Mary had loved pink in an unholy way. She had a pink love seat and couch in her living room with pink flamingos on the lawn of the duplex, and, of course, pink clothes. And not the light fluorescent “Hot Pink” my sister Helen had started wearing lately or the delicate “Baby Soft Pink” Mom was always putting on Suzie. No, Mary wore an almost mauve shade that reminded me of the time I’d thrown up cotton candy at the fair. She’d put me on the carousel even though Mom told her I didn’t like them. Up and down I was fine. Around and around, also fine. But up and down AND around and around was just too much. I’d gotten myself upset and the pink had poured out of me all over the sidewalk. “Quick, let’s jet before they make us clean it up,” Mary had said as I'd gotten myself back up straight. That was “Mary Pink.”
“Pink is better than red, you remember that now, Amanda,” she told me one day when we were helping her clean her side of the duplex. Whenever Children’s Protective Services was planning a visit, we always pitched in to clean the smoke ash off the walls and pick the roach clips from between the pink couch cushions.
“Why’s that Aunt Mary?” I dipped my rag in the bucket of Murphy’s and water.
“Red’s too showy, like it’s asking to be remembered. Too needy. Pink, now pink is where it’s at. Doesn’t clamor for attention; you just give it because it’s the right thing to do. Pink’s always the right thing to do.”
I nodded my head as if any of that made sense and got on with wiping down the walls.
“Don’t forget to do behind the couch now, they can see back there when they stand up.”
***
If Helen hadn’t come after me with her dirty fingernail and lolling tongue, she might not have gotten kicked out. “You’ve been a bad girl, Amanda,” she lurched toward me like Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff. Mom was having none of it. She put one hand on my sister’s shoulder while her other protected me.
“If you aren’t going to act right, you can get on outside.” She didn’t even say anything about the dirty nails, just scooched my sister toward the back porch where most of our cousins had already been banished.
Bobby had been opening and closing the accordion doors that separated the viewing room from the business offices, repeatedly enjoying their satisfying swoosh as they crinkled and flattened, crinkled and flattened. Michael had found the coffee and chugged four Styrofoam cups full before Mr. Melcher lurched from the shadows and escorted him outside. My baby sister Suzie was the worst of all. She’d crawled herself up into the casket and fallen asleep on Aunt Mary’s chest like it was Saturday afternoon and she’d just passed out babysitting us again. She’d snuggled on in there like the smell of Revlon’s Charlie, chrysanthemums, and peace lilies were nothing. Like everything was right in the world.
Suzie and Helen both outside, I clung to our mother.
“What’s up with this one? What is she? Ten? Isn’t she a little old for that?” a distant relative, or maybe he was a family friend, asked. I tightened my grip on the sleeve of my mother’s maroon suit jacket, the one I’d only seen her wear to interviews.
“Oh, she’s just watched too many of those movies. You know, the ones Nite Owl plays on Channel 6 with all the zombies and swamp monsters? Thinks Mary’ll jump on up out of there and come after her.” I hid my head behind her waist as everyone laughed.
The attention didn’t stay on me for long. Soon the group was harping on the tackiness of Uncle Sherman sending a dozen roses instead of a proper funereal arrangement, not even a few sprays of baby’s breath for decency. Just those red, red roses glaring at us all from beside the casket like the sluts they were, which got the group back to talking about Mary again.
“Is it true what they say about the lover?”
“Shh, little pitchers have big ears,” Mom nodded her head toward me before changing the topic to Aunt Esther’s unfortunate weight gain.
The speed kept my mother pretty thin, so she had lots of room to be judgmental of Esther and her firm belief the only cure for menstrual cramps was Coca-Cola Classic and fudge- covered Oreos. Beyond Esther’s rounded behind I could see Mary’s frail hands folded peacefully near her waist, just barely visible above the pink satin of the casket lining.
***
It was never clear which of the neighbors kept calling CPS, but our money was on Mrs. Stimmel in 127, not just because she seemed to always be watching us from behind those bedsheet curtains of hers, but because she was the only one on our side of the complex without kids. No one with kids was going to give CPS an invitation to be on the block if they could help it. They were pretty much like vampires and could only come over if someone asked them to, but once they were there, hot dog, they were harder than chiggers to get rid of. They didn’t suck blood like chiggers and vampires, they sucked fun. They could suck the fun out of a day just by pulling up in those sensible and reliable cars of theirs.
That’s how you knew CPS was around. On Napoleon Avenue, people had reliable cars like my folks’ Mustang or Mary’s Camaro, cars people loved enough to keep them running smoothly. Or they had sensible cars like Mrs. Stimmel’s Pinto that broke down every other week. The only thing I really know about cars is if you see a Volvo or Corolla pull into the lot, you’d better be on your best behavior.
One time I forgot and called for our dog out the back door.
