Дж. Хатчинс - Personal Effects - Dark Art

Her blue eyes glimmered. She bared her teeth, playfully.

“Don’t mess with PixelVixen707,” she whispered diabolically. “Snarl.”

Lucas snickered. “Snarl,” he said.

“Speaking of messing with a good thing,” I said, pulling my cell phone from my slacks pocket. I passed it to Rachael. “Dad’s probably going to be late. Listen to the voice mail he left last night. Dial 212-629-1951, and hit 3017. That’s my password. Unbelievable.”

Rachael dialed in the numbers and pressed the phone to her ear. Lucas leaned in, curious.

The pair listened and exchanged more up-to-the-nanosecond slang. If you’d put a gun to my head at that moment, I still couldn’t tell you what in the hell they were talking about. I think they were dissing Dad, but I wasn’t sure. I needed subtitles when these propeller-heads got together.

At least Rachael had a professional excuse. In addition to being a part-time fact-checker for the New York Journal-Ledger and a freelance technical writer, she was the creator of PixelVixen707.com, a gaming blog bristling with “geek chica snarkitude.” The site had started as a personal weblog, but the gaming-related posts had brought piles of readers—and ad money. I was the guy who’d created the splash artwork for her home page: a cartoonified Rachael in coveralls, welder’s goggles perched atop her head, sleeves rolled high, flexing a tattooed bicep in the classic Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It!” pose. She held a Wii remote in her clenched fist. A mutual friend had introduced us a year ago; my for-the-check freelance gig evolved into a life-changing romance. I couldn’t image my world without this woman now.

And Lucas’ excuse? He was just a hardcore gamer. And, well, he’s Lucas. I can’t comprehend half the things he says anyway.

A slender, graceful man stepped toward us, his pleasant face tinged with a hint of generic sorrow.

“Ms. Webster, are these the gentlemen you were waiting for?” he asked.

She nodded, immediately toning down her contagious smile. “Yes, these are Mrs. Taylor’s grandsons, Zach and Lucas.”

The man introduced himself as Mr. Kress, the “evening director” for Selznick and Sons. He efficiently ushered us past the staid, mahogany-accented couches and chairs and out of the lobby. He apologized to Lucas and me for our loss—I nodded blankly, it felt weird receiving such intimate condolences from a stranger—and then encouraged us to sign the guest book and fill out a memorial card before entering Gram’s parlor.

I didn’t know what a memorial card was, but Mr. Kress explained as he walked us to a desk just outside the open doors of the room reserved for us. I looked past him, at the group of silver-haired folks inside. My grandmother’s urn sat on a table by the far wall, placed next to a small wooden box.

I smiled. My high school buddy Ida “Eye” Jean-Phillipe and her father Eustacio were here. As far as I knew, neither of them had known Gram, so I reckoned they were here to support the family. Eustacio was the flint-eyed deputy chief of NYPD’s homicide division, and an old friend of my dad’s. (“From the ramen noodle days,” Dad had once told me.) Ida, an NYPD lab tech, was here for me. I hadn’t known she was coming tonight. Very cool of her to show.

“…so think of a memorial card as a message to your loved one,” Mr. Kress was saying as we reached the desk. He picked up a small envelope and a pre-folded card and handed them to me, gave another to Lucas and one to Rachael. “Feel free to write anything you like—a favorite memory, a prayer, a story. It’s a way to tell her that you’re thinking about her.

“Then place the card in the envelope,” he said, demonstrating. Lucas snorted. I flashed him a half-smirk: We know how frickin’ envelopes work. Jesus Christ.

“…and place it in the box next to your grandmother’s cremains,” Kress concluded. “We hope it will provide some comfort for your family to read these after the service.”

The director thanked us, and softly withdrew. The three of us stood by the desk. We didn’t speak. This was… well, this was it, wasn’t it? I stared at the card, suddenly feeling awkward and clumsy and cold and oh

— be sure to breathe, Mr. Taylor, I heard the reptilian voice of Martin Grace say, be sure to keep breathing while the patient yanks the rug from beneath you —

I shivered, there in the hallway. Rachael noticed, and gave me a concerned look through her black-framed glasses. Lucas, oblivious, bent over the desk and began writing a message to Gram with one of the fountain pens provided.

Rachael reached for my hand, entwined her fingers in mine and gave a supportive squeeze. I smiled. She let go, stepped over to the table and wrote her own message. Finished, they both looked at me.

“Give me a minute,” I said. “Go ahead.” They stepped further into the room.

And then it was me, a fountain pen and my grandmother.

Gram , I wrote, and paused. I watched the ink seep into the thick paper, a black cumulus cloud spreading into a pale sky.

Ink and Gram.

The two words that had carried me through so much of my life came from my grandmother. Courage and faith, little Zachary, she had said to me after my mother died, more than twenty-one years ago. As I stood here in the funeral home, I could remember that night as her hands brushed away my nightmare tears. The veins on her hands. Her palms, smooth and soft. That’s all you need, baby boy. Courage, to face the tough things. Faith, to endure them.

She’d been right. Her words were still in my heart, on my wrists.

Thank you , I wrote finally. I miss you.

I blew gently on the ink, then closed the card.

I stepped into the parlor to join my family and friends.

After I slipped my memorial card into the box by Gram’s urn—brushing off the weirdness of knowing that the woman who’d helped raise me was now reduced to a canful of ashes—I worked my way toward Lucas, Rachael and Eye. The mood in the room wasn’t jovial, but there was a joyfulness. We were here to celebrate Gram’s life, after all.

Gram’s friends all wanted to talk. She always said such nice things about you. Your father was so blessed to have her there, to help. She loved you so much . They were kind strangers, and I thanked them and held their hands and listened to their stories. I’m good at listening to people’s stories.

“Ou byen?” Eye whispered to me as we finally hugged. “You holding up okay?”

“You bet,” I said. “Thanks for coming. It means… it means a helluva lot.” I held her hand for a moment. My artist’s eye took a picosecond of pleasure in the contrast of her black skin against mine. “We knew it was coming. It sucks, but it’s… it’s over, you know?”

I knew she understood. Her mother died when she was young, too.

“And thanks again for the assist with Spindle,” I said. “You did it, Eye.”

“Oh no,” she replied. “ You did it, Z. I just helped a little.” She added a quick phrase in Kreyol that I didn’t understand, but her chuckle told me it didn’t matter.

My high school girlfriend had lived in the States since she was ten years old, but she still peppered her conversations with phrases from her native language. I loved listening to her speak. I’ve always thought that if flowers could talk, their voices would sound like Haitian Kreyol, rising and falling, lyrical, like piccolos.

I glanced past Eye’s shoulder at her father. Eustacio Jean-Phillipe was now pacing by the doorway of the parlor. He was talking on his cell phone.

“Is Papa-Jean on it?” I asked.