Buried Thoughts

The call comes late one night in mid-July. Homer’s in the den, watching TV with Madeline. The windows are open and the drapes are blowing. It’s the low point of summer. Dad’s on the kitchen phone, talking quietly. After he hangs up, he talks with Mom in the living room. Mom walks into the den with swollen eyelids and says Auntie Veronica, Dad’s sister, Homer’s favorite, may not live through the night. Madeline cries.

Later, looking somber, Dad gathers the family in the living room, says he’ll call from the hospital in Chicago. Then he leaves home with his suitcase.

Homer aches to fly with Dad.

In the dark, in bed, Homer’s eyes stay open most of the night. He prays for tomorrow to go fast. He thinks of Dad, sitting alone on the plane, staring out the window into space. Homer thinks of more, but of what, he doesn’t really know. He feels the thinking but sees nothing. His life is on hold.

Early the next morning, the phone rings. Auntie Veronica is dead. She died in the night, while Homer was thinking. Madeline cries again; this time, Mom does, too. Homer chokes down his own tears, tears not so much because his favorite aunt is gone, but because Madeline and Mom are hugging each other and crying.

The funeral will be up north, in the town of Homer’s paternal grandparents. On the ride there, Homer keeps thinking, feeling the thinking, but still not seeing it. He’s burning up with thought, as relatives arrive at Grandma and Grandpa’s home, embracing one another, eyes bloodshot and blurred by tears. Homer grows agitated, almost angry, in his hot dress jacket and tie, and goes outside to sit on the back-porch steps. What does a dead person look like? Does he have to touch her? Mom comes out and sits next to him.

“I’m not going,” Homer tells her.

His hair is hot from the sun. A light breeze kisses his neck. He keeps his eyes fixed on the bottom porch step, hopes Mom won’t be mad at him. Birds chirp in the apple tree near the alley. Even though he isn’t speaking, Homer feels as if Mom’s listening to him explain why he doesn’t want to go.

“You know who’d be comforted to have you there,” Mom says. “Dad.”

So Homer finds himself walking with his family up the porch steps of the funeral home. Dad opens the door, and they step inside. Homer’s uncle greets him with a smile and shakes his hand, tells him how much he’s grown, asks him whether he’s having a fun summer. His cousins take turns hugging him. He signs a guest book, embarrassed by his unsteady scrawl.

When it comes time to view Auntie Veronica, Homer follows Mom, Dad and Madeline. They turn a corner, and Homer braces himself. They turn another; he braces again. As they turn one more corner, the coffin appears, and in it, to his disappointment, lies his 37-year-old auntie, who doesn’t look at all as though she’s sleeping. She looks dead, like wax. In the air is a smell equal parts perfume and disinfectant.

Homer stares at the wax figure, remembers a night years ago at Grandma and Grandpa’s, when Auntie Veronica sat on the edge of his bed and, with that smile made famous by a pointy eyetooth, gently persuaded him to pray with her.

On the way home to Smoky River, Homer's haunted by another thought. Once, when Dad stops for gas, Homer almost shares the thought with Mom. But he chickens out, afraid to confess he wouldn't know how to make arrangements if she or Dad were to die.