Prologue:
Placing the phone back down on the cradle, it seemed that random words escaped her mouth, not sure that anything could dig deep enough to find the bottom of the emptiness that she felt.
A normal day. A normal sunny, beautiful day, and a normal, wonderful springtime night, and still it had become something else. Something less than normal. Something less than even bearable. Somewhere in between it had journeyed from normal to exceptional, and then quickly to unbearable.
Her fingers felt cold, and her breathing shallower. There was this cloud of news looming over her and making her wonder if she was still standing, or if this was all someone's version of a bad joke.
Her legs felt weak. It had been the first time she could remember feeling them give out beneath her, and as she slid to the floor she closed her eyes and tried to remember. She'd been there before, many years ago, when she was still much too young, and even though she had been just a child, she remembered how painful it was to forget.
That was the first stage after someone died, she thought. Forgetting. And the forgetting was painful—it cut deeper than any knife ever would. Forgetting meant that you'd wake up one morning and wonder how they smelled...Forgetting meant you'd wake up one morning and realize that you could no longer hear their voice in her head, or see their face clearly in front of you when you thought of them.
Forgetting meant that they were lost, even if it was juts a little piece and forgetting meant that even if things would eventually be ok, for the time being there was nothing more vicious.
It was still there, she realized. The image, the smell, the way the voice could still resonate in the emptiness of the room was all still there—but how would it be possible to maintain it? How would she be able to keep all those things.
She heard a voice, a familiar voice that should have brought her to her feet, but she couldn't muster the energy. The wind had been knocked out of her and there was no way she could recover quite yet.
Eventually she'd have to tell everyone. She'd have to tell the owner of the voice what happened, but bringing it to life—giving voice to such an impossibly frightening thought—would give it reality and control.
But that was her job. As the first person to be notified of the news, she'd have to tell them. Even if doing it would break her heart every time she had to say the words.
"There's been an accident," she began. "There were no survivors."
1***
* All alone, I didn't like the feeling All alone, I sat and cried All alone, I had to find some meaning In the center of the pain I felt inside *
There was a quiet calm over the entire house, and no one dared break it. Emotions were running too high to be seeking out conversation, and even if anyone had the nerve to try, they wouldn't have been able to speak. Whatever mechanism gave humans the ability to communicate seemed halted; this was the place that suddenly fell out of the realm of reality and had quickly become a dream state. No. A nightmare state.
No one had expected this. Then again, no one ever expects anything like this. It's human nature to be ignorant of the possibility. It's human nature to deny it's mere existence, let alone it's encroachment on your very own life.
No one had expected to get a call like that, or to have to deal with the repercussions.
No one expected to be meeting for a funeral, pulling out the black drab clothing from the backs of their closet on an unusually sunny spring morning.
But it was here. It was here, and they weren't about to find a way around it.
Now if only they could figure out how they got to this point. If only they could stop the flood of tears that were barely being held off by the vague confusion and repression of the news.
If only. Useless waste of thought processes. If onlys wouldn't get them anywhere.
There wasn't a way to get around it. There wasn't a way to turn back the hands of time and undo everything.
It was done, and now all they could do was pick up the pieces and try to breathe. They had to breathe and live, even though that seemed like cheating. Not everyone got the chance to live, and it seemed like this was a cruel reminder.
***
"Hey, dad, I was thinking that you and Angela should spend your anniversary somewhere nice. Somewhere hot. Not everyone gets to their ten year anniversary these days, ya know," Sam teased. There had never been a doubt that Tony and Angela would see ten years of marital bliss—they'd be together forever. But she had to tease them all the same.
"Eh oh, we're gonna make fifty," Tony countered, teasingly.
"Sure, and you'll be what... 93? You plan on sticking around that long?" Jonathon sipped his cup of coffee, and waited for Tony to realize what he said.
"Hey, be nice," Tony laughed. "I'll write you out of the will!"
Jonathon smiled. "Well if you stick around another forty years what good's the money going to do me anyway? The jag sure as heck won't be worth much!"
Sam slapped her dad on the arm. "Come to think of it, blondie over there has the right idea. I know Caity and I could sure use the money. If you guys kick the bucket sooner rather than later, she might just make it into an ivey-league college."
Tony gave her that 'never in a million years' look that he had perfected through the years. "I ain't goin' no where, no time soon, and neither is Angela. So you're all stuck with us. Even if you don't wanna be." Wrapping his arms tightly around his daughter, Tony wished he could hold on to the moment forever.
It seemed like everyone was getting older, and not that he thought he was going to die any time soon, but it seemed like their time was running out.
There were going to be fewer moments like the one they'd just shared teasing each other in the kitchen until eventually it would fade to black, and until then, he was determined to keep everyone close.
"The party started without me," Angela asked, as she placed her briefcase on the table. "I thought you guys weren't getting here until six?" Making her rounds around the room, Angela greeted everyone with a peck on the cheek and a tight hug. She loved having her family all together, even if it was only for one night a week.
"Well, Caity wanted to play with Mona, and Mona said it had to be before dinner because she had plans afterwards. And the stupid car broke down again, so I had to call Jonathon and beg him to ditch Josh so he could drive me in." Sam sighed, having said the entire thing in one breath. "And now I feel like I'm imposing," she said, scrunching her nose and looking around the room.
"Nonsense," Angela said, making her way over to squeeze her tightly. "We love having you and Catherine around. It makes us feel young again."
"Ha, Tony says it makes him feel old," Jonathon pointed out, "but that just might be because he's getting up there in age." With a wink, Jonathon carefully raised his mug of coffee to his mouth once more.
"He's still younger than me, so beware," Angela observed. "Now, is Josh coming to meet us for dinner tonight? Since he was so unceremoniously 'ditched' earlier?"
"Josh has a meeting with a client tonight about a new nightclub opening, so no. Too bad though, we wanted to share some news tonight." Jonathon smiled sadly, wishing that there were some things that were easier in their lives, if only it was that simple. Wishing didn't seem to get anyone very far.
"Oh, news?" Sam looked at him hopefully, surprised they were all standing in the kitchen instead of making their way to the living room to be more comfortable and relaxed while watching Catherine paint Mona's nails.
"Yeah, but I should wait for him. It's more his news than mine."
"Well now you've got us curious," Sam pointed out. "But we can wait, if you want. We'd hate to do anything to upset your boyfriend."
"I thank you for that. He still hasn't totally forgiven me for that surprise birthday party you convinced me to throw for him."
"Thirty is a big deal, no matter what you say!" Sam grinned. "And it was a great party. And he seemed awful appreciative of it when we were leaving in the wee small hours of the morning." Winking at Jonathon, she laughed.
It was great banter like this that made her homesick. There was something about living with a seven year old that made adult conversation and teasing seem like a treat. An entire conversation in which she didn't have to talk about baseball or Barbie was one for which Sam was eternally grateful.
Sam and Caity were living over in Hartford in a small bungalow that Angela had bought for her when Hank left. The idea was that it was meant to be something temporary. The bungalow was meant to be an interim thing, but it had quickly become home. It was their own place, and even though it was full of toys and books, and about a dozen different half-finished arts and crafts, it was the kind of domestic settlement that Sam had needed. But it was still too far away from Oakhills drive, her parents and her favourite grandmother—even though she'd never let Mona hear her call her that.
"Eh oh, we don't want to hear about certain details of your lives—we're happy just knowin' you're happy," Tony told Sam and Jonathon, who had already become familiar with the statement. It was Tony's way of keeping them the sweet innocent kids he remembered, and still giving them their freedom. Some things, he had justified, are just not meant to be talked about and his children's sex lives ranked up there.
Angela wrapped her arm in his before breaking up the crowd. "We need to go see our little angel," she announced, "because this gramma is getting restless."
Tony laughed. "She almost broke her record—she almost made it fifteen minutes without rushing in to play with Cait."
An elbow to the ribs jolted him.
"When was the last time you made it fifteen minutes?" Angela looked at him sweetly, daring him to talk his way out of it.
"Point taken."
2***
* All alone, I came into the world All alone, I will someday die Solid stone is just sand and water, baby Sand and water, and a million years gone by *
They were never prepared to sit in a funeral parlor and make plans to bury their loved one. It had just never struck them to worry more about these things in life or rather, more appropriately, in death.
Even if death was inevitable, it was easier to deny it. Everyone did. Death was an unnecessary thought process, because if you thought about it, you weren't living. Or at least, that was always the rationale that had been imparted on Tony, and that Tony had imparted on the family. It was something that Mrs. Rossini had told him after his friend died, and it was something that stuck with him. Even if it had depressed him to no end.
But death wasn't such an unnecessary thought process. Quite the opposite. It was a necessary evil, just waiting to be seized.
There was so much to plan. Music, wardrobe, cremation or burial, and so few people were prepared. So few people had taken the time out to write a will and a list of wishes and requests.
And even though they had a list in front of them (one they had dug out of the back of the wallet the police returned to them at the hospital, before they had come home for the first time and had to face their demons head on) they were still unprepared.
There were memories in everything, and the memories seemed so painfully strong that the mere existence of them was enough to make their hearts break. It seemed that every aspect of their reality was causing them pain.
Even the printing brought up memories that had threatened their abilities to cope. No one could look at the script without remembering jokes they had made or cards that had been written through the years. No one could escape the fact that they'd never see that writing scribbled on anything again. Not anything new at least.
