Where Yesterday Lives (40 page)

“Then get your things.” He smiled and patted her on the behind. “We’ve got a hotel room waiting for us.”

The morning dawned chilly and overcast, unusually cool for July. The clouds would probably dissipate by noon but Ellen thought the weather seemed appropriate, as if the sky were mourning her father’s death as well.

Still, the Baywinds Inn was perfectly tranquil that morning. The room she and Mike shared had a balcony with a distant view of the bay.

Ellen crept outside and sat down, letting the cool morning air wash over her as she stared across the water. In two days she would be gone and everything about the week would be behind her.

The night before, she had told Mike about the problems between her and Jane and the others, and he had kindly refrained from making cutting remarks about her siblings. Instead he assured her the week was nearly through. She would be going home the next day and could put the entire ordeal behind her. Then they talked for hours about their past
mistakes. When Ellen finally told him how seriously she had considered leaving him, Mike cried.

He’d reached out for her, gathering her close and holding her tightly. He buried his face in her hair, and she stroked his back as he cried. When he could speak again, he pulled back and met her eyes. “I was a fool, Ellen. I took you for granted. I took everything I believe about the Lord for granted. In the process I let our marriage grow cold.”

His words filled Ellen with joy—and gratitude to God, who had kept her faithful at her weakest moment. What she saw reflected in Mike’s eyes moved her more deeply than anything she had ever experienced. They talked some more after that and then they did something they hadn’t done in years. They prayed together. Finally, in the early morning hours, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

But still she said nothing about Jake. Not yet.

Mike had a game to cover Sunday morning, so he would leave later that evening on a flight back to Miami. Their hotel room was quiet as he dressed in a sleek Armani suit, and Ellen wondered how Jake would react when he saw them together that morning at the funeral. The two men had never met. She forced herself not to think about it as she slipped into the navy rayon dress she had worn from Miami a week earlier.

They arrived at the Barrett house by eight that morning. Everyone was there except Megan and Jane’s family.

“Good morning, dear.” Ellen’s mother smiled sadly, greeting Ellen at the door and kissing her on the cheek. “You look pretty”

“Thanks, Mom. You, too.”

“Hello, Mike. We’re glad you could make it.”

Mike nodded in response and straightened his tie, clearly unsure what to say.

Ellen’s mother wore an elegant black dress with dark hose,
but her makeup wasn’t done yet and she was slightly breathless with the rush to get ready on time.

“Your Aunt Betsy put together a breakfast tray for us, pastries and fruit, that kind of thing.” She pointed them toward the dining room table. “I still have to do my face and hair. I’ll be back out in a while.”

Ellen watched her disappear down the hall and in the distance she heard Aaron’s voice boom through the house.

“Mom, where’s the blow dryer? I can’t find it anywhere.”

Amy and Frank were dressed, sitting at the dining room table eating. Ellen nodded to them as she fixed a plate of food.

“How’s it going, Frank?” Mike asked. He took his plate and found a seat next to Ellen.

“Good. You?”

“Fine.”

They heard Aaron’s voice again.

“Mom, where’s the hair spray? It’s always in this cabinet.”

“I’ve got it. Just a minute, Aaron,” Mom yelled in response.

Ellen nibbled at a pastry and thought how familiar the scene felt. It had been this way a handful of times before, when the Barrett family had been up early in the morning preparing for a big event. They had done this from a motel room in Ann Arbor before her graduation from the university, and again before her wedding. Later the same scene played out in this very house before Jane’s wedding and then Amy’s.

There was that same anticipation, the readying for an event that would mark a milestone in a lifetime of everyday occurrences. It seemed strange—almost twisted somehow. Every other time the event had been a celebration. Ellen thought something should be different about preparing for a funeral.

She excused herself and went out back to read her eulogy once more. She’d worked on it late into the night, getting up
again after Mike was asleep, and she felt satisfied with what she had written. Now she wanted to be familiar with it so she could read it despite her emotions.

