Eulogy

The simultaneous death of his parents came as no uncertain surprise, elicited no particular outburst of emotion, demanded no immediate action save a brief phone call to his sister to inquire about funeral arrangements and expenses. Margot was distraught, unable to blubber more than four words before somersaulting into an onslaught of unintelligible sobs, moans, and lamentations. Unable to console, let alone understand his sister’s broken, tumultuous rain of bitter anguish, he said he needed to place some urgent phone calls, and that if she needed to reach him, email would be the most convenient method. He promptly hung up, phoned his brother-in-law, to whom he outlined explicit instructions on how to proceed, how to calm and stabilize Margot, and turned off his phone. With a deep, contemplative sigh, the man leaned back in the leather seated wood chair of the café and nibbled idly at his salad in comfortable silence. None of the patrons stirred, or paid the man in the corner any mind, besides a middle aged woman who leered rather menacingly at the brief disturbance of a man speaking to no present person. She quickly turned away, perturbed by the man’s indifference to her scowl, and in the dimly lit café, nothing was changed.

Three days later the man boarded a plane bound for San Francisco International where his brother-in-law was to pick him up. His sister assured him she was more than willing to retrieve him herself, but the man insisted her time would be better spent finishing the last preparations for the funeral. Really, he knew he couldn’t stomach listening to her current hysterics for the hour and a half car ride. Her husband was more level headed than she, and wouldn’t immediately overwhelm the man with a flurry of emotional outbursts.

The stewardess approached, accompanied by a toasted ham and turkey panino with light heirloom tomatoes and crisp green lettuce on a focaccia roll, an old fashioned, and a slice of coffee cake. The man with the window seat and no neighbors on an otherwise packed plane pulled a thick book with red binding from his carry-on luggage, thumbed to a dog-eared page near the back cover of the book, cleared his throat, and took a bite of his sandwich. His eyes stayed fixed to the yellow fringed leaves of the novel during pre-flight checks and takeoff. Upon ascension, the man moved only his eyes to look out the window. The Chicago skyline was an ominous ghost, looming, dark, mysterious in the thick gray clouds and fog that swallowed the city. The opaque specter faded, faded into oblivion, to dust. A page turned, the man resumed reading. Two hours later, he checked his email, and went to sleep.

He slept. But he didn’t really sleep. He slept the sleep where one knows he is asleep, and remains lucid in the dream. It was not like being asleep at all. He sat with himself in the dark void of his mind, where there was no up, no down, no forward or backward, no roof, walls, or floor. He sat in the center of the abysmal hollow and looked at himself, as in a mirror. No thoughts, no distractions, no interruptions, no fear, regret, or temptation. He looked into his own eyes. They were aglow with blue flame, burning, burning from within. He opened his mouth and breathed. Out poured fluid fire and smoke, the same as his eyes which now flickered brightly, playfully. The man extended his arm, spread his fingertips to be licked by the flame. Some external force shook the void and the man disappeared in a thick wisp of dust and glowing blue ash. The dream, the void, collapsed.

The plane had landed. A bright terminal waited outside the small window behind the smooth curved wing. The man stood, collected his carry-on, nodded to the pilot and stewardesses as he departed, and set off for baggage claim.

Mountains of suitcases and duffel bags sailed round and round the carousel. A thin, lanky woman with rampantly curly gray hair found her luggage caught on the metal rim of the carousel and struggled to free it. The man hefted her bag for her and relinquished his own smaller duffel lodged beneath. He nodded quietly in reply to her gratitude, shouldered the strap of his bag, and briskly exited through the large glass doors to the car corral outside the airport. A message displayed on his phone’s screen informed him his brother-in-law would be circling around to retrieve him in three minutes. He struck a match and puffed idly at his pipe. Three minutes later a sleek black Honda Civic with his brother’s-in-law license plate flashed its brights. The man waved, opened the trunk and set down his bags, then settled himself into the passenger’s seat.

“It’s good to see you again, though I’m sorry this reunion has to be under such circumstances,” said his brother-in-law.

“Likewise. How is Margot?”

“Still a mess; better than she was. She’s excited to see you, you know. You don’t call as often as she’d like.”

