THIEF: Part 1 (5 page)

              “I love you, Mom,” I say quietly.  A weight I didn’t even notice was on my chest, lifts.  Breathing comes more easily.  “I—I’m sorry, for…all the times I messed up.  I promise, I’m trying to do better.”  Through the curtain, I see Silas’s feet pacing.  “Not sure why it took me so long to figure out how, but…but I feel like I can do it, this time.”

              Her hand feels papery and chilled inside mine.  I look at her ring finger.  There’s still a diamond band on it, half a size too small, pinching her skin.

              “I, uh…I wish I could say I forgive you for….”  I take a breath.  It’s been so long since I’ve said his name, but my gag reflex remembers well.  I choke back the anger, the physical illness, remembering.  “…for him.  But I can’t.  Not yet.”  Gently, I squeeze her hand, and let go as I stand.  “I’ll try, though.”

              In movies, people usually lean down and kiss their loved one on the forehead, or give them a hug.  Something.  But when I try, my head won’t lower.  Instead, it drifts up, to the ceiling.

              “Bye, Mom,” I whisper.  Hopefully, no matter how much the universe hates me, no matter how little karma I’ve racked up over the years, it cares just enough to let my message through.

              I hope for rain during my mom’s funeral.  It just seems appropriate.  Instead, I wake up to a gorgeous summer morning.  The sky is hopelessly blue and the sun is sickeningly bright.

              “That bed is comfy,” Silas yawns, handing me a cup of coffee over my shoulder.  He stands behind me at the bay window of my mother’s living room.  The cup in my hand is monogrammed with her initials.  This is her favorite brand of coffee.  This whole house is hers, and it feels wrong, suddenly, using her stuff when she’s gone, like I’m a kid again, snooping through her room.

              But my bed, I remind myself—that bed is mine.  Silas is mine.  At least I’ve got that.  And maybe it’s enough, for now.

              “It’s so hard being here,” I whisper, “but it’s like…I don’t know where else to go.  I feel…drawn here, or something.”

              Silas nods like this makes sense.  “Has your mom paid this place off?”

              I burn my mouth on the coffee.  It still hurts less than waking up to sunshine.  “I don’t know.”

              “Well…was she renting, or buying?”

              I shrug.  “We never talked about money.  We…didn’t talk about much of anything, really.  I was shocked she even had a lawyer.”  The day after Mom died, I got a nasally message on our answering machine from the offices of Meegan and Sons, informing me that my mother left a will, the contents of which would be shared with me following her funeral.  I can’t imagine what Mom could’ve possibly put in there.  The woman didn't own much.

              “Guess we’ll find out today, then,” Silas breathes.  His all-business tone makes me relax.  For three days, he’s been my tether, calm and practical, pulling me back to earth just when I feel like I’ve lost any sense of gravity.

              I set my coffee down and hug him.  “Thank you,” I whisper into his chest, “for being here.  For helping me.”

              He hugs me back with a fierce reassurance.  “You don’t have to thank me,” he says.  “Anyone would do it.”

              “Yeah, right.  Look at all my neighbors and family, clamoring at the door with casseroles and offers to help.”  I motion lamely towards the empty front walk; not a single mourner has stopped by, including my mom’s sister.

              Silas pulls me close again.  “You’ll see,” he says confidently.  “Today at the service, all these people will come out of the woodwork to help.  They’ve just been waiting for the right opportunity.  Navigating grief is tricky.”

              “Maybe,” I offer, but I don’t mean it even a little.

              We shower together and dress quickly.  I help Silas with his tie and he picks out my shoes.  We’re like a real couple, the kind so comfortable with each other we’re almost one person.  I wonder how a few weeks with him could do it, while months with past boyfriends yielded commitments no more serious than my own drawer in their dressers, if that.

              “You look beautiful,” he says, on our way to the car.

              “You look handsome,” I answer.  I straighten his tie again and think about how many couples in the world are doing exactly this: dressing up, fixing each other’s clothes or hair, standing in the blinding sun and setting out.  I bet most of them are on their ways to weddings, carrying cards and gifts instead of a lawyer’s contact info.

              We’re the first to arrive, and for a moment I panic, thinking we’ll be the only mourners at all.  Within half an hour, though, as I help the funeral home’s resident pastor get the details of my mother’s life straight, I hear car doors slamming.  My aunt’s voice booms from the parking lot.