“Angel,” I said, “Angel Dust. Get in here.”
“What’d she say the dog’s name was? Angel Dust? Where’d she learn that from?” The woman with the big wave permanent readjusted her shoulder pads as she waited for my mother’s reply.
“Angel. The dog’s name’s just Angel. I think she said ‘Angel, don’t,’ probably saw him getting into the Russell’s garbage again. Dog’s a handful, I tell you what.”
The woman made a note of it in her file, but there was ground chuck and iceberg in the fridge, and everybody had a bed, so there wasn’t much she could do to us. Things were bad, but not quite bad enough, just how we liked it.
***
We’d wanted to bring the dog with us down to the funeral. Dad said nothing, we took that as close to a yes as we were going to get and tried to get him in the car without Mom noticing.
“No.”
“But he’s already wearing black and everything.”
“No.”
“But what if hellhounds attack or Aunt Mary gets herself reanimated or something?”
It was no use; Angel was locked inside and we squeezed into the back of the Mustang. I know what you’re thinking, and it was a Mustang II, so it was a family car.
“Where’s Angel?” Bobby asked when we arrived at the funeral home.
“He’s otherwise engaged.”
“Dammit, there’ll be hellhounds for sure now.”
My mom put her hand on my back and guided me farther inside where the grown-ups were milling about drinking coffee and sitting in folding chairs pretending to be real chairs. They couldn’t fool me, their green and gold upholstered seats didn’t hide the hinges that let them stack neatly in the corner.
Mr. Melcher gave my mom a look, so we’d know our behavior was on her. Not all of five minutes later, Bobby was destroying the doors and Michael was in the coffee. It didn’t seem right, Melcher giving Mom the hairy eyeball for that. They weren’t her kids. Then again, Aunt Mary didn’t really care much what Mr. Melcher thought at this point, Mom was the next best thing. She was pretty competent as far as mom’s go, I figured she could handle him as well as Peter Cushing handled Christopher Lee in House of Dracula, if not better.
***
We pretty much had this life thing down. We knew to order pizza if Mary was babysitting baked, but not if she was dropping acid. We learned that one the hard way. Zombie Lake had just started when the delivery guy knocked on the door. Mary ran for a knife. She opened the door slowly and stood behind it with the knife close to her chest, blade facing outward. It took some wrangling for us to get the ten bucks from her to pay the guy and Bobby got a small slash on his arm. The pizza had extra cheese on it, so we called that a win-win and went back to watching Nite Owl Theater. Carnival of Souls was on after Zombie Lake, it was a good night.
Some weren’t nearly so good. If Mom and Dad were both working late, we’d hang at Mary’s until they got back. Sometimes only Dad was working the graveyard on top of his regular second shift hours and Mom had part of the night off. Those were the nights they’d leave Helen in charge.
Helen’s idea of babysitting was to send everybody straight to bed before Johnny Carson’d even finished his monologue, which didn’t bother me if Nite Owl was playing something stupid like Wolfman vs. Frankenstein, but I got pretty steamed if it was something good like Death Bed or Two Thousand Maniacs. On those nights I’d sleep with one ear open, ready to pop out of bed and tattle the minute Mom got home.
“Shh, Amanda, chill out. Get back to sleep.” She’d softly scooch me back to my room where Suzie was still sleeping. Sometimes I could smell beer on her breath, but sometimes I couldn’t smell anything. It didn't matter what she smelled like, she was home and that was enough to make me forget being pissed at Helen for a while.
At Mary’s funeral, all she smelled like was the musky comfort of Jean Naté. I buried my nose in her skirt as she moved over to her mother.
“Have you paid your respects yet, Amanda?” Grandmother Ruth leaned toward me, letting the rosary in her hand swing into my shoulder. Sometimes Mary had let Helen and I wear hers as necklaces when we played Prostitute. This was a game my mother never much approved of.
“You’re pretty enough for it,” was all Mary would ever say, followed by “don’t let your grandma catch you wearing those, okay?”
***
Grandmother Ruth wanted me to go up to the casket with her, to let the kneeler creek beneath my weight and my hands rest beside hers on the cheap fiberglass of the casket. The color of it wasn’t nearly as outrageous as my dad had made it out to be.
“Looks like the inside of Barbie’s vagina,” he’d said to Mom before we’d left the house that morning, “and the cost, Sweet Jesus, that’s two months’ rent.”
“It was the cheapest they had in that color.”
“That’s what I’m saying. That color. Man, that color.”
My mom didn’t rise to the bait, just went on eating her generic Cheerios and fidgeting with her watch.
***
Mary had been convinced that generics were a scam, their black and white packaging meant to make us think they were worth less than the name brand. She refused to be party to that level of deception, so wouldn’t buy them, no matter how cheap or how good the sale.
“Wouldn’t it be the other way?” I asked as she put a bright yellow box of Cheerios in the cart.