“Goes both ways. Besides, it’s been a busy year ‘round the office.”

“Hey, no need to get so sentimental,” said his sister’s husband. “You’ll make us both sick.”

They shared a laugh before settling into reserved silence. After a few moments, his brother-in-law sighed, keeping his eyes on the road, knuckles white around the steering wheel.

“You know . . .” Margot’s husband hesitated. “I understand your position, to an extent, as does Margot. She really does love you. You really should call her every so often. Especially after all of this. I may be her husband, but blood is thicker than water, you know. Sometimes, she just really needs her brother. And maybe you need your sister, too.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” At this, Margot’s husband lost his casual, relaxed temperament and his voice elevated. “You are her brother! God damn it! It isn’t fair to her!” His voice shook and cracked, he pursed his lips. In the face of the man’s stoic, silent response, he continued with a voice of stone, “You are a selfish son of a bitch; you know that, right?”

Without looking away from the window, the man growled in a solid, gravelly voice, “I know.”

Silent, palpable tension so intense you could reach out and touch it with your bare fingertips pressed the car. Margot’s husband looked at his wife’s brother and saw his tired, watery eyes. The man’s hands trembled, and he drummed his fingertips on his knees in an attempt to conceal this. Realizing he may have stepped beyond his boundaries, Margot’s husband reconciled.

“Look, I apologize. That wasn’t my place to say.”

“Don’t apologize,” The main said calmly to conceal his own emotion. “You are right.”

“It’s just . . .” His brother-in-law paused, reflecting, choosing his next words carefully. “You don’t have to see her every day, every time you kiss her and tell her you love her, constantly reassuring her that she can trust you and love you back, that you’ll stay with her. Every day of my life, I have to see this broken soul, with whom I’ve fallen into deep, heartbreaking love, stare through me as if I wasn’t there.”

“I’m sorry. Truly. I’m sorry. I was seventeen. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You should be sorry. But I won’t accept your sympathy. I can’t.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

With that, the two men sat without words, listening to the wind roar around the automobile until Margot’s husband turned on the radio and tuned it to a static-ridden jazz station.

“Todd started third grade last month,” Margot’s husband broke the thirty-minute silence. “They’re already teaching the kids cursive. He’s picking it up well.”

“He always was a smart kid,” the man replied with a smile.

“He’s going places, that kid,” remarked Margot’s husband. “He’s got my looks and Margot’s brains. He’s set for life.”

They chuckled.

After another moment of silence, the man’s brother-in-law asked, “Have you written the eulogy?”

“No,” replied the man.

“Okay,” he said, and took the exit toward the town where he and Margot and their son lived.

Margot had somehow miraculously managed to maintain her home to the point of spotless perfection, in spite her apparent lack of emotional self-control. This was likely accomplished by dint of a necessity for preoccupation. The man idly slid his fingertips along the smooth shelf, atop which was displayed a charming portrait of his sister’s family. They were smiling not at the camera, but at each other, all lying on their stomachs with their heads propped up on their fists. An autumnal tree line overlooking the grassy clearing of the photo shoot informed the man this was the very same park their family sometimes visited when they were kids. Their parents insisted on a family photo shoot every visit. The man withdrew his fingertip from the shelf top. Spotless.

For her own part, Margot was able to effectively coordinate the final preparations for the funeral. When her brother finally arrived, they sat in her humble living room together; Margot reminiscing, sometimes laughing, always with tears on her cheeks and a box of tissues in hand; the man sitting in reserved silence, quietly drinking his coffee, eyes locked on his sister. Margot’s mascara was smeared and caked under her tired eyes. The man wondered why his sister still bothered putting on her makeup in the morning, knowing it would inevitably come to this.

At sunset, when the cerulean sky lost its warm glow and settled into burning pinks and cool purples, Margot’s husband came to fetch her. They had a meeting with the funeral director, he told her, and it would be better met in person than over the phone. Margot at first began to protest, saying she would rather he go alone so she and her brother could continue catching up, but her husband’s insistent demeanor awakened her understanding. She quietly scurried to their bedroom to freshen up.

“I’m doing this for you, you know,” said Margot’s husband when they finally heard the shower curtain draw and water running. “She doesn’t really need to come with me.”

