Ashes

One by one, members of the jury pool filed into Probate Court. The day we buried Dad, mourners had gathered here after the church service. With Judge Grisy presiding, various attorneys and judges addressed the court to eulogize my father’s career. How proud I was of him that day. How heartbroken he would be to see, nearly thirty years later, his four children in the same courtroom at war with each other.

Lee and I were poised to clobber our two sisters in our lawsuit. My brother and our attorney had prepared a thick binder of evidence itemizing all their wrongdoings. But today we chose Door Number Three, a deal to settle. We were summoned to an adjacent smaller courtroom, where our judge brokered the agreement.

Tressie, Finch, and their many attorneys were already seated in the cramped chambers. In a whisper clearly audible, Tressie seethed “…I just can’t stand to see them, their hideous faces, get them out of my sight as soon as possible…” Lee, in a pleasant sotto voce and smirking, commented to the judge, “my, what lovely demeanor for an elected official” I remained mute, my eyes fixed a spot above the judge’s head. I prayed that angels would descend and stifle the howling between my ears.

Hostilities over final details of the settlement erupted. “I’m going to kill him,” Tressie raged under her breath as her twin brother persisted with his request to claim Mother’s ashes. Wishing to crawl into the spot over the judge’s head, I recoiled further as the howling intensified with the hissing voices of my sisters. I sensed the snakes writhing inside their souls and willed them to the periphery of my consciousness. Soon enough, I soothed myself, they would slither away with their fool’s gold.

When all parties were satisfied with the final draft of the settlement, the judge requested us to verbally accept the terms for court records. Lee and I replied graciously, “Yes, your Honor.” Tressie and Finch barked rudely “Yes,” cutting off the judge’s address to them. He regarded them stoically for a moment, then sighed and directed us back toward the main courtroom to dismiss the jury.

“You first. Go over to Dave and sit next to him and smile,” instructed Lee. I paused at the threshold of the courtroom door, thinking I heard fluttering wings; but there was only my big brother nudging me forward. Lee, meeting Dave’s eyes, grinned wildly and gave two thumbs up. All eyes in the courtroom watched this bit of theatre with unabashed curiosity. As I took my seat beside Lee, he could barely contain himself. “Look who didn’t come back in,” he snickered. Our sisters had ditched the scene.

Enroute to a celebratory lunch, we stopped at the funeral home to claim our mother’s ashes. There had been no funeral, no burial, no memorial service commemorating her life. Lee produced the newly signed document granting him the rights to her cremains, only to be informed of a substantial wait. Mother had been shelved there for over two years. Announcing, “We’ll wait here, then,” he plopped himself down in a chair and started making phone calls in a voice loud enough to disturb the attendant.

I strolled around the funeral home with newfound bravado, humming contentedly in the chapel where Finch and her thugs had once huddled. Striding into the empty great room, I sang out, “where are you now, Leecifer?” I spotted a piano with a sign that read “Do Not Touch The Piano” and promptly sat at the instrument. I began banging out the opening chords of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C#minor, and Lee hurried over to join in. We giggled at all our mistakes, and he shouted to no one in particular that the piano was sorely out of tune. In fifteen short minutes, Lee had our mother’s urn.

“Let’s meet at Bun’s Restaurant for lunch, I’m buying” Lee hollered as he spun out of the funeral home’s gravel parking log. I smiled at the serendipitous suggestion, for it was the site of an early “Good Mother” that connected several dots. For my fifth birthday, she treated me to lunch at Bun’s with her friend Jean and her son Jack. Jack was younger than I, so of course his mother had selected the gift he gave me: a plastic emerald ring. Years later, Jack and I often laughed about that big ugly treasure of a ring (and also how I nearly bludgeoned him with an ice skate at a New Year’s Day party at the lake). Mom knew the cafe from her college days, a place where she had launched her life anew and away from the tragedy of her childhood. It was this college town where Mom found a job working for the attorney, who introduced her to his pal, my future dad.

Fifty years of bullying was at last ending. Dave and I hugged Lee goodbye in the parking lot at Bun’s Restaurant. I started our drive home while Dave called his mom and sister with the details. When we reached Fort Wayne, we stopped and switched drivers. Letting my exhaustion win, I curled into the passenger seat and squeezed Dave’s hand. “I’m going to try and sleep a little, wake me when we get to Chicago?”