Chapter 2
Seven Years Ago
When she hit the age of sixty-five, Mary Helen drafted a plan for her own funeral.
“It’s not morbid at all,” she’d told her daughters, who were frankly aghast at the idea. “I’m doing this to save you girls a lot of time and trouble. I’ve got money set aside for it, and I’ve included a little extra, you know, for inflation.”
They were sitting at the counter at Clary’s, the neighborhood diner across the street from Dunagin’s Pharmacy, owned and operated by their uncle, Keith Dunagin, but mostly run, for the past thirty years, by his highly efficient sister-in-law Mary Helen.
Their chicken salads and iced teas had just arrived when Mary Helen whipped the file folder out of her purse and spread it out on the counter.
“Mama,” Therese protested. She’d blown into town for the weekend, from Florida, where she’d been cast in a small indie movie (or so she said). “Eew. We don’t want to talk about your funeral at lunch. Besides, you’re healthy as a horse.”
“Esther Culpepper was dancing up a storm at her granddaughter’s wedding, and then two months later she had a slight cough, and when they operated they found out she was eaten up with cancer, poor thing.
All they could do was sew her back up and call Fox and Weeks,” Mary Helen said, sketching the sign of the cross in the air.
“We just never know when our time will come.”
“Esther Culpepper smoked two packs of Marlboros a day her entire life, and besides, she was what when she died? Ninety?” Maeve said. “For once, I agree with Terri. Let’s just have a nice lunch and enjoy our time together.”
“I am enjoying myself,” Mary Helen said.
“It gives me peace of mind having everything set down in black-and-white. Now. First of all, the coffin. I’ve picked mine out: walnut, brass mounts.
Dignified but not showy. Burial, of course, beside your daddy at Bonaventure.
The coffin and plot are paid for, and Brian, at the mortuary, has everything in his file, and of course I have my file too. ”
Maeve and Therese rolled their eyes in unison.
“Next, the viewing,” Mary Helen said, tacitly ignoring her daughters.
“Night before, chapel at Fox and Weeks, family and close friends for rosary. For after, just some light refreshments, cookies and those little tea cakes from Gebharts, maybe some cheese straws and coffee and punch. If you girls want to have wine, I suppose that’s okay, but I am not paying for hard liquor for this.
Not after what went on at your uncle Joe’s wake. ”
Maeve’s mouth twitched as she tried to suppress a guffaw, knowing her mother was referring to Therese’s antics at their uncle’s funeral seven years earlier.
Mary Helen sipped her iced tea. “I’ve decided against doing anything graveside. Bonaventure is lovely, but if it’s summertime those gnats will chew you alive, and your aunt Fran can’t be expected to go tramping around a cemetery with her arthritis.”
“Thanks for that, at least,” Therese said.
“But what if you outlive Fran?” Maeve asked. “And you die in the winter?”
Their mother ignored both these comments.
“Okay, can we eat our lunch now and maybe talk about literally anything except your death wish?” Therese asked, forking into her chicken salad.
“Not yet. After the funeral, reception back at the house. Now, you know my sister Bernadette is going to want to run things…”
“Think positive, Mom. Maybe you’ll outlive her and Fran,” Maeve said.
Mary Helen shot her a dirty look. “If she’s still living, which I assume she will be, because you know how Bernie is, she always has to have the last word … she’ll want to bring one of her wretched pound cakes. Just tell her to bring the paper goods. And maybe some flowers from her garden.”
She handed them each a sheet of paper. “Now, don’t lose this. It’s got a list of who brings what.”
Maeve stared down at the paper. “You really expect us to call these women we hardly know and give them their assignments for your wake? That’s pretty nervy, Mama, even for you.”
“Nonsense. You won’t have to call them, because as soon as they get the news that I’m gone, they’ll be the ones calling you.”
Seven Years Later
By the time Mary Helen Dunagin’s funeral Mass was over and people were streaming into the social hall, everything was ready.
White cloths covered tables adorned with flower arrangements contributed by the altar guild, and long tables at the back of the room were completely covered with platters of funeral food, three-quarters of which were desserts.
Maeve stood in the receiving line, right beside Aunt Bernie and Aunt Fran, Uncle Keith, and assorted cousins, accepting condolences, hugs, cheek kisses, and back pats. Her face was numb from smiling. In fact, her entire body was numb.
She felt hollowed out, but not from grief. She’d grieved enough over the past fourteen months, as the dementia and then the cancer slowly erased the essence of the feisty, hilarious, larger-than-life Mary Helen Dunagin she’d known her whole life.
No, this was something else. Relief? Definitely. Her mother had loudly announced that she was ready to go to Jesus nearly every day for the past three months.