It was a small thing; a thing that most people would probably over look. What's a little text on a piece of paper?
Everything when the person who wrote it had died since.
Everything might even be an understatement.
***
"Gramma," the little girl yelled happily, as she raced into Angela's arms. She was Angela's little angel, and Caity knew it. Ever since her birth, Angela had this unbelievable connection to her granddaughter that seemed to only grow stronger. The affection the two shared for one another was unparalleled, and had been the basis of much teasing in the family.
"Hey honey, how are you?" Scooping the girl up in a hug, she squeezed her before placing a kiss on her nose.
"I'm good. I painted Mona's fingers, and she said I could paint her toenails too!" The little girl beamed, happy to spend some time with her family.
"Wow," Angela said, laughing. "Mother, you really lucked out, huh?"
"The kid's good, what can I say?" Mona teased. "And besides, I doubt that Robert will be looking at my toes!" She suggestively wiggled her eyebrows in that way that only Mona could. It was like she had figured out at least a dozen ways to relay a suggestive thought without ever being blatant.
Sam made her way over to Angela and Catherine, teasingly poking the little girl. "I never get that kind of reaction when I walk in a room," Sam said jokingly.
"You're not gramma," Caity said sweetly. That was her style—sweet but blunt. The kid didn't beat around the bush, and she didn't sugar coat things, but nobody could be mad at her because she had the most enormous brown eyes and dark hair. Genetics had done well by her, making her the spitting image of her mother when she was younger, except with darker skin.
Angela laughed. "That's not nice sweetie—she's your mother."
"I know," Caity said, "but I live with her. I see her all the time. I only get to see you a couple times a week."
She tried to hide her smile, but not so secretly it gave Angela great joy to have such a warm bond with the girl. Even though there was no biological relationship to her, Angela was there when Sam gave birth to Catherine, and she was, after all, named after her. Sort of, at least. She was given her middle name.
"How 'bout Gramps?" Tony made his way into the group of girls, wrapping his arms around both Angela and Caity.
"I miss you too," Caity said. "But Gramma lets me wear her make up and shoes."
"She doesn't let me do that," Jonathon said in mock indignation.
"That's 'cause you did it without permission for so many years," Mona teased.
Ever since Jonathon came out of the closet and announced that he was gay, the family had made it more of a joke with him, which in turn made him more comfortable. None of the joking was ever derogatory, but it was all in fun, and it made him feel like they were okay with it.
"I never wore Mom's clothes," Jonathon countered.
"No, it was Mona's," Sam said, getting her dig in. "Angela's weren't flashy enough to suit your tastes!"
"Children, do we need to separate you?" Angela tickled Caity, earning a fit of giggles from the girl. "I think we need to separate your mommy and your uncle Jonathon."
Caity shook her head in agreement, and smiled when her mother flashed an expression of hurt at her. "Just for a while, until you can say something nice to him," she clarified as if she was making the decision.
Tony burst out laughing. "It'd be a real long time, baby girl. You might be waiting 'til you graduate college."
3***
* I will see you in the light of a thousand suns I will hear you in the sound of the waves I will know you when I come, as we all will come, Through the doors, beyond the grave *
Looking through the closet, there were a thousand things but none of them were appropriate for a funeral. None of them were even vaguely mournful.
The lack of sadness in the wardrobe begged another choice—anything but the depressing throws of black material to be buried in. Something with character and something with taste and respect, most certainly, but nothing drab and black that looked like it have otherwise doubled as a magician's costume.
In the midst of all the clothes there were neatly organized photo boxes of spanning what could now literally be called a lifetime. Pictures from birth to very near the death, and lots of mementos from in between. A record with special meaning that no one would probably ever understand again, a necklace that looked handmade from a friend or someone who would never again be named.
It was as if the world stopped here in the box, as if there was nothing more to be said or shown for those memories. So few of them could be easily placed on someone else's shoulders and the stories would never be told the same way.
There were albums too, standing neatly in rows lining the shelf above the wardrobe, but it seemed that the most important memories were there, in the box. They were accessible and clearly placed there with a purpose.
Though there were a few pictures dispersed throughout from the years before the Bower and Micelli families melded into one, there were very clear and evident timelines in the box. Pieces of a school project or a poem, the lyrics to a song, and a portrait of someone hand drawn decades ago with love and tenderness.
The box, in all of it's kitschy glory, was romantic and moving—it was significant and outlined years of life. And if there had to be something more placed in it, what would it be?
A shard of glass? A piece of metal or a poem? There had to be something more. The idea of the end of the line coming so soon or so abruptly was enough to make it a challenge.
Taking the box and setting it in a larger cardboard one, it would be carried back to someone who might appreciate it later, at a time when there weren't quite so many emotions or as many stabbing pains deducing them all to sobbing messes.
**
"Mother, can you bring in that file folder on the guacamunchy account?" Lifting her finger off the buzzer, Angela returned to reading the folder in front of her.
"I can't believe this is still active after twenty years," Mona grumbled, looking at the green tortilla shape on the outside of the folder as she walked through the office. She could hardly believe she was still working in Angela's office. After all, just a few months ago she had celebrated her seventy-first birthday. Money wasn't a problem and working was hardly a necessity. Still, she only worked three days a week: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and in those days she only put in about six hours work each day—it was enough to keep her distracted from the everyday boredom she had experienced in her two years of 'retirement'. She still took three months off a year to travel, and very liberal 'long weekends' when the fancy struck. And truth be told, working for Angela had been a treat. She watched the Bower agency blossom from a tiny seed struggling for life into a beautiful garden. Her daughter's agency had survived the economic downturns and both the golf wars to become the sixth largest advertising agency in North America; leaps and bounds ahead of the almost now defunct Wallace and McQuade.
"Well, the nineties were all about snack foods, and now we seem to be hitting the health food craze, so they'll be here for at least another few years," Angela said, taking the folder. "Besides, they just look revolting—they taste quite good."
"I'm sure they do, if you don't have an aversion to foods the same colour as your office walls," Mona said effortlessly.
Angela laughed. "So, mother, have you booked this year's holiday?"
Mona shrugged. "It's down to four places...well, five, really. Robert wanted to go to Munich, Germany—he said something about leather and schnitzel," Mona laughed, "but I kind of wanted to do a few months in Argentina. The other places we had tossed around were..." Mona thought it through, noting that her memory was getting worse. She hated getting older. "Oh yes, the other places were London, Vienna, and, believe it or not, right here in town. We wanted to do some things with the family, and when better than in summer when everyone is taking time off work. Tony will be out from June until September, you take two weeks in July and two weeks in August, and Catherine will be out of school... There's an appeal to staying here and being with you all."
Angela looked at her mother with a mixture between shock and concern. "Why do you really want to stay here?"
The two women exchanged glances and Angela sighed. She could bet money she knew what was happening but she wasn't going to say it. Her mother would have to step up to the plate and let it out.
"Robert is doing well. The cancer is in remission and he's starting to get over the sickness of it. He's really feeling better. But I don't like the idea of being that far away from his doctors if anything else should happen, and..." She stopped, swallowing back the threatening tears. "It's funny, ya know, I don't feel any different than I did fifty years ago, but I know I should. I know I should be settling in and wearing pink and purple, and doing all those old lady things. People I know are dying around me, and I still feel like I can traipse around the world...But I don't know when that's going to change, and I don't want to find out and be so far away from the people I love that I lose the time with them. Carmella's death last fall—that was hard. She was two years younger than me. She had a heartattack in the middle of a bake sale. That could have been me," Mona nearly whispered.
"Mother," Angela said, making her way around the desk and leading her mother to sit beside her on the couch along the wall. "You didn't spend the last fifty years eating five meals a day, you're at a perfect weight, with perfect health. Her cholesterol was through the roof, and she was overweight. You're not going to go on vacation and never come back."
"I might," Mona countered, "and you can guarantee it won't happen. I want to be with my family now. It's finally happened—I finally have become a family woman. Don't make me feel guilty for it, please?"
Angela wrapped her arms around her mother. "Oh, mother...that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to tell you not to feel guilty for living."
"You know, I never thought we'd have a real family to want around. For a while I thought it would be just you and Jonathon and me. And whomever I was dating at the time. But I never thought that you'd actually rope Tony and Sam the way you did. It felt like you had taken more time to get there than fate was going to give you, but you did it."
"And we got the best part of the deal, didn't we?" Angela smiled.
"A younger man and a beautiful daughter."
"He's only two years younger," Angela objected.
"He's still younger," Mona pointed out. "And he was your first true love. That counts for a lot."
The younger blond couldn't help but smile. It was true; he had been her first true love. He had been her only true love. And having him in her life was as important as oxygen.
"He's been worried lately though. Robert's cancer really shook him up."
"Been worried about what?"
"He's scared that he might get sick and that I'd be left to deal with things alone—that I'd have to learn how to keep the house and cook, and all the things he does. He's started teaching me how to make things and where he keeps them. He's teaching me where he hides the gifts before Christmas so nobody finds them, and where the decorations are. It's scary, mother..."
"I know. Robert didn't have any warning. It was like one day he went into the doctor's the next day he was being rushed into the emergency room...Tony will get over it though. Now that Robert's better he has something to gauge it against. Not everyone dies of cancer any more."
