Christine Schutt - Florida

Who can forget? some said. Description of the too long-alive, now dead. The homily for Nonna went on and on, and Arthur had to wait.

Who would have guessed there was so much left to say?

At the Big House everyone I saw chewed with his mouth open. At the Big House Nonna’s lawyer sleeked through the room, nodding at stories, saying, “Yes, she was an amazing woman, yes, indeed.”

Indeed, indeed sounded like my mother when she was being formal, but my mother was not here. Mother was in California, the state she called her home. “I can be a kook and not stand out,” she often repeated when we spoke on the phone.

Uncle Billy had not spoken to Mother in a while, and he excused himself for keeping my mother uninformed, saying, “Your mother would be too upset,”

By the time I told her, Mother said it was too late for her.

“I need weeks to get ready,” Mother said, “and besides Nonna’s been dead for years.”

Aunt Frances said, “Your mother’s not interested in other people anyway,” which wasn’t true, I thought; because Mother wanted to know about Aunt Frances, yes, and Uncle Billy. Mother wanted to know about them especially and asked me, she asked me often now that we spoke any day of the week and not just Sundays — Mother asked me, “How are your aunt and uncle spending their money these days?”

But how would I know? I didn’t live here anymore; I recognized very few faces. Mrs. Greene’s, Mrs. Greene’s daughter, Arthur, of course, the Nordstruckers, Miss Pearl of Miss Pearl’s (still alive!), the Miller sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Vanvogel. Uncle Billy and Aunt Frances moved among these and other friends they said were Nonna’s but who were, in fact, theirs, as who was left alive that Nonna knew?

Death, a death mound, like those lumps in the earth Aunt Frances had pointed to as burial grounds for the Indians. Of course, Indians, Uncle Billy’s found and collected arrowheads from the Potawatomi! Next to the case of sprung-winged bugs and other artifacts. Buckskinned men powwowing lake paths in soft-soled moccasins, they and their squaws and their sick-to-death children were turned into lumps in the earth where Aunt Frances had pointed. Nonna and Nonna’s friends — even the absent O’Boyle — and Arlette and my father were turned into hillocks I drove past, touring the countryside because I couldn’t stay at Uncle Billy’s house watching the people eat with their mouths wide open — no. I didn’t want to talk to Nonna’s lawyer, so I took the second car and drove to where I could sit off the road and smoke.

I smoked and thought of Nonna and how she had outlived my dread of her dying.

I smoked and wondered at how green it was, June, green and cold, a bed of iced lettuce, and in the distance down the hill, the lapis-blue of lakes, one after another, as though the land were a lake and the lakes, blue stone, and skipped. How was it possible to be cheerful, and yet I was; I was oddly gleeful and merrily giant-stepping into my life.

Nonna left me money — thank you, Nonna! — and a large diamond ring and a double strand of pearls. I bought an apartment in a brownstone with most of what she gave me. West Seventy-Six, in the city where sunlight is expensive.

HOW DID I KNOW except that I knew and had always known what Nonna would say. How Alice came early and fast — rudely. The way she was. July 10, 1928, a scorcher. “Tubs of dry ice ringed my bed, and the smoke was impossible to see through. I could feel people around me, but I couldn’t see them. Midwife and helper, and someone at my ear, fanning, but no one else. Although I didn’t really look, I didn’t open my eyes, I didn’t want to see who was in attendance. Feeling was enough. I hadn’t wanted another child; and if I had to, not a daughter. I don’t like women, and they were all around me when Alice was born, ahead of time, loudly. The way she was. Forward and boisterous from the beginning. Even as a little girl, she had precocious ideas about beauty. Once Alice cut off the heads of my peonies and floated the blossoms in saucers. Saucers, and more saucers, everywhere. The house felt like a pond I was swimming through. Her father said then, and for years after, that Alice was simply artistic. Well, maybe she was, but the way she used the downstairs phone closet as a sketch pad was no amusement to me. Drawings of high-heeled feet, a bit of shoulder and neck, a woman’s face on the baseboard corners isn’t my idea of funny. I am from the old school. Stiff, phony — I heard her clichés, the repellent voice she used to say, my mother. But the stories she started about her father’s affairs were the most hurtful. The redhead on the train, the woman Alice said was really her mother, and the story that she had been adopted and brought to the house and wasn’t mine. Hah! She should have a taste of a midwife’s stitchery! The coarse repair of what that girl tore. Alice is a cruel and hurrying person; the miseries that befell her she brought on herself. She was only eighteen when she met your father. He was years older with a college degree and experience of war. His father was dead. He was a sad sack even then. How old was he — thirty? But your mother insisted. ‘What’s your rush?’ we asked. Alice! She should have known better than to drive with a man who couldn’t drive; but even after the second accident, after he had broken her face in a dozen places, she let him take the wheel. It was his fault she lost her good looks. We all said, leave him. Poor boy. Moping around the house on a weekend without even the energy to dress. And what was there to be sad about? The man didn’t have to work, mind you. He could go on sputtering poetry. Alice had money. Her father had made sure of that, but Alice should have married someone like her daddy. Her problem was she wanted. Alice wanted, wanted, wanted, on and on. She was expensive. She was spoiled. Her father had made sure of that. Alice thought if she filled a husband’s closets with expensive suits he would wear them and make her a fortune. I told her she was a fool, but she wanted a family right away. She said not in a million years would I ever understand. Alice was mean — her father was mean — and she deserved what she got. I can’t say I was sorry, but her husband was unhappy; he needed help; he shouldn’t have been left home to drink

“I am lucky Alice’s father didn’t drink. That’s all I’ll say.

“No, don’t even bother to ask.

“All I’ll say is Alice’s father didn’t spend my money and he left me with some. With a lot. He provided, but I was frugal. People used to money don’t tend to spend it. I didn’t, and yet my undergarments have always been silk, and most of what I wear comes from Paris. I like pretty clothes, so there’s a reason Alice likes clothes although her choices are garish, fantastic, often in very bad taste. The drugs and the drinking have never helped. At least that’s what I think. I don’t know for sure. I have never much indulged. I like punch cocktails and after-dinner drinks, the kinds made with sugar and cream. Alice puts out that I like pills myself, but Alice doesn’t know what she is saying. She exaggerates. She likes to tell stories. She tells coarse stories. She says what my husband liked about me were my breasts. She could write about the daisies but she chooses to write about shit. That’s what I always say is why write about … when you could write about the daisies. Alice thinks I’m in bad health, but I am not. I am healthy. I live alone in a large house with a housekeeper and a caretaker, extra gardening help and cleaning and sometimes with my granddaughter — with you, dear heart.

“I have never had to worry about money. I did not fight with my husband. When I was angry at him, I bought myself some jewelry. No, I am not leaving your mother my diamond. I am leaving your mother snarled in trusts she will never unknot. She expects to get my pearls, but she is in for a surprise, and maybe I’ll just give the ring to you. I might just leave you the sparkler.