Homecoming

When I was a kid and storms woke the family, Mom would come into my room with a lit candelabrum to watch the sky with me. It was only fitting that lightening would dance for her funeral. The heat storm scared away most of the family and friends, but me and a few others stood around the hole in the ground. My mother wasn’t Catholic, but was close friends with Father Welch, so he spoke today in full regalia. My grandmother, a proud Protestant, would have rolled in her grave, if she had one. Father Welch finished his prayer and the crowd dispersed. He came over to me and clapped his fat hand on my shoulder. His grim demeanor looked wrong on a face cut with laugh lines.

“Mary…” he said. At first I thought he was still in prayer. I thought he was trying to lead me down a religious path or fill the hole my mother left with God. I turned to face him with an eyebrow raised and dry eyes. “Your mother was a good woman. Her margaritas were always very strong.” How could I have forgotten my name?

I smiled despite myself and nodded. He laughed then, a deep sound that came from his belly. It was the laugh of my childhood. It was the laugh my mother pulled out of him every time she asked a question he could not answer. He patted my back and motioned to the nosegay I held with his other hand. Stargazers and rosemary: a replica of the one my father gave her for their courthouse wedding. I shrugged and tossed it in after my mother.

The three men leaning on shovels watched me. They didn’t know my mother. They didn’t care. I’m sure they had families to get home to and they wanted me to go before the storm hit, so I let Father Welch lead me off.

He drove me to my house and helped me carry in the covered dishes, pies, and small gifts the mourners had given me. My mother was the safe haven for the weirdos and freaks of our town. Everyone knew me, but I could only place a few faces. The entire wake was filled with stories of, “Oh, your mother took me in when…” or, “Before you were born we used to…” and I found myself wondering who my mother was before she married Dad.

I knew her by her silver Patrón tequila and her library of books ranging from demonology to the psyche of children. I knew her by the smell of pine candles and rotting flowers. I knew her by her uneven bangs she cut herself and the bathrobe she never took off after Dad died. I knew her by the house I moved back into when she got sick. The one I stood in now, putting food in the freezer and moving around my father’s bottles of gin and vodka that had been untouched for twenty-odd years. The house that was a museum dedicated to her life.

“Ah, Poltergeist,” said Father Welch from the kitchen bar. He sat, unwrapping gifts as I put them up. They were more like offerings to my mother’s shrine. They had given me her favorite foods, candies, and alcohol. There were photo albums full of pictures I had never seen and cards regaling stories of the woman I thought I knew best. “Shall we watch it tonight?” I took the DVD and rubbed my thumb over the long blonde hair in the picture. “We could order pizza with extra garlic sauce, like your mother always got, and drink some of this tequila,” he said. “A send off worthy of your mother.” I shook my head.

“No, I think I’d rather just be alone tonight.”

“You’ve been alone for some time now, Mary. Maybe we could call a few of your friends to stay with you? Sarah misses you.”

“Tell Mrs. Welch we will have coffee soon. Anyway, I have Beelzebub to keep me company,” I said, scratching Mom’s cat behind the ears. He stared at the Father, seeming to know his distaste.

“Yes, I see that. Well, ‘Bub,” as he called him, refusing to invoke the name of the devil, “you better watch over her tonight.” Beelzebub yowled as if answering his demand.

“Perhaps he is not as demonic as I once thought.” He stood up and kissed me on my forehead. I stood up after him and he said a small prayer over me, calling upon the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost like he used to when I had nightmares as a kid. We both walked out the front door and I watched as he drove away. The rain was beginning to fall. I locked the door behind me.

The faces of family and friends of my mother watched me as I walked through the house. When I was a child I found the pictures creepy, but now I felt a sort of attachment to them. Some I knew by name, some I knew by association, and some I had never seen in person. I stopped in front of a large group picture on top of the old mantle. Men dressed in overalls with straw hats stood next to one man in a three-piece suit. Next to that was a portrait of the same man with my mother and myself. We looked perfectly groomed, but for my mother’s crooked hair cut. I was ten and hated the poofy white dress and gloves my dad insisted on. I grabbed the picture and walked back into the kitchen.

Mrs. Patty had given me my mother’s favorite chocolate pie and a sloppy red kiss on the cheek at the wake. I took a large spoon out of the dishwasher and scooped out some of the pie. It was still warm from the time it spent in the car, but it tasted fresh and like home. With the pie, picture, a small bottle of tequila, and the movie I went into the den.

Not much had changed in here since my father died. The old leather chair still smelled like pipe tobacco and his bowl of candy was replenished as usual. Sometimes when I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, Mom would be sitting curled up in his chair reading. She hadn’t cried over him in years, but I knew what the sniffle meant. I had never joined her those nights.

Zelda, our maid, kept the house clean and tidy, but the den still held the air of being unused. It felt like an abandoned house or an attic everyone was too scared to go into. I settled down into the chair as the “Star Spangled Banner” began to play. Beelzebub stretched on the side of the chair, reaching up at me and yawning. I settled the throw over my legs and patted my lap. He jumped up as the screen on the movie turned to the famous white noise.

I woke up to the crash of thunder. The TV screen was blue and silent and Beelzebub was no longer with me. The TV cut off and so did the little red clock on Dad’s desk. Lightning flashed through the large bay windows to my left and I saw my mother standing before me. I sat up, heart beating hard against my breast and reached to turn on the lamp. I pulled the little metal string three times before the next flash of lightning. My mother was still there, but as a portrait hanging over the TV in front of me. I took a deep breath and got up, stretched a little, and let the throw fall to the ground. Beelzebub yowled at me as he trotted into the room.

“What? The storm spook you, too?”

He hopped up on Dad’s desk and tucked his tail around his legs. I scratched under his chin and opened the top middle drawer. Everything in here was covered in dust, including the small matchbook advertizing a chain restaurant. I used it to light the old brass candle stick next to Beelzebub. An archaic light filled the room and made everything look older and dustier than it was. I walked over to the portrait of my mother with the candlestick. She was forty years younger here than when she died. Her long blonde hair framed her face back when she used to get her it cut by a professional. Her dark blue eyes twinkled in a way I always imagined writers thought of to describe mischief and magic. Her smile was broad and toothy, but not unpleasant. It was like a whiskey that warmed you from the heart up.

The power cut back on and with it the lamp. The sudden change in lighting made it seem like she turned her head and looked at me. The clock flashed midnight and Beelzebub yowled again. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and saw it was almost two in the morning. I turned off the lamp and took the candle and cat with me to bed. Tomorrow I would meet with the lawyers.