godforsaken backwards place. No wonder, it was five star. There wasn’t gonna be much that she would say. It had some damn good food too. It was how I’d met Cass.

“Mmm. I’ve heard it’s good.” Momma never could critique a person that could cook. I’d heard from Bobby that his momma had gone to the place when she’d gone up to my city, and she’d told everyone about Tiran. She’d change the subject now…

“Now why haven’t you bothered to come up here earlier?” … Bingo. Now comes the guilt trip.

“I haven’t had the time.”

“Hmph. Go away, I’m tired.” And there was my dismissal.

Later that night, we had dinner, which was a silent affair on my part. My brother had the proverbial talking stick throughout the entire dinner. I spent most of that time trying to keep a smile on my face that looked halfway real. It was actually kind of difficult, even though I’ve had a damn lot of practice in the courtroom. There were times I just wanted to scream “He’s GUILTY, he’s GUILTY!” at the judge, but then if I did that, I wouldn’t have any more clients. After the torture that most people liked to call dinner I’d settled down on the couch and started watching the news before I went to sleep. I woke suddenly at four fifteen in the morning. Looked out the window, saw the flowers momma used to take painstaking care of were dead.

“She’s dead. Are you gonna stay for the funeral?” I looked up startled. It was James, he was always pretty blunt. I had never gotten used to how he could just walk down the hallway and never be heard.

I looked at my brother-- he had a sleepy smirk on his face, he was on the stairs, having been roused out of bed moments earlier. It usually meant he’d won again.

“Then the will’s being read afterwards, you coming?” He still had that smile on his face. I don’t think there’s anything for me in that will. Not with the way he’s looking at me.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Besides, I was far past ready to go. I had sworn when I was younger that I would never come back to this place. I had happily left, never looking back, and never intending to step within fifteen miles of the place ever again.

“Please, it would mean a lot to me.” I glanced back over at James, who was leaning heavily on the frame and had a pleading look on his face. He’d never asked for much from me. Well, nothing that I hadn’t planned on doing in the first place. I didn’t know why he asked, honestly. He knew momma didn’t like me, I had heard the one sided conversations momma had had with James more than once.

I looked back outside. I wanted to get home to Cass as soon as possible, and maybe get some fresh cut flowers on the way back, maybe pink roses. She’d like them, it had been a while since I’d surprised her with anything anyways. I wasn’t going to though. I was going to play the dutiful, yet ignored son, one last time. Then I could finally leave my past behind, and let go.

*****

The reading of the will was set to be an hour after we managed to kick everyone out after the funeral. The room was liberally decorated with flowers, all ones that momma had once planted. Some of them were crumpled, and others were blooming beautifully, and there were honestly way too many of them. Right now however, the social dynamics at the funeral were amusing me. The room was split exactly down the middle. Half were mourning momma’s death and going on about how she’d be missed. The other half however looked like they were itching to pull out the whiskey and moonshine and have a party right there. Most of them had already checked the casket, as if to assure themselves she really was dead. I’m assuming they were satisfied because they all came away with a little gleam in their eye that was not due to unshed tears.  

I was personally stuck in the middle, navigating that obvious line between the two groups. I have to say, I’ve never been so thankful for my lawyer’s training as in those two hours. It’s damn near impossible to keep two groups with vastly different opinions on one person happy with you at one time. I managed it though, for two hours. Then I retreated to the refreshment table, where I started downing wine like it was like they were shots of bad whiskey. Then I heard a murmur in the crowd, on both sides of the room. I looked in the direction that everyone else was, the door-- which contained the figure of a five foot seven in heels redhead with grey almost silver eyes, and a black dress with a modest neckline that complimented her curves beautifully. The woman in the doorway was also known as my girlfriend, Cassandria.

I just stood there by the refreshment table with a grin on my face that probably did not belong anywhere near a funeral. I watched her gaze pass along the people crowded into the room, then it stopped on me. She started smiling that slow smile that always reminded me why I loved her. She started walking over to me, and I swear, that grin almost cracked my face.

“Hi, honey. It looks like there are a lot of people here to see your mother one last time.” Her eyes were sparkling with mischief. It was right about then I remembered to stop grinning before I looked like the besotted fool that I was. I glanced around to see who had noticed. My brother’s wife had put a death grip on his arm and was nervously fidgeting with her hair. I tried not to snort, she couldn’t even begin to compare to Cass, and I wasn’t just saying that because she hadn’t the sense to stay away from my brother.

“Hi. How’d you get here?”

“I took a flight out, how else?” I started glaring at her then, she knew I meant how’d she find this place. She just gave a little smile then, “I called up the phone company and had them activate the locator in your phone. I may have acted hysterical and said that I was your wife and you’d been missing for a couple days. Then I had Jake locate all the Caldwells within a forty mile radius. So here I am.”

 I had started shaking my head in the middle of her explanation, it sounded just like Cass with nothing better to do. “What, Tiran not keeping you busy enough?”

“No. Well, I handed it off to Jake and Megan, I got worried when you called and said someone had kicked the bucket.” There were gasps off to the left, and muted snickers off on the right. I glanced up, I had almost forgotten about everyone else. I looked back down at her, and shook my head. It didn’t matter anyways, Cass would just continue to be the way that she was.

A couple hours later, the funeral and the social gathering afterwards was done, and Cass was at my side when they started reading the will. Momma had left the house to James, which would then pass on to Will when James died. It wouldn’t be long, James wouldn’t be able to function without Momma there everyday. Will got just about everything else of momma’s. Will’s wife literally had cash signs in her eyes and a “cha-ching!” was heard above her head when she realized that included momma’s very extensive jewelry collection. I was left with nothing, like I expected. I experienced a soft pang, which faded when Cass just gave me a small kiss and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, just to let her know that I’d be alright.

Five minutes later we were out in the sunshine, and Cass and I would be heading home in the truck as soon as I got my stuff out of Momma’s house. I spotted an azalea bush growing wild, and I picked a couple for her. They were her favorite, and they were beautiful this time of year. She gave me a delighted grin.

“I honestly thought you wouldn’t get the hint, and I’d still be getting all those roses you keep sending me.”

“How about we stop somewhere and we’ll get a bunch of azalea seeds at a florist somewhere? We’ll plant them, and then you get to see them everyday.” As I watched her laugh, pleased with me, I knew that I could finally leave the past behind, and start something new- starting with her. I’d have to get the diamond sometime soon, I wasn’t going to let her go.