Sunday morning

I stayed away from the phone till the fifth ring to clear my head and wean the annoyance from my voice.

"Hello," I said groggily.

"Happy birthday, Saul," Mom said with her high sonorous voice.

It was my 40th and I'd been trying not to think about it too much. For me it signaled the onset of middle age. I associated it with prostrate trouble and rising cholesterol levels.

"Thanks, Mom," I said.

"What time is it there?" she asked.

"6:02."

"Oh dear. I'm sorry."

"It's all right," I said.

"I thought it was noon your time."

"Don't worry about it."

"I sent you a card yesterday. You should get it by Tuesday."

Her birthday cards always arrived late. "I'll look for it," I said.

"Dad sends his love," he said.

"Where is he?"

"In the bathroom. We had chili for dinner."

"You should have waited for him to come out."

"He said to go ahead. He said he might be in there for a while."

In the background I heard Dad shouting something, but the sound was muffled, as though trapped behind a door.

"What did he say?"

"He told me to tell you he's in the bathroom."

"I believe you."

"How are you, Saul?"

"I'm okay. My teaching is going pretty well. I've got llth and l2th grade English this semester."

"I remember when I took English in the llth grade..."

For the next fifteen minutes Mom reminisced.

"...and I was lucky that I passed."

I sucked in my breath and counted to nine. I was always afraid to go to ten because I might blast off when I reached that number, like a rocket ship, discharging anger and frustration and years of exasperation like so much surplus fuel. Whenever I mentioned an important experience from my life, something that I felt proud of, Mom countered with some parallel from her own past, perhaps as a way of showing our similarities; but I always felt negated somehow, as though she were telling me that my experiences were not unique, that they were just contemporary versions of hers.

"I'm glad that you were able to become a senior, Mom. How's everything at the house?"

I had visited Mom and Dad five years ago at their rented house in Homestead. Their place had been a pigsty. My brother Fess, my sister Cheryl and I had tried to clean it up, an effort that Mom had resisted; our labors ended when Mom in a fit of pique crashed the family station wagon into the side of the building.

"Oh, the place is a mess again. Someone came from the Board of Health last week, but I shooshed him away with a broom. Eddie says it's the only time I've used a broom this month."

"Are you still seeing that therapist I called for you?"

"No. He was depressing me. He kept asking me to focus on reality, and I find that subject unpleasant."

"Mom. You've got to get help. I'm really worried about you. I'm afraid of what you'll crash next."

"What did you say? We've got a bad connection."

"Nothing. I didn't say anything."

"I want to sing happy birthday to you now."

"All right." Every year she sang happy birthday to me on the phone. Every year I thought it was silly, stupid. My Mom has a beautiful speaking voice, but when she sings she sounds like a frog being strangled. And I resent her song at the same time that I'm touched by it. She was not a great mother, and it bothers me that she can act out the role of loving parent by singing happy birthday to me. But I have to admit that my birthday wouldn't seem like a real birthday without her song, and there's a part of me that needs to hear it, off-key and hypocritical, every year.

"Happy birthday to YOU, Happy birthday to YOU, Happy Birthday DEAR Saul..."

When she finished Dad still hadn't come out of the bathroom.

At noon Fess called. I was surprised. My brother hadn't phoned on my birthday for years. Usually I'd call him on his birthday, which is three days after mine, and he'd spend the first ten minutes apologizing profusely for "messing up" once again. Fess the Mess.

"Damn," he said. "I don't know how to do this. I wish I could make two separate calls. I guess first I should wish you happy birthday. And then. Well. There's no nice way to say this, but Mom died this morning. She had a heart attack."

It was as if all the words had been suction pumped out of my brain and I could somehow feel the clock on the mantle ticking inside my own head and the phone smelled like my own sour breath. And then the loneliness came. There weren't that many people in the world who I loved. Mom had been one. There weren't that many people who loved me. She had been one.

"She was alive this morning. She sang happy birthday to me," I said.

"That's what Dad said. When she finished singing "Happy Birthday" and hung up Dad heard a crash and rushed out of the bathroom. She was keeled over. All twisted up in the phone chord. He called an ambulance but she died at the hospital. I'm sorry, Saul."

