Ray never went to the nursing home. He kept saying he would. But now Dad is gone and it’s too late.
“Ray will have to sleep in the bathtub,” I say and Lola smiles.
We stand there for a moment. The world around us beams beautiful and oblivious.
“You’re right.” Lola sighs. “That is the way the movie goes.” She turns her head away.
For a second, just a small one, we’re out in the front yard, just like this, but I’m kneeling down in front of her, arranging a pair of rainbow-striped leg warmers over her ankles, covering the braces the best I can because it’s the first day of school and Paul Brooks is new in town and all summer he hasn’t seen the braces, all summer he’s been entranced with Lola and her leg warmers in the heat and her coal-black hair. He’s never seen her do anything “strange” and the most important thing to me is to help everything seem normal.
Mom and Chris come outside with the photo boards. They load the happy memories into the trunk, and Chris makes a goofy face at Lola. Her eyes widen, and I know she’s seeing the commercial character in his expression. She smiles at him and winks at me.
“Let’s go, girls,” Mom says. “Sit up here with me, Lola.”
Lola gets in the front, and I ride in back with Chris and Cassie. Mom moves her hand to turn on the radio, but seems to think better of it and doesn’t. We ride in silence for a bit, turning down familiar lanes as though we could be going to the mall, the first day of school, over to Grandma’s.
“Oh, look,” Mom says, pointing out her window and slowing down. “The Mackelvoy place is for sale. Open house. I’ve always wanted to see the redo on their kitchen. Should we go in?”
“Mom?” Lola looks over at her and then turns around to look at me. She looks terrified.
“We’re sort of busy today, Mom,” I say.
“Of course,” Mom says and chuckles. “Maybe some other time.”
I look at Chris and wonder what he must be thinking, but he’s looking at Lola. I look at Cassie, but she’s staring out the window.
Mom speeds back up, and we continue the short distance to the funeral home. Although I’ve been down this path before, I take notice, now, of the houses slung back from the road, their fenced yards and clean cars a wishful dream of peace and tranquility. I see the new blooms around the mailboxes like a deeply planted shield, a useless attempt at warding off the deadly and devastating. There is no protection from the wiles of the world.
4
I hang back in the parking lot of the funeral home and let everyone else go in without me. I’m looking for Ray. I expect to see his face poking out from behind a bush, like in some stupid movie, but instead, I see him in his old Chevy Nova. I’m the only one who knows he’s in town.
He found me at work the day after I called and told him Dad had died. He asked me not to tell anyone he was here. I asked if that was because he might not stay. He said yes.
“I should know better than to leave the doors unlocked,” Ray says when I open the passenger side and get in.
“Look,” I say, and I’m suddenly angry with him. “No one actually thinks that you’re going to show up for this part. But you better be at that church. Don’t you dare let this day go by and Mom doesn’t see you and Lola doesn’t see you and you finally manage to accomplish what you set out to do years ago.”
“What’s that?” He turns his garden-snake green eyes toward me.
“To break everyone’s heart,” I say.
He looks away.
“That’s not what I meant to do,” Ray says.
Most of the family still think he’s in jail. They think maybe he’ll get some sort of temporary release and come to the funeral in an orange jumpsuit with his hands in cuffs and his feet bound up in chains.
I look at Ray’s hands. He is gripping the gearshift like he’s ready to speed off. I shouldn’t have spoken to him that way.
I reach over and put my hand on his. He doesn’t move his hand to reciprocate, but he doesn’t move it away either.
“I’m just going to screw up no matter what I do,” Ray says. “I shouldn’t have come. I’ll just make things worse.”
“Showing up is the right thing to do,” I say. “We want you here. You’re part of this family.”
An unexpected memory surfaces of summer vacation at the beach, long before things changed. Ray, baby Lola, and Mom were somewhere in the pier house getting ice cream and souvenirs. Mom wasn’t drunk yet, and we were all trying to make the most of the day while we still could. Dad and I walked out onto the pier. I must have been only four or five, but I remember. I was hand in hand with Dad, and he was so much taller than I was that all I could see were his legs, his long stride down the creaking wood, and his hands—one holding mine and the other pointing out across the ocean at a shrimp boat in the distance.
Seagulls hovered and squawked over the boat like a loud, gray cloud.
“This is how they go fishing,” Dad said of the birds.
I remember seeing a bird with a fish in its mouth jut up and away. Then I was lifted up onto Dad’s shoulders. The sunlight sparked just in time for his face to white out of sight and then the light softened and
