Chapter 10 – Mindy
CHAPTER TEN
A weird phone number
Mindy
The rumble of the backhoe fades away, leaving me standing in front of the flower-covered mound of dirt. The winds of January are blustery, pressing a coldness into my bones that matches the temperature of my heart.
“I’m going to miss the way she said Walmark instead of Walmart,” Caroline says from beside me, drawing the first genuine smile that’s crossed my lips in a month.
“I’m going to miss the way she had to use her GPS just to get to the grocery store.”
“Which was only five blocks away,” Caroline adds with a soft laugh.
We’re silent for a few minutes, just standing in front of my mother’s grave, our arms linked together. The scent of carnations tickles my nostrils, cloying and sweet.
My voice sounds small when I finally speak again. “I’m going to miss her.”
“I know, Mindy. I am too,” Caroline sniffles. I lean my head onto her shoulder, and she tilts hers over to rest against mine. I feel her warmth, though I’m still cold inside. I’m not sure I’ll ever be warm again.
We’re still standing like that when Caroline’s boyfriend and parents approach. All the other mourners have already gone.
“Sweetie…” is all Erica Wright has to say before she has me in her warm embrace. It’s not one of my mother’s hugs, but it’s damn close, so I cling to her, feeling the tears return. I thought I’d depleted my supply the past few days, but apparently my tear ducts have restocked.
After a long hug, she passes me off to her husband, Phil, a barrel-chested blond man who always smells like Old Spice. He’s worn the same cologne since I met him when my mom and I moved to Galveston right after my own father died.
I was thirteen, and I met Caroline while we were moving boxes into our sweet little house not far from the Seawall. She bounded over, all gangly legs and braces, holding a plate of brownies her mother made for us.
After that day, one of us was always at the other’s house, easily falling into a friendship that we liked to call a sistership since neither of us had any actual siblings.
Phil went with me to buy my first car and showed me how to check the oil and tires, though it wasn’t unusual to walk outside and see him in our driveway with his head under the hood of my little Kia.
He’d stand and wave, calling out, “Heya, missy. Just making sure everything’s ticking along in here. ” God, I adore this big, sweet man.
Phil runs a hand down the back of my head and pats twice between my shoulder blades before releasing me. His eyes are suspiciously damp.
“Your mama was a good lady,” he says gruffly. “Beat the odds and held out longer than those doctors said she would.”
“Eight months,” I acknowledge with a weak smile hiding behind my tears. “Stubborn till the very end.”
Caroline’s boyfriend, Brayden, stuffs an honest-to-goodness linen handkerchief into my hand, and I use it to dash away the re-emerged tears.
“Thanks, Bray.”
His usually bright grin is dimmed today, merely a sorrowful half-crook of his lips. “Just doing my part for the environment since you and Caroline have gone through enough tissues to fill a landfill,” he says.
“We have been a little sobby,” I admit, matching his watery smile.
“Totally understandable. I’m going to walk Erica and Phil to their car, and then I’ll pull the truck down here to get you.” He quickly adds, “But take your time. No rush.”
“We’ll meet you at your mom’s house,” Erica assures me. “I’ll put a couple of those casseroles in the oven for any guests.” The neighborhood ladies had descended upon my mother’s house the past week, toting casseroles and cakes galore. They’ve all been amazing and so supportive.
I sniffle and nod. “Thank you. A few of my dad’s friends said they would stop by in a bit.” I’d been surprised when some of my father’s old colleagues arrived at the church earlier. I hadn’t seen them since Dad’s funeral over a decade ago.
“That shocked the hell out of me,” Phil gushes. “I admit I got a little tongue-tied when I met them.”
I pat his arm. “I understand, but they’re just regular people to me. I’ve known them since I was three.”
“Yeah, but to see them in person was—”
He’s cut off by his wife who takes his elbow. “Don’t get started again, honey. Let’s go make sure everything is set up at the house.”
Caroline and I watch as her parents head up the hill. Brayden walks to one side of Phil, not holding his arm but close enough he can catch him if he stumbles. Which he’s been doing more often lately since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease a couple years ago.
I clutch the handkerchief in my hand. “Brayden is such a good guy,” I note, and Caroline nods.
“He really is. He’s always showing up at their house to help out my dad.
And when Dad gets prickly and says he can do whatever he’s doing by himself, Bray tells him, ‘Yeah, but I want to be your son-in-law one day, so I’m trying to kiss up.