              Aunt Jane was a wonderful mystery to me as a kid, a powerhouse with long legs and red lipstick, always perfectly blotted.  Her perfume smelled like jasmine and baby powder.  When I was little, she’d let me try on her dresses, expensive brands purchased by her boyfriend
du jour
; I’d beg for lipstick and perfume, too, and she’d eventually give in, even though every time resulted in anger from my mother.

              Jane had a dramatic flair woven through her life—and anyone she was near—like a silver ribbon.  She didn’t like my mom’s suggestions of “Take Erin to the zoo” or “How about the children’s museum?”  “The girl needs some culture, Annie,” she’d sing.  “Just because we grew up without it doesn’t mean we should curse the next generation.”  So she’d take me to film festivals full of subtitles and gore, art shows where I was the only kid for miles.  Once, at the Jefferson for a five-course meal, she taught me how to use my silverware properly.  “From the outside in,” she whispered.  “No fork touches two kinds of food, you see?”

              My aunt’s efforts to culture the next generation fell solely on me; she’d never had kids of her own, and part of me thought she liked it that way.  Kids cost money, kids took time, kids meant no more late nights at jazz clubs in Chicago, no more fine art on the walls of her boyfriend-funded lofts.  My mom called it selfish, but I figured it was the exact opposite.  Jane wasn’t meant for motherhood, and at least she had the sense to know it.

              Now, while I correct Pastor Gene on my mother’s birth year yet again, I catch it: the scent of jasmine and baby powder.  I know my aunt is coming down the hall even before I hear the rhythm of her heels against the floor.

              “My poor Erin Caitlin!” she wails, pronouncing my middle name like “cat-leen,” the way she’s always claimed the French would say it.  She’s got me buried in her bosom before I can stand all the way up from my chair.

              “Hi, Aunt Jane,” I say, voice muffled in her dress—a plunging black number.  “Thank you for coming.”

              “Oh, sweetheart,” she sighs, finally freeing me, “I only wish I’d come sooner.  I couldn’t get a flight till this morning, can you imagine?”  She pulls a tissue from her sleeve.  For all her exaggeration, I can tell my aunt is genuinely sad, and I feel guilty that I can’t cry with her.  The night at the hospital seemed to take all my tears.

              “I think I’ve got everything straight here, Miss St. James,” Pastor Gene smiles.  His teeth are coffee-stained and crooked.  “Go on out, greet your family and friends.”

              “Thank you,” I tell him, and Aunt Jane immediately pulls me to the front of the building.

              “To tell you the truth,” she says gravely, like a secret, “I have no idea how many people will show up today.”

              I nod.  “I requested the smaller room.”

              Aunt Jane gasps like I’ve slapped her.  “Sweetheart,” she says, peering at the small chapel down the hall, “that’s not nearly big enough.”

              “What?”  I follow her gaze.  “It—it holds like…I don’t know, twenty people….”

              She’s got her compact out, checking her lipstick.  “It’s fine, dear, Aunt Jane will handle everything.”  The compact snaps shut to punctuate her sentence like a gavel.  “Just stay here and look pretty for our guests.”  And, fast as she blew into the place, she tornadoes away.

              “Who was that?”

              I jump, Silas’s hand on my arm startling me.  “Uh…my aunt, Jane,” I tell him, composing myself.  “Mom’s sister.”

              “She’s…interesting.”

              “That’s an understatement.”  Through the glass doors, I see car after car pulling into the lot.  “She says Chapel B won’t be large enough,” I say, wary, “and I’m starting to believe her.”

              “Told you,” Silas grins.  He wiggles his fingers like bugs.  “Woodwork.”  His hands move to my waist to tickle me.

              “Stop, stop, people are coming in,” I hiss.  “If they see me giggling, they’ll think I’m a heartless bitch.”

              “Sorry.  I promise, I’ll behave.”  He takes my hand and kisses it.  “I guess I’m just trying to lighten the mood because I hate seeing you sad.  But this is a sad occasion.  So I’ll let you be sad.”

              I give him a compromise: a half-smile.  I know today is solemn, and I feel every bit of that weight.  But there's something nice about the occasional break, like a burst of fresh air when you're drowning.  Every so often, he brings me up.  Just enough to sustain me. 

              “It’s okay,” I tell him.  “You can make sure I don’t get too sad.  Deal?”

              “Deal.”