“I know. Thank you,” replied the man.

“Some time alone will be good for you. I’m sure you’re exhausted. We all are.” His brother-in-law said with his eyes fixed on the coffee table before them.

For the first time, the man noticed the dark, worn lines under his brother’s-in-law eyes, and the flecks of gray which speckled the dark hair around his temples. These features had been in the making long before the death of his parents, but the man couldn’t help feeling somewhat guilty, as though he were somehow responsible for the rapid advancement of his brother’s-in-law age. Margot was fortunate enough to befriend her then future husband a year after he had left, but the year between was indeed long and dark for the adolescent robbed of her childhood. The man’s brother-in-law never stopped loving and supporting Margot every step of the way. He’d given her something the man himself had never been able to find since leaving her behind.

“There’s a fifth of whiskey in my shed out back. Margot doesn’t know about it. It’s in the black box beneath some extension cords under the workbench,” Margot’s husband looked around conspiratorially, interrupting the man’s thoughts.

“Thank you,” the man parroted himself.

“Some time alone’ll do you good. But leave enough for me when we get back. I’ll take Margot to dinner and she’ll be asleep before we even get home. I don’t sleep much these days, myself.” He looked back and forth between the coffee table now, locking his gaze finally on the man. “Maybe if you’re unable to sleep we can talk for a bit.”

The man enjoyed his brother’s-in-law company, and had a great deal of respect for the man who had taken care of and honestly loved his sister. Margot was the strongest person he knew, but she wouldn’t have made it half as far as she had without her husband’s compassionate hand helping her along. Her parent’s death had clearly taken its toll on the both of them for it’s own respective reasons.

At least Margot has him, thought the man.

Margot and her husband bade the man a good evening after she’d showered and freshened herself up. The man sat on their couch and tried in vain to watch television, but found himself unable to focus on the fast moving images and dialogue. He stood up, stepped out onto the back patio, and lit a cigarette. The sun had completely set and the night sky was now saturated with black ink. No stars shone, so the man flipped on a wall-mounted lamp. He glanced at the shed and remembered what his brother-in-law told him, and walked to the door.

The spacious interior was what you’d expect from a hobbyist handyman. Any other person, the man himself included, had about a snowball’s chance in hell of ever finding what they’d need among the heaps and piles of chrome ratchets and wrenches, rows of saw blades and drill bits, boxes of screws, bolts, and washers, grease covered rags and tins of oil. The organized chaos obeyed a code indecipherable to all but its creator. It smelled of work and purpose, as only a proper work shed could. The man stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He found the bottle three quarters full and left it three quarters empty. He sat for a time on a stool, stooping over the work bench holding a pen he’d managed to find, and a clean blank paper from a drawer in the polished plywood desk. He knew he had to write his parent’s eulogy, but he did not know what to say, or at least how to say it.

He blinked his tired, drooping eyes and stood up from the stool, keeping his hand flat on the table. Patting his pockets to ensure his belongings were all present, the man lit another cigarette and stepped outside. Margot didn’t condone smoking or drinking, though she herself indulged in the occasional glass of wine, and the man buried his cigarette butts at the bottom of their garbage bin. He sat on a reclining plastic lawn chair and closed his eyes, listening to the buzzing bugs, the chirping crickets, the rustling tree leaves. Darkness swallowed the lamplight and washed over him, but the buzzing, chirping, and rustling hummed on. Eyes shut, the man peered into the darkness and drifted as in a dream. He wasn’t sure how much later, maybe only a minute, maybe ten, maybe an hour, Margot and her husband returned, but Margot immediately went to bed as expected, and her husband soon stepped outside.

“Staying up?” He asked.

The man mumbled in reply. Exhaustion and alcohol did not couple well with him. He stood unsteadily and attempted to smile at his brother-in-law.

“Enjoying my stash, I see. Drinks are on you next time. I won’t keep you up, but at least smoke with me,” he said, withdrawing a tube from his pocket and extracting from it a densely packed joint.

“Todd?” The man asked, his speech reduced to monosyllabic slurs.

“At a friend’s house. We’ll pick him up before the funeral tomorrow morning. And don’t worry about Margot, either. She has the worst sense of smell ever.” They both chuckled at his last statement.