"Why didn't Dad call me?"

"I think maybe he's upset with you because you made her see that therapist."

"So, I killed Mom?"

"He doesn't really believe that. But he's not thinking so clearly right now."

"I always thought he would go first. Him and his smoking."

"That's what Dad said. He said Mom walked three miles a day and that she still had the legs of a young girl."

"Does Cheryl know?"

"He phoned her."

"So I'm the last to know?"

"Saul, it was your birthday. He didn't want to be the one to tell you on your birthday."

"How's he doing?"

"He's broken up. He kept saying 'I loved that woman.'"

"How are you doing?"

Static electricity crackled across the line. "Don't get me wrong. I cried. But she got mean in her old age."

"Maybe she was crazy. But I never thought of her as mean."

"Think again. Mom damn near cost Cheryl her baby. Got her so upset that she almost miscarried."

"Is Cheryl coming?"

"I don't think so. We'll have to handle it."

"Fess, I don't know if I can."

"Somehow you always manage."

"I love you, Fess."

"I love you too. Saul?"

"Yes?"

"Happy birthday. I mean, be as happy as you can. It's still your birthday."

Sunday evening

As I walked through the lobby of San Francisco International Airport dozens of men my age were walking arm-in-arm with their mothers. Often they slung their mother's handbag over their shoulders as they escorted her from one section of the terminal to another.

On the plane the woman who sat down across the aisle from me was thinner and younger and more sane-looking than Mom, but with the same dark-brown liquid eyes, wire-like grey-black hair, and high El Capitan forehead. She ordered a cherry Coke. Mom's favorite.

The in-flight movie was "House of the Spirits." A family saga.

I took off my earphones and tried to sleep. When that failed I fumbled through Time Magazine.

We passed over Kansas City. Flatness. Half way there. The film droned on.

I substituted my own images for the ones on the screen. I remembered the time I'd been hit with a baseball behind the ear in Khoury League—I was a catcher—and got taken to the emergency room for five stitches; when I got home Mom kissed my stitches so tenderly that I almost wanted to get hit again.

I remembered taking a geometry test in the 8th grade, and being disconsolate about how I'd goofed up on the second part, the part that dealt with proofs. I hadn't mentioned anything about the test to my mother, but when I came home that afternoon, she was waiting at the doorstep for me—and the first words out of her mouth were: "Don't worry. You did better on that second part than you think."

I remembered going away to college. When I called home and told her how much I was struggling she always said, "Well, you'll be President a day later." I was never entirely sure what she meant, but I always felt better after she said it.

I remembered other things. The house she kept was filthy. Once, when I was very little, I got thirsty in the middle of the night. In the kitchen I flicked on the light switch. Bugs were crawling over everything. The counter. The sink. Me. I screamed and ran out of the room. And I never again went into the kitchen for a late-night drink of water.

I was still remembering when the plane touched down in Miami. Fess wasn't at the gate to meet me; but an hour later he found me in baggage claim, the last passenger from my flight, sitting on my suitcase. We hugged and I felt the strength, the life, in his thickly muscled arms.

"I'm glad you're here," he said. "Come on. The truck's this way."

For Fess there was no such thing as a leisurely walk. Even while toting my bag, he sprinted.

"Sorry I didn't get a chance to clean up the truck the way I wanted. I had to rush down from Tallahassee. Just slide that junk over. You'll find the seat belt under my work clothes somewhere. The buckle's broken. You've got to tie the belt in a knot. O.K. Now we're ready to roll. Oh. And I should tell you. I want you to deliver Mom's eulogy."

"Why me?"

Jerking open the ash tray, my brother found a cigarette butt and lit it.

"There's no one else," he said.

"Eulogize a mean old lady?"

"Yeah," he said, sliding his rear end off a broken spring.

"She had another side, you know. Maybe not everybody saw it, but she could be kind and loving and sometimes she made me feel as if I could do anything."

"Sounds like you've got the thing half-written," my brother said as he guided the truck out of the airport parking lot.