"I don't want to think of a world without Tony. Or you. Or Robert. It's taken me so long to get this family and now that I've had it for so long...I don't want to give it up." Angela forced a smile even though she was feeling everything but happy.
"You won't have to. No one is going anywhere. We're all too stubborn to die." Mona laughed. "Anyway, with us staying in Fairfield for the summer, we were thinking it might be best to plan some family outings sooner rather than later. We know how you guys book up." Gently resting her hand on her daughters, Mona winked.
"Well talk to Sam and Jonathon, and they can let you know what they have planned. We haven't really worked on much, other than getting the cottage cleaned up so that we can spend more time there."
"My daughter and her house in the Hamptons. And she's even taken to calling it a cottage. It's cute, you know."
Angela blushed. The wealth she had accumulated in the recent years was much greater than she had ever anticipated, and after she put in the in ground pool in the backyard—the one she had been trying to put in ever since she got fired from Wallace and McQuaid—she bought the most beautiful five bedroom 'cottage' she had ever seen, complete with water view.
"Ah, but I'm proud of you, you know. Having built the empire that you have. One day it will be a great legacy for you, and until then, you enjoy it."
Angela smiled. "And to maintain said legacy, you had better get back to work so I can get back to work and earn us millions more."
"Making an old lady like me work...sounds like a case I should take up with the government. Abuse!"
"Sure. At what I pay you, I'm sure they would have to disagree though."
"Ok, I concede defeat, but only on the grounds that I love you."
"I love you too mother," Angela said, her heart feeling much too full to allow her even a single breath.
4***
* All alone, I heal this heart of sorrow All alone, I raise this child Flesh and bone, he's just Bursting towards tomorrow And his laughter fills my world, and wears your smile *
It seemed like hours had passed, on that street corner, the wind particularly cold for a relatively warmish spring day. Standing there was chilling, for more than just the obvious reasons. It was strange to see the traffic flowing all around, despite the tragedy that had just occurred, the lives lost.
The corner told so many stories. There were people stopping to look at newspaper boxes and read the headlines while others rushed across at red lights, trying to make it across before it changed again to green. Others stopped and stared in the shop window on one corner, appraising the finely made wedding dresses. There was so much joy there.
Across the street at the gas station, there were people standing in line waiting for the full service pumps. Business men, housewives, and even a few people who looked like they were about to go away Rving for vacation. There were hundreds of stories that encountered that intersection every hour, but only two were of any interest. Only two stories held any meaning in particular to her.
*
Less than twenty four hours ago, a man in his fifties left an afternoon birthday party for one of his young executives. He got behind the wheel of his late model Buick sedan and turned the key in the ignition. People who watched him drive away say he had turned it twice...once to start the car and a second time causing a horrible screeching sound.
Leaving his executive parking spot, he drove down the wrong side of the road, recovering the car from nearly hitting a stop sign, and he managed his way through the guard station.
The last time anyone had seen him, they said he was happy. They'd just promoted him to the head of his department that morning, and it had been years in the making. He couldn't wait to tell his wife, so when his collegue offered to call a taxi for him, he brushed it off. It was fine, he said, because he hadn't drank all that much. Maybe he hadn't but he had also skipped breakfast and lunch.
*
It seemed inevitable. She was always running late. There was always one more thing to do and never enough hours in the day. It had been her greatest complaint about life in general; there just wasn't enough time to do everything you wanted.
Sometimes you just had to disappoint people, but that wasn't a very pleasant thing to do, so instead she skipped things that would be otherwise important to people like meals or vacations. Instead she made the time to be as much available to everyone as possible, and in the meantime, savored the quiet hours at night when she could take her late night bath alone, earphones on, classical music being conducted from her very own porcelain conductor's stand. The bubbles made it soft, while the water kept her warm, and even when things were exceptionally stressful, somehow this managed to bring things back in to focus.
Yesterday had been one of those days; one of those days when really all she wanted to do was get through the day so that she could have the night to herself—her bath, her time to decompress.
She still had a family dinner to do, complete with lectures from Mona on relationships and Jonathon's unusually happy banter with his boyfriend. It was going to be great, she thought, if only it left her enough time to get through some of the work she had brought home with her.
Approaching an intersection, she did a mental checklist of all the things she had to do once she picked Caity up from her gymnastics class. It was her turn again, already, she thought. In a rotation of five people, she seemed to be making this trek a lot.
She didn't mind, she thought, she just needed a few more minutes every day, and this was fifteen minutes that could be saved if someone else could have picked up her daughter from the rec center.
Pick up the dry cleaning. Walk the dog. Phone Al and see if he could do her hair next week. Arrange a parent-teacher interview with Catherine's teacher. Pick up a birthday card for Mona. Finish the costume for Caity's school play.
*
As he approached the intersection, he realized that he still had some of his coffee left. Somehow the knowledge of it made him want it more and convinced him that he was thirstier than he actually was. It's the sheer availability that made him want to reach out and grab it.
Reaching down towards the floor, he groped for the Styrofoam cup. After a few seconds of not getting any further along, he looked down and found it. Someone had written his name on it, he thought, but he hadn't noticed it before. They had spelled it wrong too. But no matter, they had put just the right amount of cream and sugar in it.
Looking up, he saw the car in front of him, but not soon enough to stop. It seemed like he had already cut it in two, twisting the metal around his car to create an arrow. There was a loud crash, and then a crunch, and a noise like a kettle almost, he thought, but the last thing he saw was a petite brunette, looking at him, her eyes like saucers watching him slam into her.
He wondered if maybe he had drank too much before he closed his eyes.
5***
* All alone, I came into the world All alone, I will someday die Solid stone is just sand and water, baby Sand and water, and a million years gone by *
Filing into the church, Angela held Catherine's hand, who was also holding on to Tony's. The little girl's eyes grew wide at the box laid out in front of them. She examined the lines on it, thinking that it was pretty, but it would have made a better toy box.
Jonathon and Josh followed behind, Jonathon's eyes swollen from having spent days crying, his hands wrapped up in Josh's, hoping that he would be able to get enough support from him that he might not breakdown during the funeral. Everything in his heart told him his best friend just died. His sister died and he didn't even know what to say anymore. If one more person told him that they 'felt his loss', he might burst.
As they took their seats in the first row, they looked solemnly up at the casket, the flowers cascading around it in perfect detail and in beautiful organization—it looked like a centerpiece, not a vessel into another world.
"Gramma," Catherine asked, "where's momma?"
Angela bit back the feeling of bile in her throat that had her convinced she was going to vomit at any second. The tension and stress of the morning seemed to run over into the afternoon and now into this, the funeral.
"She's up there, honey," Angela said softly, pointing towards heaven. "This is just so we can remember her."
"But how could we forget her," the little girl asked, her voice full of fear and worry.
"Oh baby girl, I don't think we ever could, but this is something people do to say goodbye—this is our way of letting them know we love them and miss them," Angela said, her tears now falling.
"So momma's with gramma-Marie?"
"Yep, I bet she is honey, and gramma-Marie is probably really happy to see her." Her voice was betraying her. She just wasn't programmed to tell her grandchild that she'd never see her mother again. At least, not without emotion.
"I wanna touch it," Catherine said, her voice small. She looked between Tony and Angela, before reaching out for Angela's hand and leading her towards the coffin.
Angela looked back towards Tony, afraid that at any moment he might melt down, but so far he had survived, even if he wished he hadn't.
"It's a pretty box," Caity said, her small fingers tracing over the richly coloured wood.
"It's uh," Angela fought back her tears, "it's called a coffin, baby." Watching the girl, Angela wondered how much she understood of it all. She had been much older when her own father died, but this was a lot to grasp for such a little girl.
"And mommy's inside?"
"Her body is," Angela tried to say, her voice cracking, "but her spirit—it's already with God. She's watching from heaven."
"Oh."
There was a calm silence, but Angela felt her knees weaken again. She hoped that soon Catherine would be ready to go back to their seats.
"Momma, I hope you can hear me," the little girl said, speaking into the wood at one end of the casket. "'Cause I don't know when we're gonna be able to talk again, but I want to let you know that I love you. And I did really great at gymnastics class—I finally figured out how to do the double back flip."
Angela watched the scene, amazed by how calm the girl was.
"And I want to let you know I'll take good care of scout. He's a good dog, and I think he'll like living at Grammas and Gramps'. And I'll take care of them too—they're real sad that you're gone. I'm sad too, but right now I just miss you." Catherine leaned forward and pressed a kiss against the shiny wood. "I love you," she whispered, before turning back to Angela and leading her back to the seats.
Once they were sitting down again, Caity took both Tony and Angela's hands in her own. "Mommy loves us too," she said serenely, "and she wants us to be family even though she can't be here anymore."
Angela chewed on her lip. She couldn't cope anymore. Her granddaughter was holding it 'together' better than she was.
**
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.
As the minister began communion, Jonathon reached out for Josh's hand, and looked between his mother and the man who had been his father. They both looked so worn, and so abused by everything that he almost felt selfish in feeling a degree of his grief.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
Mona and Robert seemed to be more interested in avoiding looking at anyone thing in particular, both feeling their own mortality staring them down. There was a feeling that it was wrong for them to be there. Sam was only 31—she was just a kid. She had only just begun to build a life for herself and she had lost it.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Catherine knew the words to the Lord's Prayer. They had been a staple of her childhood so far in Sunday sermons which were inevitably long and sometimes hard to endure. They were always passionately spoken though, and once she had asked her mother why the minister had been so happy about what he was saying when he talked about the men killing Jesus. "Because Jesus rose again," Sam had explained, "and sometimes what seems like an end is only the beginning of the story."
