A. Homes - May We Be Forgiven

“My treat,” I say to everyone, including the driver.

“I thought they were serving lunch at the shiva,” Nate says.

“What would you rather have, a hamburger or egg salad?”

“I’ll toss the evidence,” the driver says when we get to Susan’s house.

“I’m assuming you’ll wait?” I say.

“You don’t have a car?” the driver asks.

“My car is back at the house where you picked us up.”

“Usually we just drop the people off. But I’ll wait. I’ll make it a time call; the hourly rate is seventy-five, with a four-hour minimum.”

“We won’t be that long.”

The driver shrugs.

The twins are on the loose. They’re running through the house, chased by a small dog that seems like a trip hazard for old people. The front hall is mirrored tile with gold veins running through. Just glancing at it makes me nervous; my reflection splits into many pieces, and I wonder if it’s a “magic mirror” somehow empowered to display my internal state.

Susan is leading a tour of her remodeled split-level, showing Jane’s friends how she “blew out” the ceiling and “pushed back” the rear wall so she’d have a great room and a dining room, and how they “recaptured” the garage and made a den/ breakfast room with French doors and added decks “everywhere.”

“We did everything we could think of and more,” Susan says, proudly.

And it shows.

The visitors are the same people from the funeral, friends, neighbors, do-gooders, and curious assholes who have no business being there. Despite having eaten a double cheeseburger, I circle the dining-room table, where lunch is laid out. Pitted black olives and cherry tomatoes stare at me, expressionless. Avocados and artichokes, deviled eggs with paprika, smoked salmon, bagels, and macaroni salad; I’m looking at it all, and suddenly it turns into body parts, organs: the Jell-O mold is like a liver; the macaroni salad, cranial matter. I pour myself a Diet Coke.

An older man comes up to me with a look of purpose and extends his hand.

“Hiram P. Moody,” he says, shaking my hand, “your brother’s accountant. No doubt you’ve got a lot on your mind, but what I want you to know, fiduciarily speaking, you’re going to be okay.”

I must have given him an odd look. “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” he says. “Financially — you’re in good shape. George was a bit of a player, he took some chances, made a gamble here and there, but let’s just say he had a good sense of timing.”

“I’m sorry?” I say, finding Hiram P. hard to follow.

He nods. “Let me be blunt. You and the children will be well cared for. I pay the bills; whatever you need, you let me know. I’m much more than a ‘see you in mid-April’ tax guy. I’m your go-to guy — the one who holds the purse strings — and now so do you. I’ve got some papers that you’ll need to sign — no rush,” he says. “I assume you know that you’re the legal guardian for the children, as well as guardian and medical proxy for your brother, and Jane specifically wanted you as executor of any estate — she was concerned that her sister didn’t share her values.”

I nod. My head is bobbing up and down as if I were a puppet on a weight.

Hiram P. slips a business card into my palm. “We’ll talk soon,” he says. And as I turn to go, he calls after me, “Wait, I’ve got something better. Put out your hand.” I do, and he slaps something into it. “Refrigerator magnet,” he says. “My wife had them made — it’s got all the info, even my cell — for emergencies.”

“Thanks,” I say.

Hiram P. takes me by the shoulders and gives a combo shake/ squeeze. “I’m here for you and the children,” he says.

Inexplicably, my eyes fill with tears. Hiram P. moves to hug me as I’m bringing my hand up to blot my eyes. Maybe it wasn’t a hand, maybe it was my fist; maybe I wasn’t going to blot my eyes so much as rub them with a closed fist. My fist connects with the underside of Hiram P.’s chin in a small but swift uppercut that knocks him against the wall. The picture hanging behind him slips on its hook, tilts.

Hiram P. laughs. “That’s what I love about you guys, you’re fucking nuts. So — call me,” he says. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I sit next to Ashley and Nate on Susan’s sectional leather sofa. An older woman sits next to us. “I knew your mother. I did her nails — she had beautiful nails. She talked about you a lot, very proud of both of you. Very proud.”

“Thank you,” Ashley says.

Nate gets up and goes to get something to eat. He comes back with a plate of berries for Ashley.

“You’re a good brother,” I say to him.

A woman bends towards the children, revealing loose, wrinkled cleavage. I look away. She extends her hand. No one takes it. The hand, with its big diamond, lands on Nate’s knee. “I was her hygienist. We used to have wonderful talks — well, mostly I talked, she had the saliva sucker on, but she was a good listener. She was good.”

“Do you have anything?” Nate asks me.

“Anything like what?”

“Like a Valium, an Ativan, maybe codeine.”

“No,” I say, surprised. “Why would I be carrying that?”

“I don’t know. You had snacks — Gummi Bears — and Kleenex. I thought maybe you’d have some medication.”

“Is there something you normally take for upset? Something that a doctor gives you?”

“I just take stuff from Mom and Dad’s medicine cabinet.”

“Great.”

“Okay, never mind, just thought I’d ask.” Nate walks away.

“Where are you going?”

“Bathroom.”

I follow him.

“You’re following me?”

“Are you going to look in the medicine cabinet?”

“I have to pee,” Nate says.

“If you are, I’m going to do it with you. We’ll look together.”

“That’s so fucked up.”

“Any more or less so than you doing it alone?”

I follow him into the bathroom, locking the door behind us.

“I really do have to pee.”

“So pee.”

“Not with you standing there.”

“I’ll turn my back.”

“Can’t,” he says.

“I don’t trust you.”

“When I’m back at school you won’t be following me into the bathroom. There has to be a measure of trust. Just let me pee.”

“You’re right, but the minute you blow it, you are so fucked,” I say, opening the medicine cabinet.

“His Prilosec, her birth control, her Prozac; acyclovir — that’s nice, they must have herpes — oxycodone for his back.”

“Oxycodone would be okay,” Nate says. “Oxy is nice.”

“Here, take this,” I say, plucking out a pink-and-white capsule and handing it to him.

“What is it?”

“Benadryl.”

“That’s not even prescription.”

“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work; it’s very sedating.”

“What else is there? Diazepam, that’s generic Valium — let me have two of those.”

“No.”

“How about one? That’s what you’d take for fear of flying.”

“How about four? That’s what you need for a colonoscopy,” I suggest.

“You’re funny,” Nate says, taking one pill and pocketing the bottle.

“Put the bottle back. For all you know they have a camera in here, and they’ll blame me.”

As we’re coming down the hall, Jane’s father catches my arm. “You should cut your dick off. You should have to live without something precious to you.”

The father gives me a little shove and walks off to speak with the caterer. I see the caterer’s big burly boyfriend coming towards me, and I’m thinking they’re going to ask me to leave, and so I start weaving through the crowd, trying to avoid the guy, thinking I better get Ashley, I better tell the kids that it’s time to go. The caterer’s boyfriend gets to me before I reach the children.