“Hand me that lighter. Thank you. And a cigarette if you don’t mind. Much obliged.” Margot’s husband lit the joint, puffed and puffed again, offered it to the man, and lit up the cigarette. They traded off joint for cigarette until the embers of both burned their lips. They hadn’t spoken a word, each man listening to the buzzing, chirping, and rustling, each man thinking his own private thoughts, trying to quiet them and just sit.

After they’d disposed of their rubbish and sat down for a little longer, the man stood up, thanked his brother-in-law again, and opened the door to the house.

“Hey, have you written the eulogy?” His brother-in-law asked.

“No, not yet.”

“Okay,” he said with a curt nod.

The man went to the guest room and collapsed onto the soft bed. He immediately fell into a fitful sleep without turning out the light.

Off in the distance, glowing like fire in the dark pools of his subconscious, was a fully matured Japanese maple tree. Earth mounded above its roots which planted themselves firmly to the ground. The man walked to the tree and stood beneath its branches, ablaze with leaves of glowing red and yellow embers. He set his back against the trunk and slid down to a sitting position. There he sat, watching the dark waters of his subconscious wax and wane ever closer up the small island on which the tree resided. He looked at the black abysmal sea and wondered if a swell would ever rise tall enough to extinguish the tree’s tranquil light. For now, he was able to keep the sea at bay, and the dark waters only bubbled hungrily, but gently up and down the shore. The man closed his eyes and felt the smooth trunk bracing the back of his head. All was quiet but the whispering waves which soothed the dark sandy shore.

The man awoke with the sun. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling with his hands clasped under his head. Grey light seeped through the cracks in the window shade, and the man couldn’t help but feel slightly optimistic knowing it might be an overcast day. Burying bodies on a warm and sunny day simply didn’t feel appropriate to him. A dismal, gloomy setting might better inspire him.

He donned his black suit and tie, fixed himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen, and nibbled at a Danish from the pastry box his brother-in-law had picked up. The man hadn’t yet seen Margot, and her husband only ceased his errands long enough to tell him they’d pick up Todd in an hour and head to the funeral home. So he sat on the couch and idly flipped through the channels on the television until Margot emerged forty-five minutes later.

She wore a simple, conservative black dress with a large belt around her waistline. A thin shawl was draped around her pale shoulders. Her face was stoic, stone, her eyes hollow, devoid of any brightness. The man didn’t think she had slept all night, nor did he expect to see any more tears from her. She’d cried enough, and looked spent. Her face had become hardened with her usual characteristic resolve.

Margot sat on the leather recliner adjacent the couch and looked at her brother.

“You look so handsome,” she said with a tired smile.

“You look nice, too.” He put his hand on hers and saw she was fighting away tears.

‘Margot,” he began, searching for the right words. “I’m sorry.”

Margot shuddered and let out a quick breath she’d unknowingly been holding, trying to compose herself.

“You don’t need to apologize. I know things weren’t ideal for you. You had to leave,” her voice shook and she did not meet her brother’s gaze.

“It isn’t that. I’m sorry I left and abandoned you the way I did. You’re my sister and I just left you there.”

“Don’t.” She interrupted through gritted teeth. “It was long enough ago for me to accept it and move on.”

“Margot,” the man whispered, thinking back to all the days when they’d taken shelter in each other’s rooms when their parents became particularly violent. They were one another’s sanctuary, erecting blanket forts, sneaking cookies or ice cream and listening to cd’s when their parents got too loud for them to focus on their school books.

The man continued after a pause, “I was scared. When they started beating on us I just couldn’t take it.” His voice cracked and shook.

Margot was only just entering her teens, four years her brother’s junior, when he had left her to fend for herself. He would’ve taken her with him had he known at all how to provide for them both. He swore he would return to save her, but years passed by and he never did. Nearly a decade later Margot’s husband found her brother and they were able to maintain contact with each other through email and video chats. She’d visited him in Chicago several years ago, right after Todd was born, but this was the first time he’d returned home since he left.