And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
And there they were, Tony and Angela waiting to take communion in a pre- funeral service and they could no longer hold back their tears which were now freely streaming down their faces.
If his was the kingdom, the power, and the glory, why did he need to take one more person away—why did that one person have to be Sam? Their Sam?
6***
As the family walked single file through the doorway, there was an overwhelming air of anger and pain that loomed over them.
The funeral—watching their beloved Samantha being lowered into the ground—was too much a reality now. Even if before they had been able to fight off the realness of it, now there was nothing left to deny.
They had buried her that day, in a cemetery that seemed well enough kept, although too much like a park for their liking. They had watched her deep- cherry wood coffin being lowered into the ground, and they had said the necessary prayers. All that was left now was to actually feel like they could cope as opposed to putting up the most viable front.
"Catherine, sweetie, why don't you and I go up to my place and we'll help Robert put some food together. We should eat something soon," Mona said, her hand resting on top of the girl's head and gently propelling her forward.
"I wanna stay here with Gramma and Gramps," Caity argued.
"Well, I think they need a few minutes alone," Mona replied, before leading the way. Obediently, the girl followed, and soon the room was empty except for Tony and Angela.
"I wish Jonathon had come back with us," Angela said, hanging her coat on the rack. She looked in the mirror and realized how horrible she looked, and how even though she looked like she was barely put together, her emotions were even more in shambles. It was hardly a good cover, but it was something. She didn't look likely to fall apart in a second, so as long as she could maintain that poker face, she'd be ok.
"He and Josh are comin' over later though, right? He'll still be showing up on the doorstep and asking for free food." Tony's tone was less than cordial. He wasn't even being civil.
"They're coming over for more than free food," Angela said softly, falling into place beside him on the couch. "They're coming over because they're sad too—she was his sister, Tony." Although she tried to mask her expression and hide her confusion, he could still see through her.
Tony had always had that ability; he could always read her like an open book and he could always tell what she was thinking. But his current state of mind left no room for mind reading. All he wanted to do really was go back to the cemetery and dig her up—he needed to hold his daughter again. He needed to somehow prove she wasn't really dead.
"I miss her already," Angela said. "I've missed her since she left the other day to go pick up Caity."
"Yeah."
"Not yeah," Angela said, feeling the sting of his reply. "Tony, I know what you're feeling—I'm feeling it too."
"You don't know how I feel..." Tony snapped back before he propelled himself up the stairs and as far away from Angela as he could think of, the mixture of rage and confusion making every move seem more difficult than it actually was.
"Tony," Angela called after him, her heart sinking.
As she followed after him, up the stairs, she wondered what she could say. There was nothing that would make her feel better right now, and she knew he felt the same way, but something had to get through to him.
When she entered their bedroom, her mind flashed back to the memory of when they were building it—when they had redesigned it in their own minds' eyes, and had hired Hank's father to take care of it for them.
"I'm feeling it too," Angela said, making a spot beside him on the bed. "I lost her too," she clarified.
"She was half of me," Tony spit, "and half of Marie. You don't know what I'm feeling right now—you have no clue what I'm feeling."
And there it was. He had played the biology card, and it was hard to trump, but this wasn't a card game, she thought. This was their life together that he was underestimating.
"I have this hole—this horrible emptiness—right here," Angela said, her hand resting on her stomach in a place where it had been many years before when she was carrying Jonathon. "And it feels like something in me just died. It feels like I've just lost a child, and nothing can fill that gaping darkness. I helped you raise Sam and I was there for her through everything growing up...I was there when our little girl gave birth to our littlest girl, and when you say that I don't know what you're feeling, I think you have no clue...I lost a daughter too, Tony, and it's killing me to know that I won't ever see her again, and that there's a little girl with my mother right now who will never see her mother again. Tony...I love you, and I loved Sam like she was my own daughter. We just buried our child, and now we're fighting?" Angela's hand delicately traced over his shoulders, hoping he'd turn towards her—hoping that he might invite her back into his life.
"She can't be gone," Tony whispered. "She can't be. There was so much left for her to do—there were so many things she wanted to do. She wasn't supposed to die before me," Tony said, his voice now betraying him and revealing that he was sobbing—something he had rarely done before.
Reaching her arms around him, Angela embraced her husband. "I know...I know this seems so unfair. She was so young, and she was so alive..." Her own tears were now dampening his shoulder, her body pressed against his.
"Your children aren't supposed to die before you," Tony cried. "And now she's gone."
"Tony, honey...there are so many things we have to do for Catherine right now, and it's hard, I know. But we have to. She needs us, and as much as it hurts, we can't forget she just lost her mother."
"When did things get so hard," Tony asked. "I just want to go to the cemetery and bring her home. I want this all to be a dream."
"But it's not," Angela said. "I don't think we're going to wake up any time soon." She hated being the voice of reason but she had to try. Catherine was too young to deal with this on her own. She needed them to be strong for her, and she needed them to help her learn how to cope.
Throwing fits wasn't going to teach their granddaughter anything, no matter how good it felt in the moment.
7***
"Shhhh," Angela whispered against her granddaughter's ear, the two curled up on the bed in what used to be Sam's old room. For now, this would be Catherine's room, until they had redecorated and organized what used to be Jonathon's.
At first she had thought about letting Caity have her mom's old room, but for her and Tony, it would be just too hard to walk in and see a beautiful brunette girl tucked in up to her neck in the bed. She'd remind them too much of Sam, and for now that was too hard of a thought to accept.
"Gramma," Caity asked quietly, "what happens if something happens to you and gramps?"
Angela sighed. "I can't promise nothing will ever happen to us but we'll do our best to stay with you as long as possible," Angela assured her. A part of her wanted to promise the girl that there wouldn't be anything to worry about but her heart wouldn't let her. In honesty, they never had expected to bury Sam, and there were never any guarantees in life. Things could just as easily once again surprise them, and even though they wanted nothing more than to be there for that little girl for a long time, it wasn't her decision to make.
"I don't want to lose you and gramps too," Catherine whispered before closing her eyes.
"I don't want that for you either, baby girl," Angela replied before closing her eyes to fight off the tears that were forming.
Exhaustion must have taken over because upon closing her eyes, the world went dark and Angela fell asleep, holding on for dear life to a little girl who'd just lost her mother and was being stronger than the rest of them.
*
"Angela," he whispered, his hand touching her arm. He hadn't expected to find her curled up in the bedroom next to their granddaughter looking so peaceful.
"Hmm?"
"You should get up and come to bed," he tried to rationalize, knowing that Angela was very rarely responsive when she was woken up.
As her eyes flickered open, she saw that he must have been kneeling in front of the bed, his arms resting on the bed in front of him, his head on his hands.
"Hey," she murmered.
"Hey."
"I must've fallen asleep," she explained even though it was probably obvious what had happened.
"You guys look good together," Tony said sweetly. "Reminds me of the time Sam had bronchitis and you took care of her—remember that? I was sick, so I couldn't be chasing around, and you took care of both of us."
"Sam was a great patient—you were whiney," Angela pointed out. "Sam just took her meds and as many hugs as I could give her and watched TV. Nothing was working with you."
"You didn't give me the choice of hugs," Tony reasoned.
Angela blushed, thinking back to that painfully long period of their relationship where they were merely 'friends'. "Well, I think we've made up for it," she whispered.
"Yeah." Tony looked pensively at Catiy. "She looks so much like Sam. SO much. She's even got that perfect little nose—that's two generations of Micelli women who managed to escape the Italian schnoz."
Angela smiled, before reaching up and gently stroking her fingers over his nose. "Well, it looks good on you," she said lovingly.
Before she could lay her hand back down on the bed, Tony grabbed it and held it in his own.
"I'm sorry about before," he said quietly, "but I just don't know what to do right now. I feel like I should be doing something more or something else, or...turning back time. Anything."
"If we could, I would have found a way to do it by now, I assure you. I keep wishing it was my turn to pick up Catherine and not hers." Angela looked sadly at him. "I keep thinking: if anything happened to me, the family would be ok, and I've already lived a good life. I've had a better life than most people could dream of or ask for. But I can't change it. I wish I could. Really."
"Eh oh, this wouldn't have been any easier saying goodbye to you than it is to her. It would have killed me all the same. I just don't want to have to say good bye to anyone right now. Things were finally goin' so great." Tony cast his eyes downward on to his sleeping granddaughter's face. "You ready to take another swing at parenthood? I mean, at our age?"
Angela looked at the young girl and thought for a moment. "She's got an old soul," she explained, "and a lot of Sam in her. And we'll have Samantha helping us out."
"Yeah," Tony said. A few moments more passed, the room in absolute silence. "Promise me you won't ever leave me?"
A lump formed in her chest thinking about what he was asking, and how much she wished she could say yes. "I can't promise that," she said tearfully, "but I promise I'll stay with you for as long as I can."
Tony just nodded and returned to looking at his peacefully sleeping granddaughter.
There were a lot of things for them to move beyond and overcome and in the meantime, while they battled their demons, they'd need to reprioritize and evaluate their lives.
They had lost a daughter, but they had no intention of losing the game.
Placing the phone back down on the cradle, it seemed that random words escaped her mouth, not sure that anything could dig deep enough to find the bottom of the emptiness that she felt.
A normal day. A normal sunny, beautiful day, and a normal, wonderful springtime night, and still it had become something else. Something less than normal. Something less than even bearable. Somewhere in between it had journeyed from normal to exceptional, and then quickly to unbearable.
Her fingers felt cold, and her breathing shallower. There was this cloud of news looming over her and making her wonder if she was still standing, or if this was all someone's version of a bad joke.
Her legs felt weak. It had been the first time she could remember feeling them give out beneath her, and as she slid to the floor she closed her eyes and tried to remember. She'd been there before, many years ago, when she was still much too young, and even though she had been just a child, she remembered how painful it was to forget.
That was the first stage after someone died, she thought. Forgetting. And the forgetting was painful—it cut deeper than any knife ever would. Forgetting meant that you'd wake up one morning and wonder how they smelled...Forgetting meant you'd wake up one morning and realize that you could no longer hear their voice in her head, or see their face clearly in front of you when you thought of them.
Forgetting meant that they were lost, even if it was juts a little piece and forgetting meant that even if things would eventually be ok, for the time being there was nothing more vicious.
It was still there, she realized. The image, the smell, the way the voice could still resonate in the emptiness of the room was all still there—but how would it be possible to maintain it? How would she be able to keep all those things.
She heard a voice, a familiar voice that should have brought her to her feet, but she couldn't muster the energy. The wind had been knocked out of her and there was no way she could recover quite yet.
Eventually she'd have to tell everyone. She'd have to tell the owner of the voice what happened, but bringing it to life—giving voice to such an impossibly frightening thought—would give it reality and control.
But that was her job. As the first person to be notified of the news, she'd have to tell them. Even if doing it would break her heart every time she had to say the words.
"There's been an accident," she began. "There were no survivors."
1***
* All alone, I didn't like the feeling All alone, I sat and cried All alone, I had to find some meaning In the center of the pain I felt inside *
There was a quiet calm over the entire house, and no one dared break it. Emotions were running too high to be seeking out conversation, and even if anyone had the nerve to try, they wouldn't have been able to speak. Whatever mechanism gave humans the ability to communicate seemed halted; this was the place that suddenly fell out of the realm of reality and had quickly become a dream state. No. A nightmare state.
No one had expected this. Then again, no one ever expects anything like this. It's human nature to be ignorant of the possibility. It's human nature to deny it's mere existence, let alone it's encroachment on your very own life.
No one had expected to get a call like that, or to have to deal with the repercussions.
No one expected to be meeting for a funeral, pulling out the black drab clothing from the backs of their closet on an unusually sunny spring morning.
But it was here. It was here, and they weren't about to find a way around it.
Now if only they could figure out how they got to this point. If only they could stop the flood of tears that were barely being held off by the vague confusion and repression of the news.
If only. Useless waste of thought processes. If onlys wouldn't get them anywhere.
There wasn't a way to get around it. There wasn't a way to turn back the hands of time and undo everything.
It was done, and now all they could do was pick up the pieces and try to breathe. They had to breathe and live, even though that seemed like cheating. Not everyone got the chance to live, and it seemed like this was a cruel reminder.
***
"Hey, dad, I was thinking that you and Angela should spend your anniversary somewhere nice. Somewhere hot. Not everyone gets to their ten year anniversary these days, ya know," Sam teased. There had never been a doubt that Tony and Angela would see ten years of marital bliss—they'd be together forever. But she had to tease them all the same.
"Eh oh, we're gonna make fifty," Tony countered, teasingly.
"Sure, and you'll be what... 93? You plan on sticking around that long?" Jonathon sipped his cup of coffee, and waited for Tony to realize what he said.
"Hey, be nice," Tony laughed. "I'll write you out of the will!"
Jonathon smiled. "Well if you stick around another forty years what good's the money going to do me anyway? The jag sure as heck won't be worth much!"
Sam slapped her dad on the arm. "Come to think of it, blondie over there has the right idea. I know Caity and I could sure use the money. If you guys kick the bucket sooner rather than later, she might just make it into an ivey-league college."
Tony gave her that 'never in a million years' look that he had perfected through the years. "I ain't goin' no where, no time soon, and neither is Angela. So you're all stuck with us. Even if you don't wanna be." Wrapping his arms tightly around his daughter, Tony wished he could hold on to the moment forever.
It seemed like everyone was getting older, and not that he thought he was going to die any time soon, but it seemed like their time was running out.
There were going to be fewer moments like the one they'd just shared teasing each other in the kitchen until eventually it would fade to black, and until then, he was determined to keep everyone close.
"The party started without me," Angela asked, as she placed her briefcase on the table. "I thought you guys weren't getting here until six?" Making her rounds around the room, Angela greeted everyone with a peck on the cheek and a tight hug. She loved having her family all together, even if it was only for one night a week.
"Well, Caity wanted to play with Mona, and Mona said it had to be before dinner because she had plans afterwards. And the stupid car broke down again, so I had to call Jonathon and beg him to ditch Josh so he could drive me in." Sam sighed, having said the entire thing in one breath. "And now I feel like I'm imposing," she said, scrunching her nose and looking around the room.
"Nonsense," Angela said, making her way over to squeeze her tightly. "We love having you and Catherine around. It makes us feel young again."
"Ha, Tony says it makes him feel old," Jonathon pointed out, "but that just might be because he's getting up there in age." With a wink, Jonathon carefully raised his mug of coffee to his mouth once more.
"He's still younger than me, so beware," Angela observed. "Now, is Josh coming to meet us for dinner tonight? Since he was so unceremoniously 'ditched' earlier?"
"Josh has a meeting with a client tonight about a new nightclub opening, so no. Too bad though, we wanted to share some news tonight." Jonathon smiled sadly, wishing that there were some things that were easier in their lives, if only it was that simple. Wishing didn't seem to get anyone very far.
"Oh, news?" Sam looked at him hopefully, surprised they were all standing in the kitchen instead of making their way to the living room to be more comfortable and relaxed while watching Catherine paint Mona's nails.
"Yeah, but I should wait for him. It's more his news than mine."
"Well now you've got us curious," Sam pointed out. "But we can wait, if you want. We'd hate to do anything to upset your boyfriend."
"I thank you for that. He still hasn't totally forgiven me for that surprise birthday party you convinced me to throw for him."
"Thirty is a big deal, no matter what you say!" Sam grinned. "And it was a great party. And he seemed awful appreciative of it when we were leaving in the wee small hours of the morning." Winking at Jonathon, she laughed.
It was great banter like this that made her homesick. There was something about living with a seven year old that made adult conversation and teasing seem like a treat. An entire conversation in which she didn't have to talk about baseball or Barbie was one for which Sam was eternally grateful.
Sam and Caity were living over in Hartford in a small bungalow that Angela had bought for her when Hank left. The idea was that it was meant to be something temporary. The bungalow was meant to be an interim thing, but it had quickly become home. It was their own place, and even though it was full of toys and books, and about a dozen different half-finished arts and crafts, it was the kind of domestic settlement that Sam had needed. But it was still too far away from Oakhills drive, her parents and her favourite grandmother—even though she'd never let Mona hear her call her that.
"Eh oh, we don't want to hear about certain details of your lives—we're happy just knowin' you're happy," Tony told Sam and Jonathon, who had already become familiar with the statement. It was Tony's way of keeping them the sweet innocent kids he remembered, and still giving them their freedom. Some things, he had justified, are just not meant to be talked about and his children's sex lives ranked up there.
Angela wrapped her arm in his before breaking up the crowd. "We need to go see our little angel," she announced, "because this gramma is getting restless."
Tony laughed. "She almost broke her record—she almost made it fifteen minutes without rushing in to play with Cait."
An elbow to the ribs jolted him.
"When was the last time you made it fifteen minutes?" Angela looked at him sweetly, daring him to talk his way out of it.
"Point taken."
2***
* All alone, I came into the world All alone, I will someday die Solid stone is just sand and water, baby Sand and water, and a million years gone by *
They were never prepared to sit in a funeral parlor and make plans to bury their loved one. It had just never struck them to worry more about these things in life or rather, more appropriately, in death.
Even if death was inevitable, it was easier to deny it. Everyone did. Death was an unnecessary thought process, because if you thought about it, you weren't living. Or at least, that was always the rationale that had been imparted on Tony, and that Tony had imparted on the family. It was something that Mrs. Rossini had told him after his friend died, and it was something that stuck with him. Even if it had depressed him to no end.
But death wasn't such an unnecessary thought process. Quite the opposite. It was a necessary evil, just waiting to be seized.
There was so much to plan. Music, wardrobe, cremation or burial, and so few people were prepared. So few people had taken the time out to write a will and a list of wishes and requests.
And even though they had a list in front of them (one they had dug out of the back of the wallet the police returned to them at the hospital, before they had come home for the first time and had to face their demons head on) they were still unprepared.
There were memories in everything, and the memories seemed so painfully strong that the mere existence of them was enough to make their hearts break. It seemed that every aspect of their reality was causing them pain.
Even the printing brought up memories that had threatened their abilities to cope. No one could look at the script without remembering jokes they had made or cards that had been written through the years. No one could escape the fact that they'd never see that writing scribbled on anything again. Not anything new at least.
It was a small thing; a thing that most people would probably over look. What's a little text on a piece of paper?
Everything when the person who wrote it had died since.
Everything might even be an understatement.
***
"Gramma," the little girl yelled happily, as she raced into Angela's arms. She was Angela's little angel, and Caity knew it. Ever since her birth, Angela had this unbelievable connection to her granddaughter that seemed to only grow stronger. The affection the two shared for one another was unparalleled, and had been the basis of much teasing in the family.
"Hey honey, how are you?" Scooping the girl up in a hug, she squeezed her before placing a kiss on her nose.
"I'm good. I painted Mona's fingers, and she said I could paint her toenails too!" The little girl beamed, happy to spend some time with her family.
"Wow," Angela said, laughing. "Mother, you really lucked out, huh?"
"The kid's good, what can I say?" Mona teased. "And besides, I doubt that Robert will be looking at my toes!" She suggestively wiggled her eyebrows in that way that only Mona could. It was like she had figured out at least a dozen ways to relay a suggestive thought without ever being blatant.
Sam made her way over to Angela and Catherine, teasingly poking the little girl. "I never get that kind of reaction when I walk in a room," Sam said jokingly.
"You're not gramma," Caity said sweetly. That was her style—sweet but blunt. The kid didn't beat around the bush, and she didn't sugar coat things, but nobody could be mad at her because she had the most enormous brown eyes and dark hair. Genetics had done well by her, making her the spitting image of her mother when she was younger, except with darker skin.
Angela laughed. "That's not nice sweetie—she's your mother."
"I know," Caity said, "but I live with her. I see her all the time. I only get to see you a couple times a week."
She tried to hide her smile, but not so secretly it gave Angela great joy to have such a warm bond with the girl. Even though there was no biological relationship to her, Angela was there when Sam gave birth to Catherine, and she was, after all, named after her. Sort of, at least. She was given her middle name.
"How 'bout Gramps?" Tony made his way into the group of girls, wrapping his arms around both Angela and Caity.
"I miss you too," Caity said. "But Gramma lets me wear her make up and shoes."
"She doesn't let me do that," Jonathon said in mock indignation.
"That's 'cause you did it without permission for so many years," Mona teased.
Ever since Jonathon came out of the closet and announced that he was gay, the family had made it more of a joke with him, which in turn made him more comfortable. None of the joking was ever derogatory, but it was all in fun, and it made him feel like they were okay with it.
"I never wore Mom's clothes," Jonathon countered.
"No, it was Mona's," Sam said, getting her dig in. "Angela's weren't flashy enough to suit your tastes!"
"Children, do we need to separate you?" Angela tickled Caity, earning a fit of giggles from the girl. "I think we need to separate your mommy and your uncle Jonathon."
Caity shook her head in agreement, and smiled when her mother flashed an expression of hurt at her. "Just for a while, until you can say something nice to him," she clarified as if she was making the decision.
Tony burst out laughing. "It'd be a real long time, baby girl. You might be waiting 'til you graduate college."
3***
* I will see you in the light of a thousand suns I will hear you in the sound of the waves I will know you when I come, as we all will come, Through the doors, beyond the grave *
Looking through the closet, there were a thousand things but none of them were appropriate for a funeral. None of them were even vaguely mournful.
The lack of sadness in the wardrobe begged another choice—anything but the depressing throws of black material to be buried in. Something with character and something with taste and respect, most certainly, but nothing drab and black that looked like it have otherwise doubled as a magician's costume.
In the midst of all the clothes there were neatly organized photo boxes of spanning what could now literally be called a lifetime. Pictures from birth to very near the death, and lots of mementos from in between. A record with special meaning that no one would probably ever understand again, a necklace that looked handmade from a friend or someone who would never again be named.
It was as if the world stopped here in the box, as if there was nothing more to be said or shown for those memories. So few of them could be easily placed on someone else's shoulders and the stories would never be told the same way.
There were albums too, standing neatly in rows lining the shelf above the wardrobe, but it seemed that the most important memories were there, in the box. They were accessible and clearly placed there with a purpose.
Though there were a few pictures dispersed throughout from the years before the Bower and Micelli families melded into one, there were very clear and evident timelines in the box. Pieces of a school project or a poem, the lyrics to a song, and a portrait of someone hand drawn decades ago with love and tenderness.
The box, in all of it's kitschy glory, was romantic and moving—it was significant and outlined years of life. And if there had to be something more placed in it, what would it be?
A shard of glass? A piece of metal or a poem? There had to be something more. The idea of the end of the line coming so soon or so abruptly was enough to make it a challenge.
Taking the box and setting it in a larger cardboard one, it would be carried back to someone who might appreciate it later, at a time when there weren't quite so many emotions or as many stabbing pains deducing them all to sobbing messes.
**
"Mother, can you bring in that file folder on the guacamunchy account?" Lifting her finger off the buzzer, Angela returned to reading the folder in front of her.
"I can't believe this is still active after twenty years," Mona grumbled, looking at the green tortilla shape on the outside of the folder as she walked through the office. She could hardly believe she was still working in Angela's office. After all, just a few months ago she had celebrated her seventy-first birthday. Money wasn't a problem and working was hardly a necessity. Still, she only worked three days a week: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and in those days she only put in about six hours work each day—it was enough to keep her distracted from the everyday boredom she had experienced in her two years of 'retirement'. She still took three months off a year to travel, and very liberal 'long weekends' when the fancy struck. And truth be told, working for Angela had been a treat. She watched the Bower agency blossom from a tiny seed struggling for life into a beautiful garden. Her daughter's agency had survived the economic downturns and both the golf wars to become the sixth largest advertising agency in North America; leaps and bounds ahead of the almost now defunct Wallace and McQuade.
"Well, the nineties were all about snack foods, and now we seem to be hitting the health food craze, so they'll be here for at least another few years," Angela said, taking the folder. "Besides, they just look revolting—they taste quite good."
"I'm sure they do, if you don't have an aversion to foods the same colour as your office walls," Mona said effortlessly.
Angela laughed. "So, mother, have you booked this year's holiday?"
Mona shrugged. "It's down to four places...well, five, really. Robert wanted to go to Munich, Germany—he said something about leather and schnitzel," Mona laughed, "but I kind of wanted to do a few months in Argentina. The other places we had tossed around were..." Mona thought it through, noting that her memory was getting worse. She hated getting older. "Oh yes, the other places were London, Vienna, and, believe it or not, right here in town. We wanted to do some things with the family, and when better than in summer when everyone is taking time off work. Tony will be out from June until September, you take two weeks in July and two weeks in August, and Catherine will be out of school... There's an appeal to staying here and being with you all."
Angela looked at her mother with a mixture between shock and concern. "Why do you really want to stay here?"
The two women exchanged glances and Angela sighed. She could bet money she knew what was happening but she wasn't going to say it. Her mother would have to step up to the plate and let it out.
"Robert is doing well. The cancer is in remission and he's starting to get over the sickness of it. He's really feeling better. But I don't like the idea of being that far away from his doctors if anything else should happen, and..." She stopped, swallowing back the threatening tears. "It's funny, ya know, I don't feel any different than I did fifty years ago, but I know I should. I know I should be settling in and wearing pink and purple, and doing all those old lady things. People I know are dying around me, and I still feel like I can traipse around the world...But I don't know when that's going to change, and I don't want to find out and be so far away from the people I love that I lose the time with them. Carmella's death last fall—that was hard. She was two years younger than me. She had a heartattack in the middle of a bake sale. That could have been me," Mona nearly whispered.
"Mother," Angela said, making her way around the desk and leading her mother to sit beside her on the couch along the wall. "You didn't spend the last fifty years eating five meals a day, you're at a perfect weight, with perfect health. Her cholesterol was through the roof, and she was overweight. You're not going to go on vacation and never come back."
"I might," Mona countered, "and you can guarantee it won't happen. I want to be with my family now. It's finally happened—I finally have become a family woman. Don't make me feel guilty for it, please?"
Angela wrapped her arms around her mother. "Oh, mother...that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to tell you not to feel guilty for living."
"You know, I never thought we'd have a real family to want around. For a while I thought it would be just you and Jonathon and me. And whomever I was dating at the time. But I never thought that you'd actually rope Tony and Sam the way you did. It felt like you had taken more time to get there than fate was going to give you, but you did it."
"And we got the best part of the deal, didn't we?" Angela smiled.
"A younger man and a beautiful daughter."
"He's only two years younger," Angela objected.
"He's still younger," Mona pointed out. "And he was your first true love. That counts for a lot."
The younger blond couldn't help but smile. It was true; he had been her first true love. He had been her only true love. And having him in her life was as important as oxygen.
"He's been worried lately though. Robert's cancer really shook him up."
"Been worried about what?"
"He's scared that he might get sick and that I'd be left to deal with things alone—that I'd have to learn how to keep the house and cook, and all the things he does. He's started teaching me how to make things and where he keeps them. He's teaching me where he hides the gifts before Christmas so nobody finds them, and where the decorations are. It's scary, mother..."
"I know. Robert didn't have any warning. It was like one day he went into the doctor's the next day he was being rushed into the emergency room...Tony will get over it though. Now that Robert's better he has something to gauge it against. Not everyone dies of cancer any more."
"I don't want to think of a world without Tony. Or you. Or Robert. It's taken me so long to get this family and now that I've had it for so long...I don't want to give it up." Angela forced a smile even though she was feeling everything but happy.
"You won't have to. No one is going anywhere. We're all too stubborn to die." Mona laughed. "Anyway, with us staying in Fairfield for the summer, we were thinking it might be best to plan some family outings sooner rather than later. We know how you guys book up." Gently resting her hand on her daughters, Mona winked.
"Well talk to Sam and Jonathon, and they can let you know what they have planned. We haven't really worked on much, other than getting the cottage cleaned up so that we can spend more time there."
"My daughter and her house in the Hamptons. And she's even taken to calling it a cottage. It's cute, you know."
Angela blushed. The wealth she had accumulated in the recent years was much greater than she had ever anticipated, and after she put in the in ground pool in the backyard—the one she had been trying to put in ever since she got fired from Wallace and McQuaid—she bought the most beautiful five bedroom 'cottage' she had ever seen, complete with water view.
"Ah, but I'm proud of you, you know. Having built the empire that you have. One day it will be a great legacy for you, and until then, you enjoy it."
Angela smiled. "And to maintain said legacy, you had better get back to work so I can get back to work and earn us millions more."
"Making an old lady like me work...sounds like a case I should take up with the government. Abuse!"
"Sure. At what I pay you, I'm sure they would have to disagree though."
"Ok, I concede defeat, but only on the grounds that I love you."
"I love you too mother," Angela said, her heart feeling much too full to allow her even a single breath.
4***
* All alone, I heal this heart of sorrow All alone, I raise this child Flesh and bone, he's just Bursting towards tomorrow And his laughter fills my world, and wears your smile *
It seemed like hours had passed, on that street corner, the wind particularly cold for a relatively warmish spring day. Standing there was chilling, for more than just the obvious reasons. It was strange to see the traffic flowing all around, despite the tragedy that had just occurred, the lives lost.
The corner told so many stories. There were people stopping to look at newspaper boxes and read the headlines while others rushed across at red lights, trying to make it across before it changed again to green. Others stopped and stared in the shop window on one corner, appraising the finely made wedding dresses. There was so much joy there.
Across the street at the gas station, there were people standing in line waiting for the full service pumps. Business men, housewives, and even a few people who looked like they were about to go away Rving for vacation. There were hundreds of stories that encountered that intersection every hour, but only two were of any interest. Only two stories held any meaning in particular to her.
*
Less than twenty four hours ago, a man in his fifties left an afternoon birthday party for one of his young executives. He got behind the wheel of his late model Buick sedan and turned the key in the ignition. People who watched him drive away say he had turned it twice...once to start the car and a second time causing a horrible screeching sound.
Leaving his executive parking spot, he drove down the wrong side of the road, recovering the car from nearly hitting a stop sign, and he managed his way through the guard station.
The last time anyone had seen him, they said he was happy. They'd just promoted him to the head of his department that morning, and it had been years in the making. He couldn't wait to tell his wife, so when his collegue offered to call a taxi for him, he brushed it off. It was fine, he said, because he hadn't drank all that much. Maybe he hadn't but he had also skipped breakfast and lunch.
*
It seemed inevitable. She was always running late. There was always one more thing to do and never enough hours in the day. It had been her greatest complaint about life in general; there just wasn't enough time to do everything you wanted.
Sometimes you just had to disappoint people, but that wasn't a very pleasant thing to do, so instead she skipped things that would be otherwise important to people like meals or vacations. Instead she made the time to be as much available to everyone as possible, and in the meantime, savored the quiet hours at night when she could take her late night bath alone, earphones on, classical music being conducted from her very own porcelain conductor's stand. The bubbles made it soft, while the water kept her warm, and even when things were exceptionally stressful, somehow this managed to bring things back in to focus.
Yesterday had been one of those days; one of those days when really all she wanted to do was get through the day so that she could have the night to herself—her bath, her time to decompress.
She still had a family dinner to do, complete with lectures from Mona on relationships and Jonathon's unusually happy banter with his boyfriend. It was going to be great, she thought, if only it left her enough time to get through some of the work she had brought home with her.
Approaching an intersection, she did a mental checklist of all the things she had to do once she picked Caity up from her gymnastics class. It was her turn again, already, she thought. In a rotation of five people, she seemed to be making this trek a lot.
She didn't mind, she thought, she just needed a few more minutes every day, and this was fifteen minutes that could be saved if someone else could have picked up her daughter from the rec center.
Pick up the dry cleaning. Walk the dog. Phone Al and see if he could do her hair next week. Arrange a parent-teacher interview with Catherine's teacher. Pick up a birthday card for Mona. Finish the costume for Caity's school play.
*
As he approached the intersection, he realized that he still had some of his coffee left. Somehow the knowledge of it made him want it more and convinced him that he was thirstier than he actually was. It's the sheer availability that made him want to reach out and grab it.
Reaching down towards the floor, he groped for the Styrofoam cup. After a few seconds of not getting any further along, he looked down and found it. Someone had written his name on it, he thought, but he hadn't noticed it before. They had spelled it wrong too. But no matter, they had put just the right amount of cream and sugar in it.
Looking up, he saw the car in front of him, but not soon enough to stop. It seemed like he had already cut it in two, twisting the metal around his car to create an arrow. There was a loud crash, and then a crunch, and a noise like a kettle almost, he thought, but the last thing he saw was a petite brunette, looking at him, her eyes like saucers watching him slam into her.
He wondered if maybe he had drank too much before he closed his eyes.
5***
* All alone, I came into the world All alone, I will someday die Solid stone is just sand and water, baby Sand and water, and a million years gone by *
Filing into the church, Angela held Catherine's hand, who was also holding on to Tony's. The little girl's eyes grew wide at the box laid out in front of them. She examined the lines on it, thinking that it was pretty, but it would have made a better toy box.
Jonathon and Josh followed behind, Jonathon's eyes swollen from having spent days crying, his hands wrapped up in Josh's, hoping that he would be able to get enough support from him that he might not breakdown during the funeral. Everything in his heart told him his best friend just died. His sister died and he didn't even know what to say anymore. If one more person told him that they 'felt his loss', he might burst.
As they took their seats in the first row, they looked solemnly up at the casket, the flowers cascading around it in perfect detail and in beautiful organization—it looked like a centerpiece, not a vessel into another world.
"Gramma," Catherine asked, "where's momma?"
Angela bit back the feeling of bile in her throat that had her convinced she was going to vomit at any second. The tension and stress of the morning seemed to run over into the afternoon and now into this, the funeral.
"She's up there, honey," Angela said softly, pointing towards heaven. "This is just so we can remember her."
"But how could we forget her," the little girl asked, her voice full of fear and worry.
"Oh baby girl, I don't think we ever could, but this is something people do to say goodbye—this is our way of letting them know we love them and miss them," Angela said, her tears now falling.
"So momma's with gramma-Marie?"
"Yep, I bet she is honey, and gramma-Marie is probably really happy to see her." Her voice was betraying her. She just wasn't programmed to tell her grandchild that she'd never see her mother again. At least, not without emotion.
"I wanna touch it," Catherine said, her voice small. She looked between Tony and Angela, before reaching out for Angela's hand and leading her towards the coffin.
Angela looked back towards Tony, afraid that at any moment he might melt down, but so far he had survived, even if he wished he hadn't.
"It's a pretty box," Caity said, her small fingers tracing over the richly coloured wood.
"It's uh," Angela fought back her tears, "it's called a coffin, baby." Watching the girl, Angela wondered how much she understood of it all. She had been much older when her own father died, but this was a lot to grasp for such a little girl.
"And mommy's inside?"
"Her body is," Angela tried to say, her voice cracking, "but her spirit—it's already with God. She's watching from heaven."
"Oh."
There was a calm silence, but Angela felt her knees weaken again. She hoped that soon Catherine would be ready to go back to their seats.
"Momma, I hope you can hear me," the little girl said, speaking into the wood at one end of the casket. "'Cause I don't know when we're gonna be able to talk again, but I want to let you know that I love you. And I did really great at gymnastics class—I finally figured out how to do the double back flip."
Angela watched the scene, amazed by how calm the girl was.
"And I want to let you know I'll take good care of scout. He's a good dog, and I think he'll like living at Grammas and Gramps'. And I'll take care of them too—they're real sad that you're gone. I'm sad too, but right now I just miss you." Catherine leaned forward and pressed a kiss against the shiny wood. "I love you," she whispered, before turning back to Angela and leading her back to the seats.
Once they were sitting down again, Caity took both Tony and Angela's hands in her own. "Mommy loves us too," she said serenely, "and she wants us to be family even though she can't be here anymore."
Angela chewed on her lip. She couldn't cope anymore. Her granddaughter was holding it 'together' better than she was.
**
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.
As the minister began communion, Jonathon reached out for Josh's hand, and looked between his mother and the man who had been his father. They both looked so worn, and so abused by everything that he almost felt selfish in feeling a degree of his grief.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
Mona and Robert seemed to be more interested in avoiding looking at anyone thing in particular, both feeling their own mortality staring them down. There was a feeling that it was wrong for them to be there. Sam was only 31—she was just a kid. She had only just begun to build a life for herself and she had lost it.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Catherine knew the words to the Lord's Prayer. They had been a staple of her childhood so far in Sunday sermons which were inevitably long and sometimes hard to endure. They were always passionately spoken though, and once she had asked her mother why the minister had been so happy about what he was saying when he talked about the men killing Jesus. "Because Jesus rose again," Sam had explained, "and sometimes what seems like an end is only the beginning of the story."
And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
And there they were, Tony and Angela waiting to take communion in a pre- funeral service and they could no longer hold back their tears which were now freely streaming down their faces.
If his was the kingdom, the power, and the glory, why did he need to take one more person away—why did that one person have to be Sam? Their Sam?
6***
As the family walked single file through the doorway, there was an overwhelming air of anger and pain that loomed over them.
The funeral—watching their beloved Samantha being lowered into the ground—was too much a reality now. Even if before they had been able to fight off the realness of it, now there was nothing left to deny.
They had buried her that day, in a cemetery that seemed well enough kept, although too much like a park for their liking. They had watched her deep- cherry wood coffin being lowered into the ground, and they had said the necessary prayers. All that was left now was to actually feel like they could cope as opposed to putting up the most viable front.
"Catherine, sweetie, why don't you and I go up to my place and we'll help Robert put some food together. We should eat something soon," Mona said, her hand resting on top of the girl's head and gently propelling her forward.
"I wanna stay here with Gramma and Gramps," Caity argued.
"Well, I think they need a few minutes alone," Mona replied, before leading the way. Obediently, the girl followed, and soon the room was empty except for Tony and Angela.
"I wish Jonathon had come back with us," Angela said, hanging her coat on the rack. She looked in the mirror and realized how horrible she looked, and how even though she looked like she was barely put together, her emotions were even more in shambles. It was hardly a good cover, but it was something. She didn't look likely to fall apart in a second, so as long as she could maintain that poker face, she'd be ok.
"He and Josh are comin' over later though, right? He'll still be showing up on the doorstep and asking for free food." Tony's tone was less than cordial. He wasn't even being civil.
"They're coming over for more than free food," Angela said softly, falling into place beside him on the couch. "They're coming over because they're sad too—she was his sister, Tony." Although she tried to mask her expression and hide her confusion, he could still see through her.
Tony had always had that ability; he could always read her like an open book and he could always tell what she was thinking. But his current state of mind left no room for mind reading. All he wanted to do really was go back to the cemetery and dig her up—he needed to hold his daughter again. He needed to somehow prove she wasn't really dead.
"I miss her already," Angela said. "I've missed her since she left the other day to go pick up Caity."
"Yeah."
"Not yeah," Angela said, feeling the sting of his reply. "Tony, I know what you're feeling—I'm feeling it too."
"You don't know how I feel..." Tony snapped back before he propelled himself up the stairs and as far away from Angela as he could think of, the mixture of rage and confusion making every move seem more difficult than it actually was.
"Tony," Angela called after him, her heart sinking.
As she followed after him, up the stairs, she wondered what she could say. There was nothing that would make her feel better right now, and she knew he felt the same way, but something had to get through to him.
When she entered their bedroom, her mind flashed back to the memory of when they were building it—when they had redesigned it in their own minds' eyes, and had hired Hank's father to take care of it for them.
"I'm feeling it too," Angela said, making a spot beside him on the bed. "I lost her too," she clarified.
"She was half of me," Tony spit, "and half of Marie. You don't know what I'm feeling right now—you have no clue what I'm feeling."
And there it was. He had played the biology card, and it was hard to trump, but this wasn't a card game, she thought. This was their life together that he was underestimating.
"I have this hole—this horrible emptiness—right here," Angela said, her hand resting on her stomach in a place where it had been many years before when she was carrying Jonathon. "And it feels like something in me just died. It feels like I've just lost a child, and nothing can fill that gaping darkness. I helped you raise Sam and I was there for her through everything growing up...I was there when our little girl gave birth to our littlest girl, and when you say that I don't know what you're feeling, I think you have no clue...I lost a daughter too, Tony, and it's killing me to know that I won't ever see her again, and that there's a little girl with my mother right now who will never see her mother again. Tony...I love you, and I loved Sam like she was my own daughter. We just buried our child, and now we're fighting?" Angela's hand delicately traced over his shoulders, hoping he'd turn towards her—hoping that he might invite her back into his life.
"She can't be gone," Tony whispered. "She can't be. There was so much left for her to do—there were so many things she wanted to do. She wasn't supposed to die before me," Tony said, his voice now betraying him and revealing that he was sobbing—something he had rarely done before.
Reaching her arms around him, Angela embraced her husband. "I know...I know this seems so unfair. She was so young, and she was so alive..." Her own tears were now dampening his shoulder, her body pressed against his.
"Your children aren't supposed to die before you," Tony cried. "And now she's gone."
"Tony, honey...there are so many things we have to do for Catherine right now, and it's hard, I know. But we have to. She needs us, and as much as it hurts, we can't forget she just lost her mother."
"When did things get so hard," Tony asked. "I just want to go to the cemetery and bring her home. I want this all to be a dream."
"But it's not," Angela said. "I don't think we're going to wake up any time soon." She hated being the voice of reason but she had to try. Catherine was too young to deal with this on her own. She needed them to be strong for her, and she needed them to help her learn how to cope.
Throwing fits wasn't going to teach their granddaughter anything, no matter how good it felt in the moment.
7***
"Shhhh," Angela whispered against her granddaughter's ear, the two curled up on the bed in what used to be Sam's old room. For now, this would be Catherine's room, until they had redecorated and organized what used to be Jonathon's.
At first she had thought about letting Caity have her mom's old room, but for her and Tony, it would be just too hard to walk in and see a beautiful brunette girl tucked in up to her neck in the bed. She'd remind them too much of Sam, and for now that was too hard of a thought to accept.
"Gramma," Caity asked quietly, "what happens if something happens to you and gramps?"
Angela sighed. "I can't promise nothing will ever happen to us but we'll do our best to stay with you as long as possible," Angela assured her. A part of her wanted to promise the girl that there wouldn't be anything to worry about but her heart wouldn't let her. In honesty, they never had expected to bury Sam, and there were never any guarantees in life. Things could just as easily once again surprise them, and even though they wanted nothing more than to be there for that little girl for a long time, it wasn't her decision to make.
"I don't want to lose you and gramps too," Catherine whispered before closing her eyes.
"I don't want that for you either, baby girl," Angela replied before closing her eyes to fight off the tears that were forming.
Exhaustion must have taken over because upon closing her eyes, the world went dark and Angela fell asleep, holding on for dear life to a little girl who'd just lost her mother and was being stronger than the rest of them.
*
"Angela," he whispered, his hand touching her arm. He hadn't expected to find her curled up in the bedroom next to their granddaughter looking so peaceful.
"Hmm?"
"You should get up and come to bed," he tried to rationalize, knowing that Angela was very rarely responsive when she was woken up.
As her eyes flickered open, she saw that he must have been kneeling in front of the bed, his arms resting on the bed in front of him, his head on his hands.
"Hey," she murmered.
"Hey."
"I must've fallen asleep," she explained even though it was probably obvious what had happened.
"You guys look good together," Tony said sweetly. "Reminds me of the time Sam had bronchitis and you took care of her—remember that? I was sick, so I couldn't be chasing around, and you took care of both of us."
"Sam was a great patient—you were whiney," Angela pointed out. "Sam just took her meds and as many hugs as I could give her and watched TV. Nothing was working with you."
"You didn't give me the choice of hugs," Tony reasoned.
Angela blushed, thinking back to that painfully long period of their relationship where they were merely 'friends'. "Well, I think we've made up for it," she whispered.
"Yeah." Tony looked pensively at Catiy. "She looks so much like Sam. SO much. She's even got that perfect little nose—that's two generations of Micelli women who managed to escape the Italian schnoz."
Angela smiled, before reaching up and gently stroking her fingers over his nose. "Well, it looks good on you," she said lovingly.
Before she could lay her hand back down on the bed, Tony grabbed it and held it in his own.
"I'm sorry about before," he said quietly, "but I just don't know what to do right now. I feel like I should be doing something more or something else, or...turning back time. Anything."
"If we could, I would have found a way to do it by now, I assure you. I keep wishing it was my turn to pick up Catherine and not hers." Angela looked sadly at him. "I keep thinking: if anything happened to me, the family would be ok, and I've already lived a good life. I've had a better life than most people could dream of or ask for. But I can't change it. I wish I could. Really."
"Eh oh, this wouldn't have been any easier saying goodbye to you than it is to her. It would have killed me all the same. I just don't want to have to say good bye to anyone right now. Things were finally goin' so great." Tony cast his eyes downward on to his sleeping granddaughter's face. "You ready to take another swing at parenthood? I mean, at our age?"
Angela looked at the young girl and thought for a moment. "She's got an old soul," she explained, "and a lot of Sam in her. And we'll have Samantha helping us out."
"Yeah," Tony said. A few moments more passed, the room in absolute silence. "Promise me you won't ever leave me?"
A lump formed in her chest thinking about what he was asking, and how much she wished she could say yes. "I can't promise that," she said tearfully, "but I promise I'll stay with you for as long as I can."
Tony just nodded and returned to looking at his peacefully sleeping granddaughter.
There were a lot of things for them to move beyond and overcome and in the meantime, while they battled their demons, they'd need to reprioritize and evaluate their lives.
They had lost a daughter, but they had no intention of losing the game.