Monday morning

When we walked into the house Dad was asleep on the sofa. His beige t-shirt was soaked with sweat and he was talking to himself: "No no no..." On a coffee table next to the sofa roaches crawled across a paper plate heaped with chili. Their dark forms slid in and out of the mounds of beef and beans. I grabbed Fess's arm, held on to it for support.

"No one should live like this," my brother said.

At the sound of Fess's voice, Dad jerked to a sitting position, eyes wide. "What what what?" he said.

"It's us, Dad. We're home," I said.

"What time is it?" Dad asked.

"About two a.m. Time to clean up around here," Fess said.

"My boys," Dad said, climbing up out of the sofa stiffly, embracing us. His bones felt light, almost hollow, when I hugged him. He'd lost weight since I'd last seen him and his body now was thin and tubular, like a pen cartridge.

Fess picked up the plate, keeping it at arm's distance so the roaches wouldn't get on him, and tried to find the trash.

"I know the place is a disaster," Dad said. "I just couldn't do anything about it today."

"This isn't just from today," Fess shouted from the kitchen.

"How are you, Dad?" I said.

"I miss her," he said, slumping against the sofa.

"You two fought every day of your lives," Fess said as he returned to the living room. "She did everything she could to destroy you."

"That doesn't mean I didn't love her," Dad said. "You can fight with someone and still give your heart to them. The more we argued, the closer I felt to her."

"Dad. She mocked everything from the size of your penis to the size of your bank account," Fess said.

"Doesn't matter. I still wish she was here."

"We'll handle all the arrangements," I said, glancing at Fess for support. He nodded.

"Thank you," Dad said. "I just can't do it. But there's a place down the street that should be able to help us."

Using his shirt-tail Fess wiped off the coffee table where the chili plate had been.

"You know, I got in the ambulance with her. And her lips were moving. I think she was trying to sing 'happy birthday,'" Dad said.

"What are you saying?" I said.

"I think your birthday got her over stimulated and that's why she had the heart attack."

"So, I killed her?"

"I'm not blaming you. But if you hadn't left Florida, maybe your Mom would still be alive today. Maybe she wouldn't have had to sing 'happy birthday' on the telephone."

"I don't have to listen to this," I said, standing up.

Fess put his hand on my shoulder. "He's just blathering," he said. "He talks like an idiot even in the best of times. And now his wife's dead."

I sat back down.

"She got worse after she saw that therapist," Dad said. "Went on long walks and didn't come back till three, four o'clock in the morning."

"And this is my fault?" I said.

"She loved you," he said. "It almost killed her when you went to California."

"So why am I giving her eulogy?"

"Who says you're giving it?"

"Fess asked me on the way over."

Dad pondered this for a moment. "Well, it makes sense. You're the one with the words."

"What are you going to say, Saul?" Fess asked.

"I have no idea," I said.

Monday afternoon

At about l p.m. Fess and I went to the funeral home to look at caskets and make the arrangements.

Dad had been right. Duggan's Mortuary was just down the street. The owner, Dick Duggan, a thick-bellied man in his early sixties with mutton chop sideburns, greeted us a few steps inside the doorway.

"How may I help you in this time of sorrow?" he asked.

"We need a casket," I said. "For our mother."

"Oh, yes, you called a few minutes ago, didn't you? Well, I think I have just the thing for you. Please, come into our showroom."

He brought us into a high-ceilinged room with plate glass floor-to-ceiling windows. A dozen or so open caskets, each mounted on a small marble platform, filled the space.

"This is one of our most popular models," Duggan said, directing us toward the largest, most imposing coffin in the room. "It's mahogany, but with a stainless steel frame. It has what we call a double hull, meaning that even if there was some kind of puncture—not that there would be any puncture—the casket would remain air-tight. The inside as you can see is lined with velvet..."

"It's the Queen Elizabeth II of coffins," Fess muttered under his breath.

"How much is it?" I asked.

"Only $5995. You can make time payments. And of course we accept Visa and Master Card. But not American Express."