“So why not leave your little sister and save yourself? I get it.” Her voice was cold as she continued, “Besides, they reconciled years later, but only after I left myself. You never gave them a chance either. Not that anybody expected that of you . . . God damn it! I needed my brother! And you left me!”

Margot’s words dripped with icy venom and the man knew he deserved every drop. He knew not to try to justify his actions, not that he even wanted to. He turned to look at the family portrait on the shelf and regarded his sister’s family’s smiles. They were genuine, honest smiles. He remembered the contrivance on their own family photos, his parents donning a façade of contentment and filial unity. His stomach went cold.

“I know you are busy with work and your own life now, but could you maybe at least call more often?” Margot asked, her voice lost its sting, and flowed now like a cool winter stream along snowy banks. Her frustration checked and subsided, and she was again the scared thirteen-year-old girl he’d left behind.

“Yeah,” the man’s voice cracked, “I can do that.”

They stood and embraced each other. Margot trembled and lost her composure, crying now not for her parents, but for her brother. This was the first time in almost two decades they’d embraced. He regretted not having had more of a presence in her life. The man truly loved his sister, but he refused to see his parents or be around them.

“I still love you, big brother,” she said, and the man gave her a tight squeeze before finally letting go.

They spent the next ten minutes reminiscing about good memories they had of their childhood until Margot’s husband and son finally arrived to take them to the funeral parlor for the wake. The man commented on how much taller Todd was in person than in the photographs they sent him, and Todd replied with bashful modesty. They all adopted an introspective silence in Margot’s car on the way to the parlor, and not a word was spoken until the officiator respectfully greeted them at the doors.

To the man’s surprise, a small number of people had already begun congregating into small social clusters, murmuring stories of how they knew the departed from such and such town meeting or had met them at a cookout through a mutual friend. The man could only pick up snippets here and there; everything was beginning to blur around him. He heard them laugh about the time his father had fallen into the pool, taking a plate of steaks for the barbecue with him, and how he immediately went to the nearest In-N-Out and bought everybody shakes, burgers, and fries. They spoke of his mother, and her charming boutique yarn store where she gave free knitting lessons on Tuesdays. Most of all, they spoke of how happy they were together, and the love they shared for one another, for everyone they encountered. The man wondered if they weren’t at the right funeral.

More and more faces filled the parlor, so many that to the man they seemed to morph into a massive blob of pale, featureless heads over a black cloud of shoulders, each one indiscernible from the next. Every so often a figure would emerge from the crepuscular crowd, shake the man’s hand, offer their deepest empathy for his loss, all whilst Margot told him their name. They were immediately swallowed back into the obscure congregation, to be replaced with another unfamiliar face, handshake, hug, condolence. With each passing face, each name immediately forgotten, the man felt increasingly a stranger. All of these faces and names were familiar to his parents, with their own connections, stories, experiences, all shared by people he did not know. These people knew more about the lives of the deceased, lying there, cold in their caskets, than did their own son. The stories he heard from the gathering masses were none he’d ever known, or would have ever thought conceivable. They were the stories, the memories, of strangers. The man suddenly felt he had no business, no right, to be there. Had he not been born to these people from all sentient and biding dust, but to another, there would have been no difference in this instance.

He thrashed his hand out and grabbed Margot by the wrist. Her eyes shot wide with shock and she opened her mouth to let out a gasp.

“What’s gotten in to you? Why are you staring at me? Let go of my arm!” she growled in a whisper.

The man released his sister’s arm and held her inquisitive gaze with one of his own. The murmuring, whispering, foggy crowd had gone silent, and what seemed to be one hundred pairs of eyes floating on pale, featureless silhouettes now fell on him. So many strangers.

He looked deep into Margot’s eyes, as if trying to scream at her for a lifeline. Her expression melted from astonishment to stoic certainty as she awoke with understanding. She put her hand in his and pulled him through the gathered mass and out the ornate wooden doors of the funeral parlor. She’d seen that look before.

