hold her funeral there. Elle had decided that it would cause less of a stir if they kept everything at the funeral home, but invited Pastor Nylund to preside. He had told them that unfortunately he was booked that day.
And also on the next date they tried.
“Kenneth, Cody,” the church organist said in a wilted, sad voice. Cody couldn’t remember her name. “We’re all so sorry for your loss.” The other three women looked sad.
Kenneth Magnusen said in a loud voice, “Let’s turn up the heat. Mom is cold.”
The organist blanched. Cody and Elle had had a long discussion about bringing their father. His dementia had stolen his sense of decorum; it wasn’t so much that they were embarrassed for themselves, but for the man he once had been. He was so unpredictable. But what would people have said if Lucile’s widower had not attended her funeral?
Cody cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said to the organist.
The ladies looked from him to the coffin, faces drawn, then took their seats.
“Those flowers look terrible. They should get their money back,” one of the women whispered in a loud voice. The others shushed her.
The chapel was tasteful, nothing fussy, and the coffin was closed, as Cody and Elle had requested. Who would have thought that someone who had frozen to death would look so . . . They had decided that painting her up wasn’t appropriate and even though Mr Paulson, the funeral director, had assured them that the make-up would make her look more natural, they had stood firm.
More ladies came into the chapel, and a few men. There were about a dozen, more than he had expected. Cody knew that most of them hadn’t seen his mother around much of late. Her hips had been bothering her. She said the winter had seeped into them, making them ache. They got brittle. She was afraid of falling. She sat in a recliner nearly all day, holding the remote, telling Cody and Elle to bring things to her, take things away. She’d given up on ordering their father around.
“You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you, Kenneth?” she would snap at him.
“Beg pardon?” he would say. At least, at first. A few months ago. Before the dementia really took hold.
She would sit in the recliner except for when she put on her old work boots and a heavy jacket, and went outside in the dead of night. Neither Cody nor Elle could figure out what she did out there. The chicken eggs were gathered by daylight, and there were no longer any cows to check on. She didn’t even take a flashlight.
It was icy in the chapel, and redolent of roses. Goosebumps ran up and down Cody’s arms. His new button- down shirt and black sports jacket smelled like the plastic bag from the department store. Cody found himself remembering walking into the Lazy Daisy Flower Shop on the night of the prom to pick up Tiffany’s corsage. That was nearly twenty years ago. Tiffany had sent the little wreath of white and yellow flowers from Montreal, where she lived now with her husband and two children.
Tiffany had never told him why she’d broken up with him. Later she had emailed him:
“Dad,” Elle said. She had come back from the office, and she was standing beside her father, who was sitting at the very end of the inner aisle section of the pew. “Can you scoot over, please?”
Their father didn’t respond. Elle waited another couple of seconds, then huffed and walked the length of the pew, unhooking the golden cord at the far end. She sidestepped and sat down next to Cody.
“Graveside is all set,” she said. She had a funny look on her face. “Mr Paulson told me the weirdest story.” She lowered her voice. “There was a funeral here yesterday. The widow came in before the service to see her husband in his coffin. To see if he looked natural and all.” She hesitated.
Cody nodded, waiting.
“The woman said he looked great. She started to leave. Then she turned back around and looked down at her dead husband. She said, ‘This is for twenty-seven years.’ And she slapped his cheek as hard as she could.”
Cody’s lips parted. “Her
Elle nodded. “Right there in the viewing room.” She pulled out a tissue, and clutched it in her hand.
“That’s so weird,” Cody said. Then he looked at his father, to see what he made of that. His father didn’t react.
Elle didn’t use her tissue. She didn’t cry during the service. None of the Magnusens did. They would never cry in public. There was some sniffling in the other pews. Cody wondered what the old ladies were thinking –
After the funeral, Cody’s father turned to him. His blue eyes were dry and his eyebrows were very thin and completely white.
“She slapped me,” he said.
Cody flushed. He looked over at Elle, who had not heard.
“OK, Dad,” he said.
“
“What is he saying?” Elle asked.
“I think Dad should skip the graveside,” Cody said. “I’ll take him home and I’ll get everything ready for the reception.”
Elle considered. She was probably wondering what people would think if the deceased’s widower didn’t come to the cemetery.
“He’s old, and there’s snow everywhere,” Cody said.
Elle inclined her head, coming to a decision. “You’re right,” she said. “Take him home. People will understand.”
“I’ll get out the potato salad and the cold cuts,” Cody said.
“We should have had warm food.” Elle put her tissue, still unused, into her purse.
Exhaust fumes from the family Subaru flew out of the car ghost-like. Ghosts of escape, protection. These ghosts clung to the car. Cody’s father had forgotten that he used to be the one who drove. Cody and Elle had waited until it was time to renew Kenneth’s licence, and then quietly destroyed the form. Their father had always obeyed all laws. He would no sooner have driven without a licence than murder someone. Their mother had asked about it for a while, narrowing her eyes at Cody and Elle, making comments about how strange it was that she had called the DVS several times and had been assured that a duplicate form had been sent. Then another duplicate form. Also, that they could renew it online.
Rather than confront the issue head on, Cody and Elle just let each conversation drop. They made a point of driving Lucile everywhere she needed to go. At first, they submitted to an orgy of errands. Church, the beauty parlour, the grocery store, the shop for quilting supplies. Three months into the new regime, she stopped asking after the licence renewal and began encouraging their father to stay home “to get his rest”. He never asked about his licence, not once. Maybe he knew that he had forgotten how to drive. Or maybe he had forgotten that he’d ever known how.
There were quilts on the walls of the living room, abstract shapes in forest green, hunter green, tree-bark brown, and shades of grey and charcoal on ash black on burned black. Elle had thrown out Lucile’s lap quilt. There were so many food stains on it.
At the reception in their small home, the ladies from the quilt ministry admired Lucile’s fine work. Cody’s father kept wandering over to the thermostat and pushing it higher. “Mom’s cold,” he kept saying. He would glance over at the recliner like a dog that has lost its owner and is keeping vigil for her return. Of course Cody’s mother would not have stirred from the chair to turn up the thermostat herself. She would have told one of them to do it.
With the fire in the fireplace and the heater blazing away, perspiration beaded on everyone’s foreheads. Cody assumed that the funeral reception guests became uncomfortably hot, and that was why no one stayed long. That was fine with Cody. He was exhausted from monitoring his father. Cody had been afraid he would do something like take off all his clothes or dip his finger in the punch. But Kenneth had wandered back and forth from the thermostat to the fireplace, fretting and half-broiling everyone.
“No one ate anything,” Elle said, but the truth was that no one had stayed long enough to put a dent in the food. Elle had bought too much, and the church ladies brought covered dishes. People did things like that in the Midwest.