Jane and Troy and the children piled into Troy’s rented car at eight-thirty on the morning of the funeral. Jane was particularly quiet, and Troy allowed her enough space to deal with her feelings.

“Here we go,” she muttered as they pulled out of the parking lot.

Troy looked over at her, and she caught his curious glance.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No, I’m not.” She rubbed at a spot on her dress where Kala had spilled oatmeal. “How am I supposed to do this today, Troy? I mean, the whole week’s been a disaster. Ellen and I aren’t speaking to each other, and now I have to pretend to be broken up by my father’s death.”

Troy sighed loudly and slammed his foot on the brake. He pulled over and brought the car to a stop on the side of the road.

“Something isn’t right here, Jane.”

She looked at him, startled. He sounded as though his patience was waning. “What do you mean?”

“First of all, you’ve been snapping at everyone in your family since I got here yesterday. You act as if they should understand what happened to you the night your father left. Second, last night at the viewing you were working a little too hard to convince yourself that your dad’s death doesn’t matter to you.”

He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and stared out the window for a moment. “I think you’re kidding yourself, Jane.” He turned back toward her. “I think you’re hurting as much, maybe even more than the rest of your family. You
wrote him off years ago, and now you have to live with that. Nothing you say or do can give you those years back.”

Jane couldn’t respond.

He paused a moment, and the children grew restless in the backseat. “Jane, it’s time you let down your defenses and stop trying to fight the world because of what happened that night. The Bible says not to let the sun go down on your anger, but you’ve been doing that for more than a decade. No wonder you’re miserable. Your bitterness has all but strangled you.”

“I thought at least you’d understand,” she cried. “You know why I feel this way.”

“I do understand, Jane.” He reached over and touched her face. “But you need to let it go, hon. Put it behind you. As long as you blame Ellen and your father, you’re never going to be free of the past. You’ll never be at peace with God or anyone in your family.”

“It’s not like I’ve been this way forever, Troy. It’s just this funeral thing. I don’t know how to deal with it.”

He shook his head. “That’s not true. You’ve been upset with Ellen for years. Sure, there are times when you two get along better than you have this week. But you blame her for what happened, just like you blame your father.”

Jane hung her head, the fight gone.

“Ellen doesn’t have any idea what’s eating you, what’s been eating you for the past decade. Neither did your father.”

“I wanted her to ask,” Jane said weakly

“That’s not fair, Jane. No one could guess something that terrible had happened to you. Not even Ellen.”

Jane sniffed and raised her eyes meekly. “Have I been that bad?”

“Quite honestly, yes.”

Jane sighed and stared at her hands, absorbing the truth in his words. “I’ll talk to her.”

“What about your dad? You have to deal with it, Jane. After today you might never have another chance.”

“I know.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I’ll take care of it.”

He reached out and pulled her close, hugging her. “Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Silent tears fell onto her lap, but she said nothing.

“Honey,” his voice was gentle. “I’ll be pulling for you.”

Megan was pacing her apartment, frantic about what she had written for the funeral. She had not expected to have any trouble with the eulogy, but all week none of the words had fallen into place. She had memories of her father from when she was a little girl and memories from the past two years. But she had been gone so much of the time in between that she hadn’t found a way to bridge the gap on paper. She had something else planned, something no one knew about. But she still hadn’t pieced together the eulogy

She stopped suddenly and remembered something she had forgotten until that instant. Years ago she had been in counseling after breaking up with Mohammed, and she had successfully survived a month without calling him or returning his phone calls. To celebrate the victory her father had taken her to a fancy steak house for dinner. He told the waitress they were celebrating his daughter’s special anniversary, but the woman misunderstood and thought it was Megan’s birthday. When the meal was over a dozen food servers brought her a piece of cake with a candle. They sang her a birthday song and their waitress snapped a picture of her father with his arm around her.

For a long time she had kept that Polaroid snapshot on her dresser as a reminder of her father’s unending support, an
encouragement for the days when she felt like calling Mohammed. Later, when Mohammed was no longer a temptation and the picture began to collect dust, she tucked it away in a scrapbook. In the past week she had been too busy worrying about her sisters to remember the photo until now.

