In Memoriam

One day I walked the distance to the downtown storefronts to purchase some mustard. Like any good Sharp citizen, I walked on the dirt streets knowing what the designated sidewalk was and what the street was, a crude detail known to locals, but really just empty acres of coffee grounds looking dirt. I avoided the fields known as city blocks and finally got to downtown where the streets are paved and full of cars with seats and steering wheels. I saw many familiar faces, who smiled, especially Mrs. Grimley who said, “Hello,” in a friendly way. I did not want to be friendly back. “Hello, Mrs. Grimley,” I replied. Just as I tried to avoid her eyes, a wind blew my hair onto my teeth and there my dry hair stuck. 

“How is your mother doing? You’re back I see. How are you doing anyway?” Mrs. Grimley’s eyes narrowed, “I was meaning to get down to that end of Sharp, but haven’t had the time. How’s your mother, you know? Does she still have those horses? How is your mother doing anyway?”

The horses and the Mole Trap Stables consumed me walking home, were they still there? I remembered when I’d ride with plastic chaps on. They had plastic cutout strips on the side of my pants that flapped in the arid desert winds while I waved at the parade crowd, a cowgirl hat on, two long braids. I always rode in the parades representing the Mole Trap Trails, our family history, written across my chest like a Miss Universe banner.

I came to the end of the sidewalk, waited for the light to change, and felt the warm Texan winds come up my back and whip around me only to meet the cold North Pole winds coming down into Sharp from the north. They blew around and away from me frolicking down the street heading towards the ruddy, succulent bushes to pick up whatever dead leaves remained. I saw their happiness as they blew down the street. The leaves riding high upon the school yard wind.

I came in to ask my mother about the horses and she was still in bed. Usually she would be up and sitting in her chair capable of moving around her bedroom. There she lies still and silent. I came up to her and she softly said she could not move. I placed my arm behind her shoulders and sat her up, moving her knees down from the bed in unison. I let go and so did she, back onto the pillows she sank. It was as if she had no bones, like she was jello. I sat her comfortably and called Maria who called the doctor. She was so calm. It was like we could have been burying her alive and she would remain calm, praying quietly to the Blessed Mother to be with her in her final hour. We placed her prayer card closely as the doctor told her she’d had a stroke, news she took calmly.

A week later, a man came to the door in a discreet looking van. He had an eye that seemed blind; it was out of alignment with his other eye. His eyes did match his black hair, which was the only thing in his favor, as he had not much else about him you could call handsome. Still he handled the moment well and asked me if I’d like to help wrap my mother’s body. I assisted with her feet and legs, watched as they set her hands on top of each other, but when it came to covering her face, for the last time, I had to leave her bedroom. They took her away to prepare her for burial in the Gill Feather Park where my father remains forever. After he left, Maria and I stood quietly in the narrow entryway looking out at the brown street, what else was there to do in this day?

Later we both sat at the kitchen table. The winds called loudly around the back yard, and for a time, I raked the coffee ground dirt to take my mind elsewhere. She went peacefully and willingly and I had seen the happiness in her face as she waited for the undertaker to do something with her, then she could be completely free of this mysterious world.

Maria and I sipped tea and wondered if the undertaker had ever shown us a badge or some form of identification. We giggled thinking maybe Dr. Frankenstein had heard that there was a dead person in Sharp and he came by, before the undertaker, to get her parts.

“That man did have a limp and a hump,” Maria snorted, “it was Igor!”

We both laughed and then clutched our hearts when the doorbell rang and we ran to see if it was the undertaker. An undertaker arriving in a hearse, like the one we would have expected to see. It was Mrs. Grimley coming over to pay her last respects.

Before the funeral, dressed in black, my gray skin more pale than ever, I saw the pictures of myself on the mantel, their sentiments more valuable to me now. I thought about the moments she’d taken to cut the pictures to size, maybe blown the dust off the glass and stared at me, her only child, and pledged her love for me again. Wanting the pictures, I gave them to Maria. I claimed the painted porcelain figurines, valueless all, except that they were love to me and precious like faint scraps of gold are to a hungry miner.

At the funeral, my tears rusted in the strange winds as I stood alone with a small gathering of mourners and Maria. My beleaguered thoughts spoke proudly of my mother’s life and when I spoke of her moments in mirth, I noticed my hands were deeply pale with faint silver veins weaving across the occasional bone. I gave a quarter of the pennies my mother left to Maria who wanted to stay on living in the house. To the city of Sharp, I donated the Mole Trap Trail and the dusty city block. It really wasn’t worth anything to anyone except the people of Sharp I was sure.

My last day in Sharp took on a deep, watery brown color before it rained. It caused the granules dirt to dissolve into a coffee colored ground rushing down the slope towards the Sharp Dam where a meager rainbow glowed above the mist. I spoke with others uninterested in conversing and got into my shredded car heading towards the Can Opener valley to go back home. It drizzled on my way out, but not enough to cloud my wildest visions of thinking that I could damage back the damn landscape that hacked its way out of my car door.