Russell Banks - A Permanent Member of the Family

The two women loaded the boxes into the convertible, filling the trunk and backseat, and drove to the Public Storage building, where they placed George’s personal belongings and papers in Unit 1032, clicked the lock and left. The process left Jane feeling dazed and dazzled, inexplicably thrilled, as if she and Isabel had successfully pulled off a crime, a burglary or bank robbery. In the car on the way back to the condo, Jane shouted above the rush of the wind, “We should’ve put George’s ashes in the storage unit with all his stuff! His cremains! Is that really what they’re called, ‘cremains’?”

“Yeah, according to Digger O’Dell. But you’re right! We should put George in storage with his other stuff! The urn’s still at the condo, on the sideboard. I completely forgot to pack it.”

“We should get him now,” Jane said. “The ashes. I mean, it. The urn.”

“George.”

ISABEL PLACED THE WOODEN URN on the dining room table, drew up a chair and sat down. She slowly unscrewed the top, but did not remove it. “I don’t know why, but this is suddenly making me nervous,” she said. “It’s like this is the last time I’ll ever see my husband. Or maybe it’s the first time. As if all those years married to him I never truly saw him, and now what I refused to acknowledge is inside this jug.”

Jane said that didn’t make any sense. There was nothing inside the urn but a half pound of ashes. “Okay, human ashes. George’s ashes. But it’s inert matter, Isabel. It’s not George.”

“I know, I know. But since he died, I’ve been feeling high, almost stoned, more excited by my life than I’ve felt in years. Maybe ever. I guess that’s been obvious. But now all of a sudden, after not giving a good goddamn, I’m almost ashamed for not having acted properly bereft and mournful. Of not even feeling bereft and mournful. And I’m fucking scared, Jane. It’s like George, pissed off and vengeful, is trapped inside this wooden jug like an evil genie inside a magic lantern, and by taking off the top I’m freeing him to torment and haunt me.”

“You don’t have to open it. You can leave the evil genie locked away forever,” Jane said and reached for the urn. She grabbed it by the neck, but Isabel held on and pulled back. The cover flipped off, and both women let go at the same instant, and gray and white ashes emptied onto the table. The urn rolled away and fell onto the tile floor.

“Oh, my God!” Jane said. “I’m so sorry!”

Isabel said, “My fault. It was my fault.” She pushed her chair back from the table a ways and, still seated, leaned forward and examined the pile of ashes closely. Extending her right hand, she drew her forefinger through the spilled ashes, moving her finger back and forth, spreading the heap across the table, as if searching for a lost ring, some small remnant of her marriage, or an omen that would tell her how to live her life in the future. What she uncovered were six steel buttons, which she gathered one by one into her left hand. “Look!” she said and held them out to Jane.

“What?”

“These are U.S. Navy buttons. At least, I think that’s what the anchors signify.”

“So?”

“They’re not George’s. He was never in the Navy. He was a conscientious objector during Vietnam and worked at McLean, the Boston mental hospital. Then went into teaching. He never wore a military uniform. He never owned anything with buttons like this.”

“So this isn’t George?”

For a long moment the two women looked at each other in silence. Finally Isabel shook her head and said, “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’m actually relieved this isn’t George. Of course, it isn’t. These ashes aren’t anybody!”

“Should we return the ashes to Digger O’Dell, the Friendly Undertaker?” Jane asked. “Or just vacuum them up and when the job is done toss the vacuum cleaner bag down the rubbish chute?” Jane started to laugh, a tight little giggle at first, then larger, long laughs that made it difficult to speak. Isabel joined her, and soon both women were bellowing with laughter, nearly choking with it, tears streaming down their cheeks. The absurdity of it, the ridiculousness, the idiocy of thinking the ashes were not just George’s ashes, but were actually him, George Pelham himself, come back to haunt his newly emancipated widow!

When she was finally able to brake and slow her laughter, Jane said, “You realize that somebody out there has your George in a jar. But if we take this jar back to the Digger, if we demand that he exchange it for George, assuming he even knows who he gave George to, what the hell good will it do?”

It was pointless to try to exchange these ashes for George, Isabel said. Pointless, and cruel to whoever actually had George and did not know yet that they did not possess the cremated body of their husband or father. Probably by now George had already been cast from the stern of a boat into the Gulf Stream or scattered across the green waters of Biscayne Bay, Isabel reasoned, or else he was enshrined on a living room altar, surrounded by votive candles, statues of saints and orishas, baby shoes, cowrie shell necklaces and hen’s feet. Which would really piss George off. “I’m starting to love thinking the ashes are actually a person. A stranger.”

“How do you know these are a man’s ashes, though? Someone’s husband or father,” Jane asked.

“Oh, I can feel it. You can always feel it when a man’s in the house. They tend to soak up all the available energy.”

“So what are we going to do with them? We can’t just vacuum them up and toss the vacuum bag down the chute.”

“Why not?”

“Yeah! Why not?”

LATER, THE TWO WOMEN SAT OUT on the terrace sipping white wine, once again watching the sun set behind the Miami skyline. From somewhere inside the apartment, Jane’s cell phone rang. “That would be Frank,” she said. After waiting half a minute, she sighed, put down her glass and left the terrace to answer it. The phone was in her purse on the bed in the guest room, and she managed to get there before call answering kicked in. It was Frank.

She knew instantly that he was angry, though he tried to hide it. “Glad I caught you,” he said. “Thought you and Isabel might be out on the town tonight.”

She said no, they were going to stay in and watch a movie. She asked him if he’d killed his deer. She had learned years ago to ask that way, not to ask if he “got” or “shot” a deer. And it was his deer, not a deer.

He said yes, a 127-pound six-pointer, butchered, wrapped and already in the freezer. “Killed him over on the north side of Baxter with a single shot at fifty yards. So when are you planning to come home?” he asked. It was more a directive than a question.

She said, “Unclear.” Which was the truth, she realized as soon as she said it.

“Yeah, well, okay. But that night security job at Whiteface Lodge, it finally came through. I have to start tomorrow at midnight. The house is a mess,” he added.

“Well, clean it up, then.”

“I won’t have time. On account of working the night shift. I was just letting you know in advance, in case you come home tomorrow night. I was hoping you could get back up here soon. Your boss, Dr. Costanza, he’s been calling from the school. He left a couple messages asking if you planned on resuming work soon. That’s how he put it. I didn’t return his call, since I didn’t have an answer for him. You want me to call him?”

She said no, she’d take care of that herself. She sat down on the bed, placed the phone on her lap for a second, then put it back to her ear.

He was in the middle of saying, “So when are you coming back?”

She didn’t answer.