Restlessness. That was it. She’d put her own life on hold, taken leave from her job as a creative writing professor at Georgia Southern four months ago, when it became clear that her mother needed round-the-clock care.
She’d rented out her place and moved into the house on Blueberry Way to begin the long waiting game. Now what?
Therese sidled up behind her in the receiving line. “Why are we here?” she whispered.
Maeve turned to look at her sister, who was already glassy-eyed before noon. She wondered what Therese was on, and whether she would care to share whatever it was.
“Is that supposed to be an existential question?” she asked.
Therese nibbled at a cheese straw. “No. I mean, why are we having this shindig in the church social hall? I thought Mama specified it should be back at the house. Like, you know, with everything in the spreadsheet.”
Maeve’s stomach growled. She’d had nothing but a cup of weak coffee before Mass.
“You wouldn’t have to ask why we aren’t at the house if you’d bothered to drop in and check on Mom over the past year. The house is a shit show. I haven’t had time to get the hospice stuff cleared out.” Her whisper was hoarse enough that her cousins shot her a warning glance.
“Oh. Yeah, I guess I didn’t realize…” Her sister’s voice trailed off as she gazed around the room to find a way to change the subject. “Nice crowd, right? Mom would totally make sure we did a head count.”
“There’s a guest book on a lectern by the door,” Maeve said stiffly. “Feel free to do a body count if it makes you feel better.”
Therese was about to say something else when Aunt Fran approached, leaning on her walker.
“Fifteen more minutes here, girls, then we’ll head back to my house.
” She lowered her voice to a whisper and flashed a mischievous grin.
“And I promise you, I’ll have something more stout to drink than lukewarm coffee and watered-down punch. ”
Maeve was standing on the front porch at Fran’s house, sipping a glass of white Zinfandel so sweet it made her teeth ache.
She’d been at Frannie’s for an hour, but so far there was no sign of Therese, which was not a big surprise.
How like her to blow off this last family obligation.
In a way, Maeve envied her sister her ability to do just as she pleased, whenever she pleased.
She would have liked to ditch too, to get in her car and just drive away, back to her own tidy Midtown carriage house, to sleep in her own bed, finally, after all these soul-killing months taking care of her mother.
Soon, she promised herself. After she got Mary Helen’s house cleaned out and ready to sell.
After her tenant’s lease was up. In two more months.
At the end of June, she could move home again. Her home.
She dumped the last of the wine into the neatly trimmed shrubbery lining the porch and was about to go back inside and kiss her aunt goodnight when she saw a familiar car pull up to the curb in front of the house.
It was Mary Helen’s maroon 1988 Chrysler LeBaron—or LeBeast, as her daughters had christened it—a gas-guzzling land yacht that had been their mother’s pride and joy.
The car’s tires bumped over the granite curb, narrowly missing a crape myrtle.
A moment later, Therese stepped out of the driver’s side.
She paused a moment, took a long drag on a vape pen, and watched the smoke trail upward before she came loping across the grass toward the house, vape pen in hand.
She stopped at the bottom step and looked up at her sister frowning down at her from the porch.
“What?” Therese demanded. “What crime did I commit now?”
“Who told you it was okay to drive Mom’s car?” Maeve blurted. “Were you smoking in the Beast? You know how she felt about that.”
Therese shrugged. “I didn’t know I needed a permission slip to borrow my own mother’s car. And yeah, I was smoking in the Beast. Mom’s dead, Maeve. She won’t care, so get over yourself.”
She was on the top step of the porch now, shouldering past her sister.
“How did you get the car keys?” Maeve asked, feeling the rage, the stupid, irrational familiar rage boiling up inside her chest.
“I used my key at the house. And I found the keys to the Beast on the hook by the kitchen door, where she always kept them. Jesus, Maeve, what is your problem?”
Maeve started to say something but couldn’t find the words. “I just…”
“You just can’t deal with anything I do. If I exhale, or inhale, or inhabit the same space as you, it sends you into a tailspin. Right? Well, sorry, sis, but that’s on you, not me.”
“We need to talk,” Maeve said.
“So talk.”
“Not tonight. I’m wiped out. Come over in the morning, after breakfast.”
“Come over? From where? I’m staying at the house. Same as you.”
“You can’t,” Maeve blurted. “I already told you. The place is a mess. Mom turned your old room into her sewing room. There’s not even a bed in there.”
“Then I’ll sleep in the other twin bed in your old room. With you. Or on the sofa in the living room. I’m not picky. I mean, where did you think I was gonna stay?”
“I don’t know. A motel maybe, or at Aunt Bernie’s.”
“Hell to the no,” Therese said. “You know how I feel about cats. Anyway, why should I pay out money for a motel? It’s my house too. You’re staying there, so I’m staying there. I already dropped off my stuff. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”