"We can't afford this," Fess said. "We're poor people, Mr. Duggan."

"I understand," he said. "Well, let me show you some of our bargains."

He gradually worked his way down the price scale: $3995, $2795, $1595.

Finally we were left with the two cheapest caskets in the mortuary. The least expensive looked like it was made of plywood.

"We can't bury our mother in that," I said.

"But we can't afford the more expensive one," Fess said.

"We can't guarantee the water-tightness of the economy model," Mr. Duggan.

"Oh my god. I can't stand this," I said. The plywood coffin, if that in fact was what it was made of, seemed so meager, so pathetic. The grain of the wood was coarse, irregular. There was no lining. It was just a box. A functional box.

"We'll take the second one," I said.

Mr. Duggan nodded. "Good choice. We sell more of those than any other, to tell you the truth."

He took us in the back room for the arrangements.

"I feel like I'm suffocating," I told Fess.

"I feel like I want to kill this guy," he whispered.

Fess and I were crying by the time we took our seats in the brightly lit—too brightly lit—room.

"Please. Take a tissue," said Mr. Duggan.

"No charge?" Fess asked.

"You're not the first to make that joke," said the owner mildly.

"Let's finish our business," I said.

"Very well. When would you like to have the funeral?"

"Our father wants it as soon as possible. It'll only be immediate family."

"Will tomorrow afternoon be suitable?"

"Can we really do it that quickly?"

"Yes. We have several clergymen on retainer who can conduct the service. Of what faith was Mrs. Sawyer?"

"Jewish," I said.

"But our Dad's Lutheran. The two of them fought about religion all the time," Fess said.

"And so...?" Duggan said.

"Please arrange for a rabbi to preside over the ceremony," I said.

"And would you like for him to prepare an oration?"

"Saul'll do it."

"Very well."

When we took our leave of Mr. Duggan we had to walk back through the casket room. I tried to glance away from the one that Fess and I had chosen.

Monday evening

I called Cheryl that night at her home in West Palm Beach. She was cooking when she picked up the phone.

"Oh, Saul. It's good to hear you voice. Hold on. Daryl and I are baking a cake."

Daryl, her three year old son, had hearing problems and what had been diagnosed as attention deficit disorder. Cheryl was always coming up with projects to keep him occupied.

"What's going on with the cake?" I asked.

"We're practicing. PRAC-TIC-ING. That's right dear. It's another way of learning. Sorry, Saul. We're practicing for Daryl's birthday party on Saturday."

"Thanks for reminding me. I bought him a paint set, but I won't be able to send it to you till after I go back. With my birthday, then Fess's, then Daryl's, it's bam bam bam. Tell Daryl happy birthday."

"Uncle Saul says HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Daryl says Happy Birthday to you, too. By the way, did you get that something I sent you?"

"Yes. The Riverside Shakespeare. Thank you. The shipping alone must have cost you a fortune."

"I thumbed through the sonnets. Pretty twisted love. Beautiful, but twisted."

"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom."

"Is that from the sonnets?"

"Yeah. Only lines I can remember."

"Saul..."

"Yes..."

"You're calling about the funeral, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You want me to come, don't you?"

"Very much."

"I don't want to. Put the mix in THERE, Daryl. Not on your face."

"Why not?"

"Because Mom was a raging bitch to me these past three years. Just unbelievable. You had to see it to believe it, Saul. When I was pregnant with Daryl she was a monster. I don't know why. Maybe she was jealous of the attention I was getting. Maybe she was afraid that I'd turn out to be a better mother than she had been. But she tormented me. When she came up to West Palm to visit, I was in my eighth month. And she did everything she could to make me lose the baby. She criticized every move I'd make, she fought with Dad. She even bumped into me accidentally on purpose. I don't want to see her off, Saul. I want to give my son a birthday party on Saturday."

"Cheryl, I'm sorry Mom acted that way."

"Hell, no reason for you to be sorry. She was the bitch. And I understand that this might be hard for you to accept. She was always sweet with you."

"Not always."

"You know what I mean. With you she made her love clear. You were her first. But I was her last. And I don't think she wanted me. Maybe she wanted another Saul."

