Page 105 of Mourner for Hire
I’ve only had months to grieve my mother, no matter how expected the loss was, and then some floozy from the city with fierce eyes and a pretty smile moves in and changes the smallest details that were always distinctly my mother.
My childhood.
My life.
“Where are you?” I shout into the ocean as if I can summon my earlier hallucination of my mother. She looked so real. So whole.
But I know it’s not her. My mother is buried in Shellport Cemetery, and her spirit is long gone into another realm. I wonder if she has found my dad yet. I wonder if they’re making jokes about me. I wonder if she told him I love him like I asked.
I wonder, more than anything, why Vada? Why does she have to be here? Why does it have to be her?
An hour at the beach does nothing to calm my nerves or anger. I’m not done with Vada. It’s time to set down some rulesand guidelines. Any big changes need to be run by me due to human decency.
I get in my car and drive back over to the cottage.
THIRTY-EIGHT
VADA
Instead of givingin to temptation, I throw on a hoodie and leggings and head to the supermarket to buy ice cream. When I return to the cottage, I toss the bag on the couch, and its contents spill onto the floral kitchen tablecloth. I throw off my hoodie and pull out the Phish Food ice cream and dig in. The chocolate and the caramel melt on my tongue, sweet and sinful.
I moan.
Sugar really is the worst drug.
I take another large spoonful and slide it into my mouth, closing my eyes and enjoying the indulgence until I hear the loud creak of the front door opening.
My eyes shoot open, and I see Dominic walking over the threshold and slamming the door behind him.
“I don’t remember saying you could come in.” I don’t even yell; my tone is just exhausted and bored with his dramatics. I drop the spoon with a loud clang on the counter.
“I’m not done talking to you,” he says.
“I’m done talking toyou,” I cut back. “I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to discuss anything about the cottage. I don’t ever want to see you again. Okay? Get out. Leave me alone. I will be gone soon anyway.”
His forehead is a maze of lines, each one angrier than the next. Until the hinge of his jaw pulses and his gaze lands on the exposed floorboards—the ones I’ve spent weeks sanding—and I realize every line on his face is grief, not anger. Though in this stage it can be so painfully both.
The hinge of his jaw pulses. “Tell me why.”
“Why what?”
“Why’d you take this job?”
“She hired me.”
“And what about me?”
“I didn’t know you were her son. I swear.”
He searches the room for the answer he wants. The one that makes me the villain. The problem. The thing he can point to and say, “This is what hurts.”
But he can’t do that. Unfortunately, grief has no shortcuts or martyrs.
I run my hands down my face. “I’m sorry, Dominic, but I made a promise to your?—”
“Fuck that. She’s dead.”
I don’t miss the crack of his voice on the last word.
