23
My mom didn’t speak at the funeral.
Tennyson did, Maryanne did, and Vi did. And the preacher.
I wasn’t asked. Neither was Oliver. No surprises there, I suppose, just a nice, consistent continuation of the utter disregard extended to his youngest children publicly.
Cheers, Dad, you big jack-off.
It was open casket, which I wasn’t expecting. Isn’t that something they should tell us beforehand? I don’t know. Maybe they did. Maybe I wasn’t listening.
Or, equally likely, maybe they just didn’t tell me.
It’s a closure thing, open caskets. People tend to find an open casket expedites the feeling of closure. A visual example aligning with the thing your brain was telling you already.
Seeing him there in a navy suit, eyes closed, arms folded neatly over himself like he was about to go down a fancy waterslide—it didn’t give me closure; it undid me a little.
The last time I saw my dad was when he hugged me behind the lawyer’s office after I signed the documents for my inheritance from my grandfather’s estate. He gave me this quick hug that, I think—if I’m not sweetening the memory in retrospect—was this bizarre mix of sad and sorry, like he knew it was going to be the last time.
I don’t know why? Maybe because never in my life had my dad walked me to my car except for then. And it was right after I’d had a yelling match with Uncle Phil’s twatty son, Troy, about how I thought we should all divvy up our money so all five grandkids, Oliver included, were given equal shares, and Troy bucked the idea so hard. So did Maryanne. So did Tennyson.
And I yelled at them, and I cried in front of them, and I felt this chapter of my life closing because I hate this town and I hate the way people here fear difference, and so I signed what I needed to sign and I got the hell out of there.
“What are you going to do with it?” my dad asked, leaning against my car, blocking the door so I couldn’t get in without answering him first.
“I’m going to give him half of mine.”
Quick as lightning, and I’ll swear it till I die, though not a soul alive will believe me: a small smile flickered over my dad’s face, but then it was gone.
“It’s yours.” He nodded. “You do with it what you want.”
I didn’t know it’d be the last time I’d see him, but it was, so it’s funny that he hugged me like he did. He kind of just grabbed me, pulled me into him, squeezed me tight for three seconds, and then walked away.
And that was six years ago. Our last face-to-face interaction.
They sent me a Christmas present every year, and it was always really nice. Like, surprisingly nice. Cooler than you’d think they’d think to buy me. Last year it was a shoulder bag from Saint Laurent. The Loulou Puffer quilted shearling.
I loved it.
I’ve never used it because I hate it out of principle, but I loved it. Love it.
Hattie hates me for it. I have a closet full of bags and belts and scarves and whatever, and I never let her use them. Not because I’m a bad sharer; I let her use whatever else she wants. Just not those. Those stay frozen in time in their dust bags in the back of my closet.
Kind of the same place where my dad lives inside my heart.
I don’t know how I swung it, but I ended up seated with Sam Penny next to me on one side and Clay on the other. Truthfully, I can only really take it as empirical evidence that God has favorites and today I was his.
Sam was right—Oliver was weird. To be expected though, I suppose. He didn’t look at the coffin once. Also, I have a tiny suspicion that Oliver wasn’t too pleased that Sam’s seated in the middle of us.
On the car ride here, which was me, Tennyson, and Savannah (because Oliver all but pushed me past his car with Sam in the driver’s seat, and into theirs), I began to hypothesize possible ulterior reasons for Oliver’s behavior:
1) He’s been spending time with Maryanne.
2) The grief is hitting him harder than he cognitively recognizes.
3) He’s drinking again. Or is about to. [Oliver can become really quite mean (and controlling and manipulative) when he’s drinking or on the brink of it.]
4) He resents me.
Not because of Sam—I don’t think he knows about Sam—but Sam isn’t the only reason I think he might resent me… Growing up, I would have done anything for Oliver, anytime. I would have gone anywhere, dropped anything…and over time, the more he drank, the more he pissed away his inheritance and kept making bad decisions despite my begging him not to, and with the distance of London between us, it was easier to say no to him. And once I began to, it became easier and easier to keep doing it.
In person, it feels a little harder again. Maybe he’s just punishing me for the last few years? Maybe he’s angry because the last time I was in LA with him, he was so fucking plastered drunk when he drove to my hotel that I called the police and had them arrest him for a DUI so he’d be ordered by the court to go to rehab. That was about a year ago.
He was really angry at first. Really, really angry… And then it changed, shifted to sorrow and grief and guilt and remorse. I don’t know where he is right now in all that, and I probably should.
I never used to have to work to have Oliver tell me the truth, but I guess at the same time I was learning to draw lines in the sand, so was he. And so, it’s different now.
I zoned out completely and intentionally with Maryanne up there. The parts of her speech that I caught seemed tailored specifically to jab me. How close she and Dad became after something “really hard” happened when she was eighteen, how wonderful those years were, how much she loved being his daughter, and how she always felt loved by him.
Oliver glanced over at me, catching my eyes, his own heavy. He blinked that he was sorry.
Violet’s speech made me cry. For her, not for my dad. She lost her best friend. She lost her confidant. She lost someone who’s been there for her every day of her life, no matter what. And maybe I cry a little at the great disparity of it all.
When Tennyson got up, I felt nervous. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I see threads of me liking him more than I used to, and I don’t want him to be sad. And maybe I don’t want my reasons for liking him to lessen again, and I was worried they were about to. Nothing drives a wedge between siblings like unbridled favoritism.
“My dad was a really good man,” he opened with. “He was good at being a man. He loved fishing and hunting, and he swears up and down that he nearly played for the 49ers. He worked hard. Won hard. He knew money. He knew real estate. He knew cars. He’d tell anyone who’d listen to him that he was hung.” The room polite-laughed, and there were a few tut-tutters.
“He loved my mum.” He nodded. “So much. He loved his family. He was a faithful son to his parents and a staunch brother to Vi and Phil. And he wore so many hats, but the one I liked best was Dad.”
He smiled at the room and his eyes were teary, which made me teary. I don’t know why.
Sam Penny glanced at me, his mouth tugged in sadness. He leaned forward with a sigh, glancing over at Oliver, giving him a sorry smile, and very, very stealthily, blocking most of me from Oliver’s view, Sam placed his hand on my upper thigh and rubbed it slowly with his thumb.
It only lasted about three seconds before he rubbed his nose and did a sniff like maybe he had something up there, and then he leaned back in the pew like he hadn’t just set my heart on fire.
I glanced around to see if anyone saw, and I thought we were in the clear when Clay peeked at me out of the corner of his eye, smirking.
Our eyes caught—I was sprung, completely, totally, no-way-out-of-it sprung.
Then my uncle sniffed a laugh and threw his arm around me.