The Rules of Inheritance (15 page)

 

Over Christmas break the previous month, Liz flew all the way to DC to say good-bye to my mother. I envied the way they were with each other, Liz seemingly able to ignore my mother's gray skin and IV tubes. They hugged for a long time, both of them sinking into the hospital bed together.

 

One night that week Liz and I decided to shave our heads. We stood in my nephew's bathroom chopping at each other's hair until there was hardly anything left. I went first after that, running clippers over my scalp like I had seen on TV.

 

Afterward we stood back, marveling at each other in the mirror. Liz is beautiful and even a shaved head couldn't detract from her smooth, olive skin and warm brown eyes. On the other hand, my face had taken on a sallow look. At least my outside was matching how I felt inside.

 

The next day my mother looked at me blankly from her hospital bed.

 

My cheeks flushed with shame, just like they do again now, thinking about how I will have to attend her memorial service with my shaved head.

 

It's been a month since that winter night when we shaved our heads, and when I open the door the first thing I do is inspect Liz's hair. It's growing out softer and prettier than mine. I run my hand across my head self-consciously, the hair there like rough velvet.

 

That afternoon my father gives me a wad of cash. He instructs Liz to help me find something to wear to my mother's memorial service. At the mall we wander the shops aimlessly. I tell her about New Jersey, about Christopher and the rotting fish. She holds my hand, says nothing.

 

What do you think about this one? I ask holding up a colorful shift dress at Ann Taylor.

 

Liz shakes her head, and we both stand back and look at my reflection in the mirror. Although it makes my eyes pop, the silky blue material is too bright.

 

I already know that everyone will wear black because this is a sad death. It is not one of those deaths where the person was old and had a good run and you wear something bright and cheery and talk about how it's really a celebration of life.

 

A salesgirl approaches. Can I help you with anything?

 

We both shake our heads, trying not to make eye contact.

 

She pushes on: Are you looking for anything in particular? Something for spring formal maybe?

 

Nope, Liz says. I keep my mouth shut. We shuffle to another rack, trying to put some distance between us and the salesgirl.

 

We've got some really cute dresses over here, she says, pointing in the opposite direction.

 

We're fine, I say, turning my back to her. She doesn't give up though, and follows us over to the next rack. I'm starting to burn a little inside. I wish she would just go away.

 

I'm really happy to help you if you would just tell me what you're shopping for, she says.

 

Something inside of me snaps.

 

I'm shopping for a dress for my mother's funeral, I say, turning to face her. The words are hard, sharp things. They fall to the floor around us with a clatter.

 

I watch the salesgirl's face go flat, and then crumple just a bit. She is young, trying to do her job. Her mouth opens and then closes. I wait to feel remorse, but it doesn't come.

 

I'm . . . I'm sorry, she mumbles finally before turning away and slinking back to the cash register.

 

I feel something spreading inside me, slick and black. Like tar. Like anger.

 

I settle on a dress shortly after that, a simple black wool thing. At the cash register the salesgirl keeps her eyes trained on her hands. She takes my money, folds the dress, opens a bag. I silently dare her to look up.

 

She doesn't.

 

I don't know it now, but this won't be the last time I force someone else to try on my pain just so I can see how it looks.

THE SERVICE IS A BIG, stupid affair. Everything is stupid now. Most of all me, with my shaved head, walking down the aisle of this church, holding my father's hand.

 

The scent of flowers is thick and nauseating. My dress turns out to be shorter than I thought, and I tug at it, feeling like an utter disaster, like I have failed my beautiful mother in every way possible.

 

I walk down the aisle with my father as though it is my wedding.

 

I try to keep my eyes on the floor, but I can't help looking at the people around me.

 

There is my math teacher Ms. Cusak. Why is she here? I never liked her and almost failed math. Standing next to her is the principal of my tiny high school. Even though I always liked him, I can't help but hate them both for being here.

 

There are my mother's two best friends, both named Ann. They react with shock at my appearance—the shaved head and the too-short black dress coupled with my rapidly decreasing weight and under-eye circles. I give them credit for not bothering to hide it.

 

My friends sit together in a cluster. They are wearing cobbled-together outfits. Church shirts with black skirts, tights, wrinkled jackets that have been hiding in the back of a closet somewhere.

 

After the service I stand outside with them in a haze of cigarette smoke.

 

I'm going to move to San Francisco, I tell them.

 

They nod gravely.

THE DAYS BLUR together after that.

My father and I go to Cape Cod for a second service with my mother's family. I take a detour to Vermont to pack up my things from my dorm room.

 

I retch into a trash can as I carefully sort through the letters my mother sent me during those first few weeks of school, and then I drive to a tattoo parlor in town, where I instruct the artist to ink a perfect black circle on my shoulder.

 

A few days later, on Cape Cod, I peel up the bandage and pick at the black scab that has formed there. The blood beading up feels deserving, and I press my fingernail into it even harder.

 

There is a hatred forming inside me that grows deeper and darker everyday.

 

I curl into a corner of my aunt's house on Cape Cod, thinking about my mother. It is January and the wind whips around the eaves, masking the scent of the sea with one of quiet cold.

 

My mother and I traveled to the Cape every summer, staying at my grandmother's house for two weeks, sharing the queen-size guest bed in the back room, and falling asleep to the salty smell of the ocean filtering through the screens at night. My mother's relationships with her sisters and her mother were complicated, and as I grew older she leaned into me like a friend during these trips.

 

One night she dragged me on a walk with her to the beach. She was crying. It had something to do with her mom. We sat in the curve of a sand dune, the wind whistling through the reeds around us, and we shared a cigarette. I'd never seen my mother smoke and was surprised to see her do so with such ease.

 

Years later that moment, that shared cigarette and my mother's crying, will become the only hint I have of the kind of relationship we might have had as adults.

 

On our last day on Cape Cod, as I am walking through an upstairs bedroom, I see my father through the window. He is standing in the driveway, in front of the open trunk of the car. I squint my eyes, but I can't tell what he is doing.

 

I hurry down the stairs, calling his name as I approach. He looks up, sighs, and straightens his shoulders.

 

You might not like this, he says.

 

I round the corner of the car and look into the trunk. A thick plastic bag of my mother's ashes sits there. My father is using one of my aunt's wooden serving spoons to transfer some of them into a smaller ziplock bag.

 

Dad, what are you doing?

 

I watch in horror as he digs in for another scoop. A gust of wind blows a layer of ash off the top. It scatters across the interior of the trunk and even beyond, onto the gravel driveway.

 

I want to take some of these up to Nauset Beach, he says. His voice is tired, resigned.

 

I look down into the bag of ashes. They are darker than I expect, with grainy bits and tiny shards of what must be bone.

 

I watch him finish filling the ziplock bag and then I wait as he goes inside to get his hat.

 

I'm coming with you, I say.

 

We drive to Nauset Beach, the place where my father asked my mother to marry him.

 

After only two months of dating, my father had whisked my mother down to Atlanta, away from her life in New York, literally sweeping her off her feet. At the end of that summer he surprised her with a trip to Cape Cod, where he proposed.

 

About that day my mother wrote this in a letter to my father:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is here, on this same beach, where I watch my father wade out into the soft sand dunes by himself. After a while I can see only the top of his head bobbing through the sea grasses, and I realize, for the first time, how alone we are in our grief.