Elinor Lipman - The Dearly Departed

“Either,” said Sunny. “Or both.”

“Everyone was rocked by this tragedy. It touched everyone in town, directly or indirectly.”

“I’m beginning to see that,” said Sunny.

“Did you order?” Mrs. Pope asked her, accompanied by the snap of Mrs. Angelo’s fingers behind her. From the counter, The Dot’s one waitress barked, “What?”

“Winnie! Bring Sunny a menu.”

“Just coffee,” said Sunny.

“What if Gus scrambles you an egg or two?” asked Mrs. Angelo from her stool. “Or we have omelets now—Eastern, Western, or Hawaiian.”

Mrs. Pope confided, “When I went through this with my mother, I lost one dress size without even trying. And she died at eighty-eight. Not unexpected.”

“ Still too young,” said Mrs. Angelo.

“Not in my mother’s case,” Mrs. Pope continued. “She was completely demented. But I know what you’re saying: You think you’re prepared, but you never are. And in your case, there’s an extra layer of tragedy—losing your only parent before you’re even …”

Sunny wasn’t sure where the unfinished sentence was supposed to lead. Her age? Her marital or professional status?

Mrs. Pope tried, “Thirty-three?”

“No, I was two years behind Randy. It’s the hair. People always think—”

“Well, of course! People are so unobservant. Your face is still the face in your yearbook picture.” She patted Sunny’s hand. “Mr. Pope and I take out a full-page ad in every King George Regional yearbook—Pope Sand and Gravel—so we get a courtesy copy.”

Sunny could see that Mrs. Pope, whose own hair was dyed a uniform chestnut, was counting the days until she could take the younger woman under her wing and advise her that gray is for aging hippies or the occasional over-fifty model whose silver hair is the very point.

“Tell me what I can do,” said Mrs. Pope. “There must be something I can help you with. Do you need a place to stay? Will the relatives need a place to freshen up?”

“I’m set,” said Sunny. “But thanks.”

“Randy lives on East Pleasant. You might know his wife.”

“I do.”

“It’s one of those cute stories: They didn’t like each other in high school—she thought he was conceited—three-letter athlete, tall, good-looking—and Regina was a few years younger and, from what I understand, a late bloomer. But then they ran into each other after he graduated from B.U., and she was back here from Rivier College, student-teaching—”

“I know the whole story.”

“I don’t know how well you knew him, but I can assure you that he’s matured into a fine husband and father. He’ll most certainly be paying his respects.”

“I’m sure Regina will,” said Sunny.

Winnie rounded the counter carrying a platter of English muffins, sunny-side-up eggs, home fries, and sausage flattened into a patty. “Couldn’t help it,” she said. “Gus heard you were here. He practically wept.” She checked to make sure Mrs. Angelo was out of range. “He thinks you’re taking a stand by coming here,” she whispered. “He’s really touched.”

“I’m taking a stand?” asked Sunny.

“The food,” Mrs. Pope explained. “Their last meal. It was take-out from here.”

“It was the last time anyone saw Miles alive,” said Winnie. “Until they ruled out food poisoning, we were sweating bullets around here, if you know what I mean. Even with all the hoopla about the furnace, business has dropped off—at least that’s my opinion. Guilt by association.”

“Then please tell Mr. Angelo that he’ll be seeing plenty of me, but I’m going to insist on paying for my meals,” said Sunny.

The waitress said, “Let him if he wants to. He had a lung removed and we like to give him his way.”

“Cancer,” Mrs. Pope translated.

“In remission,” said Winnie.

“Is he okay?” asked Sunny.

“We think so. It didn’t spread. Next Thanksgiving it’ll be five years.” Winnie knocked on the wood-look Formica, and Sunny seconded the motion.

She was waiting with her golf bag when the driving range opened at nine. After paying for the largest bucket of balls, Sunny walked past the rubber mats to the grassy area that separated the beginners from the experts. She began with short irons and worked her way up to her woods. An older couple arrived in matching cruise-line sweatshirts, stretched in tandem, then addressed each ball with their lips moving, as if reciting lessons. Even with her head down, Sunny sensed when their bucket was empty, when the husband had simply instructed his wife to watch her.

“You the pro here?” he finally called over.

“I wish,” said Sunny.

As she returned her empty basket, the man behind the counter asked, “Any interest in a member-guest tournament coming up next weekend in Sunapee?”

“Can’t. Thanks.”

“Up here on vacation?”

“No I’m not,” said Sunny.

For the wake, Regina Pope dressed her two-year-old son in miniature grown-up clothes—gray trousers, white shirt, red clip-on bow tie. He owned only sneakers, which would have to do—no disrespect intended. It was too warm for the little patchwork madras sports jacket, dry clean only, that completed the outfit. He was Robert, without nicknames, and to his mother, especially in his dress-up clothes, the most beautiful boy in the world.

Coach Sweet decided to skip the wake and make an appearance at the funeral. Or maybe the reverse. Milling around a coffin, he’d be obliged to speak to Sunny, while at the funeral he’d sign the book, hang back, and still get credit for doing the decent thing. He could call the guys who were still in town, and they could form a kind of honor guard—some goddamn ceremonial thing like that. Nah. It wasn’t Sunny who had died. It was her mother, the ex – legal, ex – medical secretary, who could rattle off her daughter’s rights chapter and verse. Mrs. Equal Opportunity. Mrs. Title Nine.

He’d send his wife.

When Dr. Ouimet hired Margaret Batten to fill in for Mrs. Ouimet following her gallbladder surgery, there was a conspicuous change in office routine: Margaret didn’t leave early or come in late; didn’t berate him for spending too much time with a patient; didn’t tie up the phone while refusing to add a second line. Margaret was calm where his wife had been rattled, and forgiving to the cranky and the sick. Insurance companies reimbursed him for services the first time the paperwork went in, and patients surrendered co-payments before they left the office. Dr. Ouimet convinced his unsalaried wife—whose gallbladder had been removed through laparoscopy, and whose recovery was all too quick—that they should gut and remodel the kitchen the way she’d been asking for years, and, yes, she could act as general contractor, however long that took.

He was shocked that Chief Loach didn’t call him personally to break the news. He should not have had to hear about Margaret across the breakfast table, his wife’s mouth forming the words of the Bulletin headline as if they were gossip rather than personal tragedy. He cried as he reread the story himself, then dialed Margaret’s home number, praying for a case of mistaken identity. He wept throughout the day to himself, in the bathroom, garage, and car. He couldn’t eat. He blamed himself: Margaret, who rarely took a sick day and never brought her personal medical concerns to work, had complained of a serious headache for the past few weeks.

“Are you taking anything?” he’d asked, not looking up from his paperwork.

“No,” she said.

“Well, there you go. We have a miracle drug called aspirin that you could try,” he’d said with a distracted smile.

All he could think to do was run a half-page ad in the Bulletin announcing that the offices of Dr. Emil Ouimet would be closed for one week out of respect to his devoted and beloved employee, followed by a stanza by Robert Browning that he copied from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations .