Tom Mendicino - Probation

Whose lifetime?

Mine?

Certainly not my mother’s.

Is there a money-back guarantee?

How would I collect? Do I pick up the phone in twenty years and schedule an exhumation to check on the state of preservation? Pay up, Sweeney! My mother doesn’t look as fresh as a daisy anymore!

Just a simple pine box. Nothing fancy. Nothing garish. Just plain and simple. That’s what I asked for back when I was a novice at this, touring the “showroom” in shorts and sneakers, not knowing if I was expected to rap the casket lids with my knuckles like I’d kick the tires of a new car. In the end, my father drove to heaven in the Lincoln Town Car of coffins. This time I have no delusions that a simple pine box will suffice.

I can’t tell M. Sweeney I want a container and nothing more. I don’t want to seem cheap and callow. I don’t want him thinking I’m mocking the dead. I won’t insist on the simple pine box. But I won’t be duped this time. I’m a savvy consumer now and won’t be bulldozed into squandering ten thousand dollars on the Mary, Queen of Heaven model. He’s wasting his time extolling its virtues, rhapsodizing over the craftsmanship, explaining the silkscreen technique used to imprint an image of the blue-veiled Virgin on the thick cushion inside the lid.

“No thank you,” I say politely. “I don’t think my mother envisioned spending eternity with the Mother of God’s nose planted in her belly button.”

Sweeney the Son can’t help laughing, but, afraid of appearing disrespectful, composes himself quickly. He relaxes when I laugh too.

“I have just what you’re looking for,” he says.

We settle on the Michelangelo, solid mahogany, with gold leaf trim and Pieta miniatures carved into the four corners of the lid. It’s dignified, beautiful even, a few steps above the middle of the line. A perfectly adequate container.

It’s barbaric, this ritual, dressing my mother in her Sunday best, tucking a rosary in her hands, slipping some precious object-a stuffed animal or a photo in a heart-shaped frame-under the blanket. I’d prefer cremation, but it isn’t an option. My mother suffered from a morbid fear of death by fire. My sister says she would come back to haunt me if I were to perpetrate the transgression of popping her into the toaster oven. I doubt it, but don’t see any reason to assume the risk. Anyway, it’s my own claustrophobia that makes me panic at the thought of the Michelangelo being slammed shut, sealed tight, and covered with earth.

Why can’t I just tie helium balloons to her ankles and wrists and let her float high in the blue skies? Why can’t she just drift until a strong wind comes along to sweep her into the stratosphere where a shroud of ice crystals will preserve her for all eternity in the deep freeze of space? Then I could spend my evenings studying the night skies, seeking my mother, Queen of Heaven, as she orbits the earth.

But no, it has to be into the ground where, the miracles of engineering and lifetime guarantees notwithstanding, she’s destined to rot. Fungus will cover her face and hungry microbes will strip her flesh to the white bone, leaving nothing but an anonymous, toothy grin, a memento mori, a prop for a cheesy horror movie.

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out…

“Are you all right?” Sweeney the Son asks, drawing me out of my reverie. “Would you like water, an iced tea?”

“Water would be good,” I say.

“Maybe something a little stronger on the side?” he suggests.

The whiskey burns my throat, bringing tears to my eyes. Time to get back to business. The coffin is only the first item on the list. Her favorite dress, navy worsted with delicate red piping, waits in the garment bag. The pearls my father gave her on their thirtieth anniversary are in a small silk pouch in my pocket. Only for the viewing, I instruct. Certainly, he assures me. I’ve brought a recent photograph, taken just before the ravages of lymphoma became apparent. I tell him Forrest, my mother’s devoted Pekingese of a hairdresser, will be preparing her wig. We can’t bear the thought of my mother lying in state sporting a careless comb-over by some overweight matron with club hands. Of course, Sweeney the Son says, always willing to accommodate.

And the viewing, he asks, one night or two? Open or closed casket? Of course, immediate family will have an opportunity to view the deceased regardless of the decision.

Open? Closed? My claustrophobia dictates my decision. Open, of course. Don’t cheat her of any precious moments of air and light.

The death notice needs to be placed. The Gaston Gazette, of course. What about the Charlotte papers?

I think back to Christmas and my amazement at learning how many lives she touched.

Merry Christmas, Nathaniel. Was Santa good to you?

Oh, the best, Miz Nocera, the very best.

Yes, the Charlotte Observer too.

Sweeney the Son is every bit as efficient as his late father. He takes me in hand and walks me through every detail, answers every question, resolves every problem. Gratitude and exhaustion and the whiskey overwhelm me. Without thinking, I embrace him, thanking him for making this so easy. It’s impossible to imagine such intimacy with his austere father. Sweeney the Son, being a different breed, pats my back. He doesn’t need to speak; his touch conveys his empathy and sympathy. For one fleeting second, I consider burying my face in his neck and sobbing. But I resist. This is professional intimacy, with definite limitations and boundaries that cannot be crossed.

“Were you close?” he asks, withdrawing from my bear hug, careful not to convey discomfort and rejection.

“Yes,” I say, sounding uncertain.

I think so.

Were we?

Did she still feel close to me or did my selfishness and self-absorption, my unwillingness to feign interest in her anxiety and fears, disappoint her? I kept my distance, letting her words drop in the space between us, depriving her of the easy, intimate conversations of my childhood and youth. I couldn’t comfort her. I was constitutionally incapable of thinking of anything but my own misery. And worse yet, what will be impossible to live with, is that I made her last months more difficult, that I compounded the strain. My mother, bravely facing painful therapies and bleak outcomes, feared only one thing in the end.

Me.

I’m afraid to speak to him anymore. He gets angry at everything I say.

I assume it’s a lie, another pathetic effort by my sister to hurt me, revenge taken for my mother’s unconditional love for me. But there was no satisfaction in my sister’s eyes when she betrayed my mother’s confidence and broke her solemn promise to say nothing to me.

My sister is telling the truth.

Some essential part is missing in me. I know I have a heart, but it seems incapable of kindness. Sweeney the Son steps forward again, anticipating tears. He’s ready to offer a clean handkerchief and a palm on the shoulder. How easy it comes to him. I’d like to strap him to the embalming table behind those thick doors. I’d crack open his breastplate and search and probe until I found the little generator that pumps empathy and compassion into his soul. I’d snip it with the scalpel and bury it in ice and race to the emergency room, demanding a transplant. And when the sutures healed, I’d emerge a different person, whole, able to experience a full range of emotions.

“May I have the dress?” he asks.

“Yes, here,” I say, handing him the garment bag.

“Can I see her?” I ask.

“She’s not prepared,” he says.

“Please. I wasn’t with her when she died.”

He relents and, against his professional wisdom, agrees to allow me a few moments alone in the embalming room. He hovers on the other side of the door, wary, ready to spring into action at the first sign of rage or inconsolable grief. So I stand quietly, barely whispering, telling my mother I love her and begging for one last gift, mercy.