She disappeared into her closet, rummaging through a box of belongings until she came across the scrapbook. Flipping through the pages she searched frantically until she found it. There she was, side by side with her dad, silly expressions on their faces as they celebrated her independence.

That picture said more about her relationship with her father than anything she could have put on paper. She tucked it in her purse, grabbed her keys and an envelope that contained a single cassette tape. She was at her mother’s house in five minutes.

Diane breathed a sigh of relief. All the kids were there now, and all but Aaron were ready to go. He was showered and dressed but he remained in his room, and Diane looked nervous. It was nine-fifteen and the service started at ten. They needed to leave in ten minutes according to her schedule.

“Aaron.” She knocked gently on his bedroom door.

“What?” he barked.

“Are you almost ready? We need to leave in a few minutes.”

“You go ahead. Go without me. I’ll be there later.”

Diane sighed softly. “Son, I want us all to arrive at the same time. Is there something I can help you with?”

Silence.

“Aaron?”

“I said go!”

“Can you open the door a minute so I can talk with you, please?”

There was a brief pause and then she heard the click of a lock turning as he opened the door.

“What?”

He had his dark glasses off, and she could see he’d been crying. “What’s taking so long, son?” She kept her voice tender and calm. “I’d be happy to help you.”

“Here—” He thrust a wrinkled piece of paper into her hand. “That’s the problem.”

Diane stared at the paper and read over the first few handwritten lines. “Is this what you’re going to read at the funeral?”

“It’s all I have, but I can’t read it. It stinks. I’ve worked on it every day this week, and it just doesn’t sound right.”

She took a moment and read the opening lines of what he had written. It was jerky and not quite beautiful, but it came from his heart. She handed it slowly back to him.

“Son, this is what you remember, the way you remember him. It’ll be perfect.”

“You don’t understand…” He began crying, and Diane watched him, deeply moved. This was the first time since he was a little boy that he had let her see his tears. “Dad deserved more than what I’ve written there. It’s not enough.”

Suddenly her tall, strong, strapping son was reduced to an oversized little boy crying for his daddy, and Diane’s heart broke at the sight of him. She took his large, callused hand in hers and squeezed it tenderly “You, all by yourself, are enough, Aaron.”

He looked up at her, questioning, clearly wanting to believe her. “What if I mess it up?”

She shook her head. “Your heart will speak for you, son. Believe me.”

He sniffed loudly and wiped his face with the back of his hand. Then he reached for his dark glasses on his bedside table and put them firmly in place.

“All right, then,” he said, his voice shaking. “I’ll do this one last thing for Dad, even if it isn’t perfect.” He took his mother’s arm in his. “Let’s get going.”

S
t. Francis Xavier Catholic Church stood tall and proud amidst the rows of gift shops and ice-cream parlors, novelty booths, and boutiques that filled Petoskey’s Gaslight District. Jane’s family drove in caravan toward the towering gray steeple that marked the church. The building was one of the oldest in Petoskey, and its brick-and-stone exterior made it appear stately and strong.

The hearse was there, across the street near the side doors. Jane and her siblings piled out of their cars and moved separately toward the black vehicle. They kept their distance from each other, aware of the tension that remained. The rear doors of the hearse were open, and two attendants prepared to place the casket on a rolling gurney.

An elderly woman appeared at the church’s side entrance. “You’re the family, is that right?” She wore a badge that identified her as the funeral coordinator. “And you must be Mrs. Barrett.” She extended her hand. “I’d like you all to come in and have a seat about ten minutes before the guests begin to arrive.”

“My son is a pallbearer,” Mom said. “Can he sit with his sisters or does he need to sit with the other pallbearers?”

“Oh, no, dear,” she said quickly. “He can sit wherever he’d like.”

“Good. Thank you.”

The woman nodded and disappeared back inside the church. The organist arrived and began practicing with the soloist, filling the air with dark, somber music.