’ That makes Dad laugh, and he gives in and allows him to help. ”
“He’s there for Phil without undermining his dignity,” I muse. “If you don’t marry that man, I’ll disown you.”
“I thought all men were the devil,” she teases.
“I’ll make an exception for Brayden and your dad,” I return. “The rest of them suck though.” My mind flits to the guy who initiated my man-hating crusade, and my teeth grind together. I’ve been so busy with my mom the past eight months, I’ve rarely thought of Joe.
During daylight hours, anyway. Sometimes the jerk still haunts my dreams, and I wake up aroused and full of shame.
I wish I had some kind of magical remote control that would allow me to de-select certain dream topics.
Kind of like how you can tailor your preferences on Netflix to show you only the content you’d be interested in. A dream algorithm… that’s what I need.
I hear the rumble of Brayden’s truck and turn my head toward my best friend. “Would you mind if I have a few minutes alone?”
“Of course,” she says, kissing me on the cheek before heading to her boyfriend’s vehicle.
Brayden really is a nice guy. He and Caroline had met up with Mom and I during a few of our travel adventures, including the horse races in Kentucky. That was in October, and while Mom was doing better than I expected, she suddenly got tired after only being there for an hour.
Brayden had quietly slipped away and returned minutes later with a wheelchair for my mother. He’d spent the rest of the day wheeling her down to look at the horses and then back and forth to the betting windows. She’d been all smiles and called Brayden her chariot driver.
Her smile. Dammit to hell, I’m going to miss that smile.
I press the handkerchief to my mouth and turn back to the grave, shaking my head. “It’s hard to believe you’re down there,” I mumble.
A breeze catches in the few leaves still clinging to the sprawling live oak tree standing sentinel nearby, and it’s almost like Mom is talking to me through the wind. So I talk back.
“I hate this,” I croak. “I hate that you’re gone, but I’m so grateful you were able to keep going until last month. The time we got to spend together…”
My grief chokes me, and I look up at the sky, allowing the tears to fall unchallenged down my face.
They are signs of my sadness, but they also feel cleansing in a way, like tiny droplets of despair leaking out and falling away.
Finally, I inhale through my nose and look back down, focusing on a pretty spray of purple orchids.
“Thank you for fighting so hard, Mama. You’ll never know how much I’ll treasure every adventure we went on. Even though I lost my ass in Vegas and you came home with an extra three grand.”
I can almost hear her laughter on the gust of wind that drifts across my face and dries my tears into a fine crust on my cheeks.
“You think that’s funny, huh?” I ask, smiling down at her. “At least I did well at the horse races. I know it wasn’t the Kentucky Derby like you wanted, but that’s…” My lips roll in between my teeth and I work to collect myself.
“That’s in May, and you won’t be here in May.” My voice breaks a little, and I swallow hard. “I’ll go one day. It may be a while, but I’ll go for both of us and wear a big, fancy hat. I’ll eat a hot brown and drink mint juleps and think of you. I’ll do all the things you’ll never get to do.”
My eyes catch on a flash of purple, and my breath catches on an invisible hook in my throat.
It’s way too early for the appearance of butterflies, and yet a small purple one makes a single loop in front of my face and then flutters down to rest on the petal of an orchid.
Mama loved butterflies, and purple was her favorite color.
“I see you,” I whisper, looking down at the tiny veins on the wings of the insect. “I’m glad you’re at peace now and no longer in pain, though I miss you so damn much already.”
My fingers find Mama’s pearls around my neck, the ones she only wore for Easter, weddings, and funerals.
“I’ll be okay though,” I promise because I know that’s what she would want more than anything.
I’m not exactly solid on the actual logistics of the whole being okay thing, but I’m going to do my damnedest.
The butterfly rises and hovers for a few seconds before fluttering its delicate wings and flying off to the west, as if that’s what she was waiting for.
“I love you, Mama,” I say into the wind. “Tell Daddy I love him too.”
Then I wipe my face one more time and walk toward the truck.
Erica scrubs down the counter in my mother’s kitchen while Caroline and I cover pans of leftover food. It’s been five hours since the burial, and everyone has come and gone. Except for these beautiful people who are like a second family to me.
“Honey, why don’t you go sit down?” Erica chides for the fiftieth time.
I shoot her a smile. “I’d rather keep busy.”
