Chapter 68
Everywhere you look, someone is handling something. The Ruckers are putting the speakers back up, a woman I remember vaguely is ushering in a metric fuckton of flowers, Dusty is setting up Sterno burners beneath catering pans. Taylor Rae is stacking hot-pink programs with Babe’s face on them.
“Aren’t you worried about the rain?” I ask her, looking at the threatening sky and all the paper. It’s stopped raining, but it’s an awful green-gray out.
She laughs. “You think your mother would allow for anything but sunshine on the day of her funeral?” She makes a face like this is ridiculous.
Harrison and his brothers set up chairs on the beach. Boomer Rucker calls out my name.
“Hey, Ms. Didion?”
“Ms. Didion? Boomer, we’re the same age. I actually think I’m younger than you.”
“I know, I know, but it’s a funeral, so I … thought I’d show you a sign of respect?”
“Okay, well, never respect me again.”
“Of course.” He chugs down the steps and comes over. “I actually wanted to quickly get your approval on something? I made a playlist for Ms. Babe, but now I’m worried it’s … disrespectful. Speaking of respect.”
“Why are you asking me?”
“You seem like the grown-up of the group?”
I glance at the others, who hide their amusement, and then say, “Okay, let me see it.”
I skim through the playlist. “No Woman, No Cry,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel.”
“It’s batshit.” I hand the phone back. “She’d love it.”
We all try to do things, but come up empty, unsure how to help, and keep finding ourselves watching everyone else.
Gladys puts up a table of pictures. Of Babe. Of us.
When Gladys catches sight of our lost, wandering crew of four, plus Nora on Matt’s hip, she stomps over and puts her hands on her hips. “What on earth are you all doing? Go get ready, heaven’s sake, you look like you’ve been at a music festival for a month.”
We all go up at her insistence. Sammie and I go to Babe’s room.
I shower first, and as I soap myself with Babe’s sandalwood body wash, listening to Sammie chatter on the other side of the curtain, I cry.
I don’t make a sound. I don’t want her to know.
I’m not crying because I’m miserable. I’m crying because I’ve missed her, I’ve missed it here.
I’ve missed this. This. Whatever this is.
The words from Babe’s letter are ringing in my head like an old song I’ve only just heard for the first time—fresh to me, but locked in the past.
I do something then that I don’t usually do. I stick my weeping face out of the curtain and tell my sister I love her. That I’m sorry, again. She gives me a big wet hug, and then goes right back to her perch to carry on talking, which makes me laugh deeply.
I wash my hair and face and eventually stick my hand out and my sister hands me a towel. I climb out, leaving the water running, and she climbs in to replace me. Like we, once upon a time, always used to do.
I moisturize and brush out the knots in my hair, Sammie is talking about a girl she knew who got caught up with this multi-level marketing scheme, and even though it feels too normal for a supernatural weekend and too normal for a funeral, it also feels the way life always feels.
Like you never quite match up with what you’re supposed to be doing, and really it’s because there’s nothing you’re supposed to do.
We put on makeup, blow-dry our hair, taking it all in turns, and then we put on the black dresses we brought—which look hilariously similar. Conservative and girly, hitting just past the mid-thigh.
They look so similar that when we put them on, we hold hands and laugh looking in the mirror.
For the first time since we got them back, Sammie uses her phone to take a picture where we look like the twins from The Shining.
It closes the long gap since the last picture we took.
She bemoans her bangs, and then just as quickly decides she likes them.
I still haven’t turned my phone on. Cannot face the inevitable onslaught of messages from Baccarat. I might be ready to change my life (how, I’m not sure yet) but I’m not quite ready to face it just yet.
When we emerge back downstairs, we see that Taylor Rae was right. The clouds have parted, and blue sky shimmers above the scene. I look at Taylor Rae, who points up and winks at me.
My sister and I ask everyone if there’s anything we can do, and everyone says no.
They’re in the kitchen, the garage, they’re everywhere and it doesn’t feel remotely intrusive, though I recognize it could to someone else—maybe even me, before this weekend.
Instead, it feels nice. Like when someone you love takes a bite of food off your plate without asking.
It’s nice to be known and to … well, I guess to trust.
We find Matt and Austin and Nora, Birdie underfoot, playing with a bocce set on the front lawn, the white ball at the roots of the biggest live oak on the property.
“No one will let us do anything,” explains Austin.
“Us either,” I say.
“Want to play?” he asks. “Or do I really want to awaken the beast so early in the day?”
I squint at him and then take the red ball out of his hand. “You’re goin’ down, Killjoy.”
We pass twenty or so minutes under the low-hanging branches.
Someone somewhere turns on string lights.
I thought they were only in the back, but they’re here, too, sparkling in the shade.
I like that the house always has new things to discover.
Things Babe left behind. I bet there are millions.
From the freezer full of food to the lights and everything in between.
I’m just celebrating roundly beating everyone at bocce when the screen door yawns open and we turn to see the front porch. “Girls and boys, it’s time to come on in.”
Sammie takes Nora in her arms and walks up the steps with Matt. Austin pulls me gently by the arm to pause my following them.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
Seconds ago, I was absolutely fine, but the kindness of his question makes me immediately get tearful. I laugh and sniff them away, saying, “Guess I’m doing okay, if a little unpredictable?”
He gives me a small smile and then wipes the tear from under my eye and kisses me where it had been. “I’ve got you. We’ve got you.”
I step forward into him and let him hug me for a moment, shutting my eyes and taking a deep breath before facing it.
It’s all starting to feel real, after so many days of something that barely resembled reality.
It doesn’t look like a normal funeral. For one thing, most everyone is in bright colors.
The men who are usually in T-shirts and tank tops are in breezy button-downs, many of the women in sundresses and hats.
Respectably dressed up, but not for a somber affair.
I think the thing that makes it feel the most like the funeral that it is, is the quiet.
To quote Matt from our first night here, I’ve never seen this group of people quieter.
Gladys and Ms. Collie seem to be in charge of everything, so it’s Gladys who directs the boys as they try to get the casket out of the small den. I’m shocked they don’t ding the TV or knock off a single DVD or VHS tape from the shelves.
I relax a little once the casket is out of the house with all its angles and obstacles.
Sammie, Nora, and I follow behind as we start down the aisle, our bare feet sinking a little in the sand, already nearly dry from the storm earlier.
I take a deep breath. After this, it’s just a few more hours, and then whatever comes next … comes next.
We’re almost at the front, where a few hotel suitcase stands have been set up, and where a woman in elaborate but secular robes stands and waits. Flowers surround the scene, millions of white petals rippling gently in the wind. I can just smell them on the breeze …
And that’s when Boomer’s hand slips.
The casket clatters to the ground, the lid opening as it flips upside down, its contents falling out onto the sand.