"Cheryl..."

"Oh, Saul, you know I love you like a brother. But I always felt that she wanted another boy. Did I tell you that after you went away to college she used to wash your Khoury League baseball jerseys and hang them out on the line every week?"

"I stopped playing Khoury League when I was thirteen."

"I know. But she kept the memory alive. And when I'd go out to the line to ask her something, she'd shoo me away."

"You never told me any of this."

"You never asked."

"Don't you want to say good-bye to her, Cheryl?"

"I said good-bye to her. Three years ago."

"What about the Bell's palsy?"

"Don't bring that up, Saul."

"One side of your face was paralyzed. Mom helped you through it, didn't she?"

"I can't believe that you're using this."

"It's true, isn't it?"

"It's the last good thing I remember her doing."

"You know, when you were growing up Fess and I used to call you the Little Mommy. You imitated her duck-walk and that flutter-bird motion of her hands."

"Saul. I'm not like her."

"I'm just saying that she was a big part of your life when you were little."

"You'll be at the funeral?"

"Yes. I'm giving the eulogy."

"And Dad'll be there?"

"Yes. He's pretty depressed."

"And Fess?"

"Yes. He hopes you change your mind about coming."

"I may get there late."

"That's okay."

"All right. I'll come. But don't expect me to cry."

Tuesday afternoon

When Mr. Duggan introduced Dad to Rabbi Shmeretz, the clergyman hired to perform the service, Dad said, "Pleased to meet you, father."

Fess exploded. "I can't believe you screwed that up," he said to Dad after the rabbi politely shook his hand, gathered enough information to make a few general statements about Mom during the ceremony, and discreetly left the waiting room at the cemetery.

"He's just nervous," I said. "Let him be."

That morning we had bought Dad a dark blue suit at J.C. Penney's. It didn't fit quite right, hanging on him like loose skin. He had asked us what kind of socks to wear and Fess and I told him dark ones, but he had worn white ones instead.

My blue suit was still wrinkled from the travel bag. Fess's was neatly pressed, but he was wearing sunglasses for the outdoor ceremony, and whenever he wore sunglasses he looked like a Mafia hit man.

"Shall we proceed to the site?" asked Mr. Duggan.

"Cheryl's not here yet," I said.

All of us stood stiffly for the next few moments, waiting.

"Are you sure she's coming?" Fess asked.

"She said she'd be here," I said.

"I'd like to get this over with," Dad said. "Can we wait for her outside? At least we can look at the flowers out there."

The rabbi met us on the path that led to the gravesites. He shook all of our hands again.

"How can you do a service when you don't even know the person?" Fess asked.

"I know they are human and deserve to have someone speak for them," the rabbi said. "That's all I need to know."

Just then a beat-up looking gray minivan pulled into the cemetery parking lot.

"Cheryl," said Fess.

She walked toward us with Mom's walk: feet splayed out at a 45 degree angles, hips shifting from side to side, but there was something different about it, some kind of self-awareness that Mom never possessed. Cheryl was wearing a plain straw hat and a white dress with a floral pattern. She looked older than 29. As she came closer her crow's feet became evident, as did two worry lines stretching down from the corners of her mouth. There was no sign she had been crying.

"Sorry I'm late," she said.

"We're glad you're here," I said, hugging her.

"Will you walk over with us?" Dad asked.

"Yes, of course," she said, embracing him, patting his neck gently.

She took her place between Fess and me. Dad walked out in front, with the rabbi and Mr. Duggan. We proceeded down the flower-lined path, past row after row of gravesites, working our way from the monuments of earlier eras—Isiah Rosenberg, born l827, died l913: Beloved Father and Husband: He Loved His Family and His Books—to the present, in the small corner of the cemetery where the most recent burials took place.

Mr. Duggan guided us to the site. The first thing we saw was the seating area with a handful of black metal chairs and a black podium on a small elevated wooden stage. The second thing was the hole, huge and gaping. A digging machine had just finished up and was chugging toward a work shed in the furthermost reaches of the cemetery.