She nods and moves on to cleaning the stove top that’s already sparkling. “What else can we do to help? I know the new family is moving in here in a couple weeks, so do you need help packing?”
My chest is bursting with gratefulness. “That would be great. I have a lot of it done already because Mama insisted on arranging the sale before… you know.” I can’t bring myself to say the words aloud.
Erica’s brown eyes are sympathetic and warm. “She told me. She wanted to get all her affairs in order as much as possible so you wouldn’t have so much to do.”
I tick through the list of things I need to get done to settle Mama’s estate.
She’d left everything to me in her will, so you’d think things would be fairly simple, but this is the thing no one tells you about death.
While you’re navigating your grief like scaling a scarily high mountain, someone is throwing rocks at you.
Probate. Packing. Lawyers. Going through all the deceased’s things and deciding what to keep, sell, or donate.
Pew. Pew. Pew. Like a multitude of projectiles coming right at you, one after another, threatening to knock you off your perch.
“I think I’ve decided to sell my car and keep Mama’s for myself,” I announce, clearing the cobwebs of sorrow from my throat. “She was so proud of it, and I just can’t bring myself to sell it.”
Caroline bumps me with her hip. “Not to mention, she bought it a couple months before her diagnosis, so it’s only a year old. And in way better shape than your old clunker.”
“Why are you so hard on Kendra the Kia?” I ask, a tease in my tone.
“Because it has literal rust spots on the hood, and you have to add water to the radiator at least every fifty miles.”
Before I can come back with a retort, Brayden and Phil enter the kitchen. “We put some WD-40 on the gate outside,” Phil says, brandishing the bright blue can like a weapon ready to conquer any metal objects that dare to need lubricating. “You got anything else that’s squeaking in here?”
“Pantry door,” Erica calls immediately. “Mindy’s decided to sell her car and keep Ciara’s. Do you know anyone, Phil?”
He hands his phone to his wife. “I got a guy. He’s got a used car lot in south Houston. Number’s in my phone under Reed.” Then he begins working on the pantry door hinge, looking at me over his shoulder with a wink. “He’s a good egg and won’t screw you over, hon.”
“Thank you,” I tell him appreciatively. “I don’t know what I’d do without all of you.”
“You’d have squeaky hinges and a rust bucket car,” Caroline pipes up, and I roll my eyes at her.
“Ah, here we are,” Erica says to Phil’s phone screen.
I pull out my own phone and make a new contact for Reed while she calls out the number. My eye catches on a name, and I frown.
“Who’s Remi?”
“Who?” Caroline questions, and I turn my phone for her to see the name I don’t recognize.
I shake my head. “Remi. I don’t think I know a Remi.” Flipping the screen back toward me, I click on the name, but there’s no other information. Only the name and number.
“Just text back New phone. Who dis?”
That draws a genuine laugh from me, but it’s short-lived. It seems wrong to laugh on a day like this.
“So do we know anyone by that name?”
“Uhhhh.” She rolls her eyes upward before snapping her fingers and pointing at me. “Wait, wasn’t he the dude we had to do that chemistry project with during junior year of high school?”
“The one who tried to sniff the Bunsen burner and singed his eyebrows?”
“Yes, he was so fu—stinking weird,” she says, flitting her eyes at her mom as she corrects herself.
“I thought his name was Remo, not Remi.”
“Huh. I think you’re right.” Caroline tilts her head to the side in thought. “Who was that girl in your culinary school who didn’t like chocolate? Wasn’t her name Remi?”
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “I think it was, but why do I have her number in my phone? I don’t think we ever spoke two words to each other.”
“With good reason,” my friend says vehemently. “I don’t trust anyone that doesn’t like chocolate. She’s obviously a psycho. Just delete it. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.”
My thumb hovers over the delete button, but something niggles in my brain, telling me it’s important for some reason. So I simply turn off the device and stuff it back into my pocket.
Weariness from the past month of my mother being in a hospice facility takes over, and I sway in place. Caroline grips my arm to steady me.
“Hey, it’s been a long day. Why don’t you try to get some rest?”
I nod. “I think I’ll stay here in my old room tonight.”
My friend’s lips curve up into a sad smile. “Want me to stay with you? We can have a sleepover like when we were kids.”
Tears fill my eyes. I don’t think I could even dream up a better friend than Caroline Wright.
“I’d love that. Thank you.”
And tomorrow I’ll try to find a way to navigate this life without my mother.