2. Till Death Do Us Part
Coming back home for Sam's funeral was Emma's doing, not mine.
My wife is Californian from head to toe; lithe, airy, blonde, startlingly beautiful and all-too good for me. When I first met Emma at some freshmen's event in college, I thought she had a mythological quality to her. It was the sea-green eyes, I think, and that feather hair-clip she'd pinned to the braid running down her golden hair.
"Got a light?" she'd asked. My new-found status as non-virgin had given me enough bravado over the summer to shrug and raise an eyebrow at her, like a judgemental ass.
"I don't smoke," I'd replied, trying not to grimace at my sheer Georgia-ness.
Maybe that impressed her, or maybe Emma was just into jerks at the time and didn't realise I was a faux-jerk. Or maybe I just a pathetic, hick version of one and she felt like branching out.
Regardless, the night had progressed to us drunkenly swaying to one another before I snuck her back to my dorm. Emma swears we never had sex. I can't imagine why we wouldn't have. Anyway, it would be the first of many trips.
Emma and I moved through our college years without spelling out exactly what we were, much to the chagrin of our friends. I knew about the several trysts she'd had with other guys - the soft murmurs of Brandon and Cody and, on one occasion, a Dakota, floated above her golden head like a halo of gossip that didn't do much damage to our own arrangement. I was having fun too.
The transition from casual sex to serious relationship startled me with its abrupt naturalness. It would come about one day, a month before we were set to graduate, when I was leaning against the doorway of Emma's bedroom in her shared apartment. I remember watching as she folded the last of her clothes into her suitcase; I was in a foul mood for reasons that I couldn't explain at the time.
"Em," I'd said simply. It was the first time I ever felt self-conscious saying her name like that. Em. It felt too intimate, too brazen, like I hadn't spent four years tracing my fingers on her perpetually sunburnt lower back as we lay side-by-side on the cramped space of my single bed.
I couldn't say anything more. All that bravado had been shred apart by the epiphanic gaze in her mermaidian eyes.
"Come home with me," she'd said.
Emma was too breezy and I, too permanently embarrassed, to ever declare our love with any cinematic calibre. But that was the end of that - or the beginning, perhaps.
I would've never come back home for the funeral if it weren't for her. Like I said, she's Californian. She likes her family and the sprawling, beachy neighbourhood she grew up in. It puzzled me to see her light up at mail addressed from a Mr and Mrs Jerard Thompson and re-live her parents' travel-enthusiast adventures in Bangkok or Malaysia, or wherever else in Asia.
She loves home. And me? Decidedly less so.
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When I got the phone call from mom about Sam, my first reaction was to recoil.
I'd put the phone down without another word and stalked across the living room with Emma trailing after me with a barrage of 'you okay?'s.
I spent the next day-and-a-half avoiding mom's phone calls, which Emma dealt with. But she punished me a little, for being a coward, by standing right in front of me, the phone pressed to her ear, as she nodded along to all the details mom would be reeling off to her in her melancholy, Southern drawl.
"They're having a funeral this Sunday," Emma whispered to me in bed, "for your friend."
And I'd grimaced at that. Sam was barely a friend but I could hardly tell my wife that the last memory I could conjure up of this dead girl was the warmth of her body as it rocked into mine.
"They, uh, found her...body?" I managed after an agonising pause.
"Bones," Emma murmured, but she was already drifting to sleep, her hand sliding away from my chest.
The next day, when she was wide awake, Emma decided to be a little more sanctimonious.
"I don't get it," she said. "Why can't you go? Just take the weekend off."
"I've got deadlines, hon," I said, not meeting her eye. "Monroe's already chewed me out about my last article. Can you believe this guy? Apparently poverty isn't interesting enough to talk about."
"It's not," Emma shrugged. "Not for the kind of magazine you write for. And don't change the subject. Wasn't she your friend?"
"Who?"
"What's your deal with her? She was obviously important." Emma crossed her arms together. "Was she your girlfriend at school or something? You can't seriously think I care about that, right? Look, you can grieve, you know, because - "
"Oh, hon, drop it, will you?" I slid out of bed quickly. "She was just some kid in my class."
"I've told your mom you're coming," Emma replied, her eyebrow quirked up, ready for a challenge.
Anger flushed through me in a sudden gush. "Why the hell would you do that?"
"Because you're being an asshole," she snapped, "and your mom misses you."
"Oh, Em, how many times do I gotta tell you, I'm not - "
"Look, we'll all go, okay?" Emma cut across me. Her eyes were tantalisingly green when she was determined. "You, me and the girls."
Being back at home for my wedding had been bad enough - it was a strange crossover of my years at college and my childhood town. Everybody'd taken to Emma really well but I'd found the ordeal of being at the centre of attention awful. Add two babies into the mix and I was in for a hellish weekend.
