Page 97 of Whirlwind
“Kit,” he says as I approach. “I expected this would be only family.” His eyes bounce around my three companions, lingering on Tyson the longest.
“This is my family.”
“I meant mine,” he says, tight-lipped.
“You have no family,” I blurt. The girl he used to know wouldn’t have been able to say such a thing without retribution. I’m not that girl anymore. Even with my heart racing, it feels right to speak my mind. To stand up to him. “It died with her.”
His eyes narrow dangerously on me. I’ve caused offense—he always hated that.
“Who are your friends?” He says the word like it’s an insult. Though, he’s probably never experienced true friendship, so maybe it is to him. Can narcissists have friends? I can’t imagine.
“This is Willa, Damian, and Tyson.”
“Tyson Murphy?” he asks, surprising me. I remember him casually watching hockey, but I wouldn’t expect him to know all the players.
“Yes,” Tyson says with a dismissive nod as he steps closer to my side. My father’s gaze bounces between us, trying to interpret the situation. His mouth opens to say something, but Tyson beats him to it. “We’ll put Anna to rest, now. You can make your assumptions and ask your questions after.”
The funeral director, who has awkwardly been standing to the side, clears his throat. He says some words—nothing I can focus on—but it sounds like he knew her. Not surprising, in a small town, and I can be thankful that someone has nice words for her. I scan the wall, full of names. Some I recognize. Some have fresh flowers in their vases, most are empty.
This isn’t what I want for myself in death—to be placed in a concrete wall, or a concrete box and lowered into the cold earth. I don’t want even my ashes to be confined. Spread me in a flowerbed where I can become something else. Something fresh, colorful, and alive. A renewal instead of an ending.
I’m not religious or spiritual. I do believe in a circle of life, though, and I like to think that I was part of something before—an atom, an organism that morphed or mutated time and time again. And will continue to do so. Like a continuous cycle of fertilization.
Maybe I’ll be used for growing carrots in my next cycle. I’ll be someone’s beta-carotene.
My father stands like a statue throughout it all. His shoulders heightened, the vein in his neck bulging. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s not thinking about his mother. No—he’s fuming over what Tyson and I both said to him. His ego could never take such slighting.
That’s okay. My, albeit much smaller, ego can’t take his lies. And I’m long past putting up with his verbal abuse.
When the funeral director—whose name I didn’t catch—finishes speaking and places my grandmother’s urn in the space, I place the small bunch of flowers we stopped to buy on our way into the vase on the wall. Coneflowers tied with string—simple flowers for a simple service. She would have hated an extravagant display; that wasn’t her style.
My father follows us out to the parking lot. I feel him looming behind us—the same dark cloud he’s always been. I wonder if he’s proud of that? Does he get a kick out of ruining people’s day?
I bet he does.
“You gonna leave, never to be heard from again?” He asks the question as we get to Tyson’s rental car.
He’s not wrong; that is exactly what I did. I left and went no contact with him. There wasn’t a point in it; there was nothing left to say. Until now.
“I’ll say what I have to say, here, then yes, I’ll leave and go back to pretending you don’t exist.”
“Ungrateful,” he spits. “You always were.”
“Ungrateful for what? You didn’t give me anything to be grateful for.”
“I put a roof over your head. Food on your plate.”
“You did the bare minimum to take care of a child,” I bite back, incredulous that he thinks his own flesh and blood needednothing more than shelter and an occasional peanut butter sandwich. “Yourchild. Not some random kid you found on your lawn. The daughter of the woman you loved enough to marry. Me! The child of your dead wife.”
He flinches, looking away from me, surprised that I know. Quickly, he schools his features back to his signature scowl. Willa and Damian stand by my side, Tyson at my back. Towering over me, his silent anger radiating around me.
“She told you,” he states.
“It should have come from you, years ago. I deserved to know the truth, to know her.”
“Don’t blame me for that,” he snaps. “You don’t know her because she left. I told her not to go, I told her not to leave us.”
“She didn’t choose to leave me,” I say.