              For once, Aunt Jane isn’t exaggerating: Chapel A, after being hurriedly set up by the funeral home staff, fills up fast.  I can’t keep track of all the people who take my hands and offer condolences: old coworkers, old classmates, extended family I haven’t seen since I was four.  Silas stands behind me in stoic silence, one hand on my shoulder, the other available to help accept everyone’s apologies.  He doesn’t introduce himself beyond, “Silas Marlowe—thank you for coming,” but I hear chatty women in big hats whisper about him when they walk away.

              “Everyone’s wondering who the hell you are,” I tell him quietly.  “I’m pretty sure my mom’s family thought I’d be a spinster before age thirty.”

              “I kind of like it,” he admits.  “I’m a man of mystery.”

              I elbow him, stifling my laugh.  As promised, he keeps my sadness in check.

              The canned music floats down the hall.  I take a breath, hearing it, and Silas shores me up with his arm as we head into the chapel.

It seems wrong for me to cry while the pastor’s speaking, his voice soothing only for its droning tone and lilt.  Not because I didn’t love my mom.  I did, I assure myself—I still do, even if we had our problems.  It’s funny, but not in a ha-ha way, how some things are so easy to admit only when the other person’s gone and it doesn’t matter anymore.

              No, crying feels wrong because Aunt Jane is weeping and wailing so much, it’s like she’s sucked all the mourning out of the funeral home.  Elected herself Chief of Mourners, demonstrating devastation on our behalf.  Through the slatted windows of the family’s privacy parlor, a small room off the chapel, I can see the pastor and guests glance nervously at us.  They can’t see us, but I think they know exactly who’s responsible for the commotion.

              “Aunt Jane,” I whisper, “I can’t hear the pastor.”

              “I’m sorry, dear,” she stage-whispers.  “I just can’t believe little Annie is really gone.”

              This needles at me a little, because I know she means it.  Still, though.

              Silas elbows me, nodding to Aunt Jane and then the door.  I nod back.

              “Come on, Ms. St. James,” Silas coos at her, “let’s get some fresh air, yes?”  Maybe it’s my imagination, but Silas’s voice has transformed into a classic Hollywood suck-up—exactly the kind of trick my aunt might fall for.

              And she does.  “Well, thank you, young man,” she sniffs, letting him glide her from the room without effort.  He winks at me as they leave, Aunt Jane blubbering on.

              The chapel relaxes.  Some people actually slump in their pew.

              “Would anyone like to come up and say a few words?” the pastor asks, and I thank God or the universe or whoever that Jane didn’t hear him.

              No one volunteers, but I feel some eyes on me from all around the family parlor.  I shake my head in what I hope is a modest way, but the truth is, I’ve got nothing to say.  Not in front of these people, at least.

              Our procession to the gravesite is drawn-out and complicated.  My mom picked a funeral home across town from where she wanted her burial, maybe as a final teasing gesture to me, her preferred method of affection.  Silas drives Aunt Jane’s rental car alone while I drive her in his, listening to sweeping stories of her and my mother’s childhood.  I’ve heard them before, but I let her talk.  It’s nice.

              “Did you know she and I were in a commercial together, once?”  Jane sighs wistfully.  When she talks about her acting career that never was, I think of that old black-and-white movie about the has-been sister actresses, called
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
, funnily enough.  She gets that same sad, almost pathetic look in her eyes, the one that makes you want to say, “Shit, Jane, just let it go.”  But then you think of the things
you
can’t let go, and you shut your mouth.

              At least, I do.

              “Jiffy Pop,” I tell her.  “I remember.”  The commercial’s pretty cute, actually—Aunt Jane was six, my mother four.  Jane shows my mom how to pop the popcorn, her hand holding Mom’s on the silver U-shaped handle.  My mom laughs hysterically while the metal dome tents and swells.  “Listen, sis, it’s popping!”

              “Of course it is, it’s Jiffy Pop!” Jane says.  The last shot is the two of them throwing popcorn into each other’s open mouths, giggling.  Cue the logo and tagline, fade to black.

              “I tried to get your mom into more acting,” Jane tells me now.  “It’s a shame she never quite took to it—people always told us we looked like twins, as children.  Twins are a real commodity in commercials.  Film, too.”  Aunt Jane lights a Slim, smoking with such a flourish you’d think she had one of those long, slender holders like an old starlet.