Margot’s husband ran up behind them and caught the man just as his knees buckled beneath him. The man sat on his knees and stared out at the parking lot. Margot knelt beside him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, as she’d done when they were kids, seeking sanctuary beneath their blanket fort ceiling, illuminated by the battery powered lamp from the garage, whispering and playing board games. It was the only time he felt okay, safe and secure. She held him and rested her head on his right shoulder; her husband put his hand on the man’s left shoulder, and the man knelt there, staring at the clouds which looked sure now to bring thunder, watching the cars drift on the road beyond the parking lot, remembering, trying to remember one particular day when his family had gone to the park, when they’d taken one photo in which their smiles were genuine. One photo. One picnic. One faint glimmer of hope surrounded by a sea of darkness. Anything.

His beloved sister let out a sniffle. She was crying. The man’s body shuddered and he tried to feel something, anything he thought should be felt under such circumstances. He felt his sister wrap her arms tighter around him, and he was back in his room under the blanket fort, holding on to his little sister, staring intently at the shaking doorknob. He could hear wood splintering and splitting, his father’s slurred curses gaining volume with each reverberating smash of boot on wood.

The man tasted salt on his lips. A drop of water, and another, fell to his face. He was crying, and it was raining. He stood, face to the grey clouds overhead, drops of water splashing his cheeks, his forehead, making his hair stick to his temples. He looked to Margot, her eyes were red and she looked exhausted. His brother-in-law looked the same. The man imagined he too, was not out of place amongst them. Margot, crying for her parents, for her brother, her husband crying for Margot, and the man himself, weeping for Margot, for leaving her behind, for her perseverance without him, and for making amends, to love him all the same after so many years. He hadn’t even forgiven himself.

No words needed to be spoken. They all three embraced a moment longer, understanding one another, understanding the man. They walked back into the parlor, dripping wet. Margot announced they’d be proceeding to the burial site; extra umbrellas were available to the right of the parlor doors. They dispersed noiselessly as the rain thundered off the roof, flooded the parking lot, and soaked everything beneath it to the very core.

Fewer people were at the cemetery than the parlor, and the man didn’t blame them. No heads raised in question when the man gave no eulogy. Margot spoke a few words, said goodbye, and the caskets descended, in unison, to the muddy, murky earth. They stood there until everybody else had departed. The man pulled a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lit it under his umbrella. Margot’s eyes flared, but his hollow, blank countenance held her tongue. She’d let him have this one. The man smoked his cigarette to the butt, rolled it between his fingers, and tossed it near the mounds of dirt. Todd ran in the rain, picked it up, and handed it back to him.

“Please don’t litter. This is a cemetery.”

The man smiled, rubbed his hand on the boy’s wet hair, and pocketed the muddy cigarette. The boy was smart.

They spent the evening watching a movie Margot and the man were particularly fond of as children. At 8:00, Todd went to bed, and Margot’s husband went to warm up the car to take the man back to San Francisco International. They stood in the kitchen together, the man and his sister, leaning on the countertops, listening to the rain. The man gulped down the last of his coffee, put it in the washer, and hugged Margot. They walked to the doorway, and as he turned to walk away she called out, “Remember to call, okay? Take care of yourself, big brother.”

The man smiled and gave her a reassuring nod, then turned and headed for the car and his brother-in-law. They were quiet most of the car ride, each man deep in his own thought. Nothing needed to be said. The man knew they had a mutual understanding of each other, and he appreciated his brother-in-law for knowing when to talk, and when to think.

When they arrived at the airport, Margot’s husband parked and got out of the car to shake the man’s hand.

“Alright brother. Take care of yourself. You ever need anything, give me a call. You ever don’t need anything, give me a call. Same with Margot. Especially her.”

“Will do,” said the man, and he meant it.

They shook hands and exhaled sharply before parting ways. The man walked silently through security, sat alone and undisturbed at the gate until boarding call, and took his seat by the window. He kept his eyes on the tarmac lights which glowed green, red, purple, blue, watched them blend together and fall away as the plane began its ascent and the seatbelt lights pinged and illuminated. He checked his watch and set it forward to match Chicago time. He looked at the black ink out the window, there was no earth, no sky.

He leaned his head back, sighed, and closed his eyes. Maybe he’d sleep. When he awoke, he’d be back in Chicago, back home, to work, to writing, to biking, to drinking, to loving, to fighting, to moving forward and moving on. He’d be back to life. Except this would be a life with something new. This would be a life with family.

The man slept, and his dreams were clear.