"What an ugly horrible machine. What an ugly horrible hole," Cheryl said.

"Sorry," Mr. Duggan shouted. "The digger should've finished up earlier."

My father shook his head; he was visibly distraught. Fess shouted, "Nice work, Duggan."

Finally, we all took our seats. The rabbi went to the podium and began to speak.

He talked with a powerful voice filled with conviction and with passion, but it was a generic speech. He didn't really know our mother. He talked about how she loved her husband and her children and had valued education. After a few moments he sat down. I nodded to him; he had done his best on short notice.

I mounted the steps to the podium. I unfolded my notes from my suit pocket, but changed my mind and stuffed them back in.

"I'm really not sure how to start," I said, rubbing my knuckles against the edge of the podium. "So I'll just speak from the heart. Which isn't so easy to do when your heart is confused.

"One thing I'm certain about. I loved Mom. If I have any facility at all with language—and at this moment, I'm not at all convinced I do—it comes from her. When I was growing up she used to read to me all the time. l00l Arabian Nights. Aesop's Fables. Grimm's Fairy Tales. Everything. She loved words.

"Anyone calling our house knew that they had to set aside a substantial portion of time if Mom answered the phone. She always had something to say, and when she said it she made it seem like the most important thing in the world, not only for her, but for everybody. That's a rare gift.

"I always knew that I could count on Mom for moral support. And I have to be honest: I'm not necessarily talking about sound advice. That wasn't her strong suit. She was anything but practical, and she went off on tangents. But I always sensed that she wanted to help, that her spirit was willing to do so. Even when her words were off the subject, the good intentions behind them made them uplifting.

"For the past three days I've been remembering things about Mom," I said, wiping a speck of dirt from my eye. "And I've been thinking a lot about the things she loved. The New York Mets. Lucille Ball. Juicy gossip. Key lime pie. Music. Cheryl told me on the way over here that the Dick Powell version of "I'll Always Have Eyes For You" was her favorite song."

Cheryl nodded. She sat stiffly, her eyes dry.

"Sometimes her love went astray, turned into something else, maybe even its opposite. Which brings me to the part that I've been dreading. Mom's other side. I'm not going to dwell on it. Maybe I shouldn't even mention it. Not on this occasion. But I feel that I have to talk about it. Or everything that I've said up to this point will seem dishonest, a misrepresentation of her. I know that she fought with people who were very dear to her..."

Just a few feet away from me, my father silently mouthed the word "Yes."

"And I know that she could do things that were hurtful to the ones she loved..."

Cheryl rubbed her hand across her belly. Fess wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

"And I can't justify or explain those actions. To me it seems as if there were two Moms. One who was loving and supportive, and one who undermined the very people she professed to care about. I can't reconcile those two Moms. I don't think any of us can. And I don't think that we can pretend that only the 'good' Mom existed.

"What should we do? We should try to remember the good and forgive the rest. That's really all we can do, isn't it? The other thing we can do is miss her. That's what I'm feeling more than anything else right now. I'll even miss her 6 a.m. phone calls and her off-key singing..."

That was all I could say.

A few moments later the casket was lowered into the ground. Dad seemed to shrivel up inside himself. Fess said something to Duggan. Cheryl threw some dirt on top of the casket. I cried. Then the four of us wrapped our arms around one another in a tight embrace that seemed to last for minutes.

The walk back to the parking lot was long, arduous. Dad apologized to the rabbi for getting his title wrong; the rabbi quickly forgave him. Fess talked to Dad about having him come up and stay at his place for a few days.

Cheryl walked up alongside me just before we reached her van.

"Saul, thank you for making me come."

"How was it?"

"You prettied up her picture."

"Do you forgive her?"

"No, I can't say I do. She almost cost me Daryl. I'll always hate her for that. But did you know that Daryl walks like her? I have to love her a little for that."

"Cheryl, I was thinking about staying over for a few days, maybe coming to Daryl's birthday party on Saturday. What do you think?"

"I think that Daryl and I would like that very much."

Copyright © 1997 by Steve Cassal. All rights reserved.