But I was defeated now. You couldn't just tell my mother you were coming and not live up to the promise. Emma'd known that all along and craftily strung me along to believe I had any choice in the matter.
"Alright, sweetheart," I sighed. "I give in."
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The funeral is in two hours.
Emma's bustling about the kitchen with mom and I can hear the first rumblings of a temper tantrum brewing from Agatha who is sitting, cross-legged, beside my nephew in the living room.
My cousin, Lara, is sitting across from me, cooing at my daughter but it's only aggravating her.
"What a gorgeous girl," she keeps saying. The veins on my forehead are throbbing.
Diana, who's barely one-and-a-half, is blinking at me from the corner of the sofa, safely tucked in a blanket she is particularly fond of. She's already easier on us than Aggy ever was - everything she does is quiet. I shamefully have to admit she's already my favourite child.
"What a beauty," Lara chuckles again, delighted at the sight of my older child's Shirley Temple curls and frowning face. The throbbing in my head intensifies.
"Have ya'll heard?" a voice floats into the living room. My other cousin (twice removed, I think), Anna, sits down beside me, buzzing with an inappropriate amount of excitement in her grim funeral dress.
"Oh, more bad news?" Lara frowns, finally tearing her gaze away from Agatha who has since trotted over to my leg and paws at it, silently instructing me to make all of these strange people go away.
I wish I could, baby, I think morosely. I wish I could.
"The police might re-open the case," Anna says. "Can't say there's any hope findin' who did it, though, after all these years."
"I thought it was suicide," I say and the two look at me, as though they've just remembered I was there.
"You really ought to keep up with town gossip," Lara says, flashing me a judging look with her huge, goggle-eyes. I've never particularly liked Lara; her face's ovalness gives the impression of a malnourished fox, and a fox she certainly is. I really should be above it now but childhood resentment from our school days has leaked over into our adult relationship.
"Right," I says stiffly.
"That Sam was awful high and mighty," she continues, sniffing at what I am sure is a childhood grudge of her own. "All those airs and graces, and for what? Mary-Anne was a good friend of hers, you know, in middle school. She says all that girl ever did was scribble away in her books and read funny poetry."
"Sounds like our Sam," Anna sighs.
"You never met her," I point out but Anna turns to face Lara completely, ignoring me.
Lara taps the side of her head. "She was funny up there, I'm tellin' ya'll right now. I bet she got mixed up with the wrong crowd and kept that Christian goody-goody image up so that we — "
"What's everyone talking about?"
Lara stops and flashes my wife a sugar-sweet grin. Emma smiles back, unaware that Lara doesn't like her, and walks past me to get Diana, who is struggling against her blankets now.
She lifts her up elegantly, tucking Diana against her hip, and uses her other hand to gently swoop the baby's feathery hair to one side. I see Lara eyeing her with an expression that's a cross between jealousy and curiosity.
"Oh we were all wondering about our Sam," Lara says. I notice she's pronouncing her g's with more clarity to smother her accent.
"That poor girl," Emma tuts. That's the first drop of sincerity I've heard since we got here.
"Mhmm." Lara and Anna nod, side-by-side.
"Poor girl," they chorus in solidarity.
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The funeral is such a morose affair I don't know how I can stand being there. The church pews are packed with everyone I've known since I was a baby. Every now and again, my eyes will meet another acquaintance in the crowd and theirs will light up in friendly recognition. At times, I'll even come across old friends of mine: Dan, Aaron, Johnny. Sometimes my eyes will linger so that there is time for both parties to share a stiff, awkward nod. Other times I'll let them dart past quickly before the person realises.
Sam's picture is right up front, placed dead centre where the casket normally would go. They found bones, of course, not the body. My skin crawls at the fleeting curiosity of what they've done with her remains. Probably still with the police, if they really have opened the case up.
Remains.
My God, that's all we'll ever amount to by the end of it. My internal nihilism is ill-fitting for this ceremony where the main messages peddled by the teary-eyed speech seems to be about the preciousness of life and living it to the fullest because you never know.
I fucking hate funerals.
Sam's dad reduces everyone to tears with his anecdotes of Sam's childhood mischief, her love for God, and her philanthropy. Try as I might, I can't quite conjure up a Sam of her father's imagining. I feel embarrassed that I can't piece together any memory of my childhood with her, save for that one time she let me borrow her pencil. Even then, she is a freckled, grinning blur - one in the many fragmented montages of my sleepy, contented youth.
I prickle with anger when Mary-Annelise comes up to the podium and delivers a staggering performance about her committed friendship to Sam, red eyes and tissues in tow. Everybody cries, of course, and this is the only time I am able to vaguely recollect some eighth grade drama which involved Mary-Annelise spreading some unflattering stick-figure illustrations of Sam performing something unseemly on a male-stick figure around to the whole class. I don't know the details but I'm more outraged that everybody seems to have forgotten this (and also the fact that a eighth grader in the sixties knew what fellatio is).
Once the funeral is over and everybody is busy making their way out of the church, I quickly grab Emma's hand and whisper, "How about some tacos for lunch?"
"Seriously, hon?" she flashes angrily. I'm taken aback by the streak of tears on her cheeks which I hadn't noticed at all before.
"W-What?" I stumble.
"I'm sick of your shit right now," Emma hisses, snatching her hand away roughly from underneath my palm. It's her wedding-ring hand so the friction between the ring and my palm is sharp, and I gasp with pain. She's already walking away, however, so I am left there, puzzled, and with a minor cut.
I step forward to go after her but I hear someone say my name from behind me.
When I look back to respond, my stomach does a nauseating turn.
"Oh, uh, Mrs. Parker," I say awkwardly. Sam's mother did not say anything during the funeral - in fact, one might have entirely not noticed her, the way she'd hid herself in the crowd, had she not been the Parent of the Dead Girl.
"You've always been a handsome young man," she says, looking so small and mousy that I almost feel inclined to give her a hug.
I scratch the back of my head, looking down at my semi-polished shoes.
"Thank you, Mrs. Parker. I mean...I..." I shake my head, puffing out a little sigh. What the fuck else do you say that isn't performative grief? "Listen, I...Sam was...I mean, we didn't really, uh, you know, know each other that well. I mean, I knew her for awhile but - well, you know, we weren't very close but she was...she was..." Incredible? Kind? Sweet? Say something, you fuckwit, she's staring you down!
"Oh, I can see the appeal," Mrs. Parker mutters, though I don't think she's talking to me. Her eyes re-focus again and she smiles at me. "Thanks, sweetheart, but me and Harry knew this was a long time comin'. We've been grievin' for years."
"Oh." I nod stiffly. "I...well, that must've been hard."
"Listen, sweetheart, I want this done and over with." Mrs. Parker sighs wearily, and I can see the fine lines of exhaustion and grief etched in every wrinkle on her delicate, aging face. "I thought that maybe if Sammy came back home, she might want to give 'em to ya but...well, she never left home, did she? Our poor baby. I think I oughta give them to ya, I know you're livin' in that big city now and I don't blame ya, sweetheart. But before you go, I think you oughta come over to ours and get some stuff Sammy left behind for ya."
I take a step back, my mind whirring with the shock of the information.
"W-What? Sam, she - "
"It don't feel right triflin' with her things, but I couldn't help it." Mrs. Parker's voice breaks a little but I'm barely aware of it right now. Sam left...stuff behind? For me? For me? Was it that summer we had together, has she left some clues behind? Memorabilia? I don't recall gifting her anything, or vice versa, and I can't think that summer was important enough for her to...
"Oh dear, I think I've shocked you." She reaches out to pat my back sympathetically, and I realise the irony of the situation, and how much of an asshole I really am. No wonder Emma's sick of my shit.
"Listen, why don't you come on over for dinner tonight?" Mrs. Parker continues and I choke back the urge to say no, no, I want nothing to do with this. I want to go home, to my nice, suburban house, with my beautiful, Californian wife and our two children who will grow up with more North in their blood than South, because I can't stand anyone here. Not Lara, or Mary-Annelise, not even Sam, and her pseudo-spiritual presence over my life.
"Come on over," she insists, "and I'll give you her stuff. It'll be...an opportunity, I s'pose, for some closure."
"Of course," I surrender. "Of course I'll come, if it isn't any trouble for you and Mr. Parker."
Mrs. Parker chuckles, though there's a hint of sarcasm there.
"No trouble at all, sweetheart," she says and before I get the chance to offer her some more pathetic condolences, she walks past me.
On the drive home, I don't tell Emma or mom or anyone else anything other than the fact that me and a couple of other people from school were invited to Mrs. Parker's, for some bittersweet reunion. Mom coos mournfully.
"Poor child," she sighs in the backseat of the car. My eyes flit past her to Emma, who is staring out the window with an intense expression on her face.
I feel the prickle of the cut on my palm when she turns slightly to give me a non-committal stare. I glare back at her until she rolls her eyes and looks back out the window again, now chewing her lip furiously while she battles me silently in her brain. She's probably winning there too.
It suddenly strikes me that the last week has been filled with so much of Samantha Parker that I feel more married to her death than to my own wife.
For the first time, I feel the stirrings of sadness as I remember her freckled face closing in on mine. Maybe it did mean something after all.
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