“What now?”
“If they’re the same thing, isn’t paying more the scam?”
“No,” she walked faster toward the meat counter and I stopped off at the lobster tank. I knew that no. It was the no she gave my mother whenever she said “Oh, just get a divorce already” or “I can get you on at the plant.” Fifty gallons of lobsters scrabbling over each other’s backs was better than trailing after Aunt Mary’s no.
She wouldn’t let me eat at her house for a week after that, said if I didn’t like her food I could fend for myself. That didn’t bother me any, I just hung out on our side of the duplex by myself heating generic corn dogs up in the microwave and liking it just fine. I could out wait anyone.
***
“Amanda, will you go up with me?” My grandmother was tired of waiting for me to volunteer.
“Are you going up now, Mom?”
“Honey, take your head away from my arm, I can’t understand anything you’re saying.”
“Are you going up?”
“Not yet kiddo, there are still a few more people I want to talk to before we leave for the church.”
“Okay, I’ll just wait for you then.” And I returned my head to her arm, my hand to its comfortable and secure place at her waistband.
“Donna, that girl’s too old for that,” Grandmother mumbled as she walked away.
My mother reminded me, again, that Mary wouldn’t be coming back to life.
“I know Mom, I know.” And I clung tighter as we made our way to a small group of her high school friends standing by the guest book and prayer cards.
“We’re so sorry for your loss,” a woman with a Dorothy Hamill haircut and frosted lips took my mother’s hands in hers as we approached. Those big Olympics were before I was even born and Dorothy wasn’t even doing Ice Capades anymore, so I instantly had no respect for this woman and her bogus haircut.
“Thanks Shirley. It’s been tough.”
“Was it just a bad door lock or something?”
My mom took her hands back and put them on my shoulder.
“None of your damn business.”
“Sorry Donna, I just figured…”
“Figured since you smoked in the locker room with her ten years ago you get the inside scoop?”
I almost felt sorry for Ms. Fashion Plate, my mom could be pretty fierce.
“Sorry, Jesus. People have just been asking.”
“Well then, tell them there’s no story. None. Tell them there’s nothing to tell, nothing to know,” then she turned to me, “Hey sweetie, why don’t you go up and pay your respects now. The grown-ups need to talk some more.”
I shook my head and buried myself deeper into her side.
“Baby, just go, okay, just for a second.”
She shook me loose and I took a few steps toward the casket. Mr. Melcher had placed a small floor lamp behind it so her face would show up good in the pictures but not get too washed out. Mom’s family always took pictures of the dead.
***
“Sometimes it’s the best they’ll ever look,” Mary explained to me once when we were looking through her photo album. That didn’t seem true. Who looks their best plastic and stiff?
“They look so peaceful.”
No, they didn’t. They looked dead. No matter what she said, they always just looked dead. The skin like silly putty someone’s rolled in the dirt. The make-up someone else’s definition of perfect. The clothes. Please, the clothes? When did anyone in our family ever walk around pressed and wrinkle-free?
“They look so peaceful.”
Bullshit, they look totally dead. Not coming back, ever, dead.
“It’s the last time we’ll see them.”
That one I almost bought. The picture would stay in the album, in-between the birthdays and Thanksgivings, forever slowly adhering to the magnetic page. And if it ever got taken out, there would still be the shape of it there. A hole to remind us. And when we would see the hole, we couldn’t help but see the picture that used to be there. The person never coming back.
***
I walked up to the casket to kneel beside my grandmother. Mary’s wrist poked from beneath the pink sleeve of her blouse and I could see the scar from the accident before this one. The one that hadn’t killed her. She and my mom had gotten away with just a few scratches and bruises. The Mustang hadn’t been so lucky, but insurance had covered most of it. The semi-truck had taken the top clean off. Did you know Mustangs can slide under eighteen wheelers? They can.
This last one had been different though. Not a midnight joyride on the way home from the bar, but just a trip out to get some hamburgers for everyone. Totally sober, to hear Mom tell it. Uncle Sherman was driving the Camaro, Mary was up front, and Mom was curled up in the back. Mary and Sherman were arguing, she wanted out. There was someone she wanted to see on the other side of the highway. Wanted him to just pull over and let her out there on the road, but he wouldn’t. Mom says there was no time to react, that Mary had opened the car door and jumped before it even registered what was happening.
Mr. Melcher’s staff had done a good job putting her back together. I touched her hand because it was what Grandmother had done. In my mind, I whispered my softest, pinkest prayer for the future, “Dearest Aunt, who most surely art not in Heaven, gossiped be thy name. Thy big day’s come, thy hair is done, praise God, may you be the only one.”
I ran back to my mother, grabbing her hand tightly in mine. She told me again that Mary wasn’t coming back to life and I told her again I knew, I knew.
Jennifer Schomburg Kanke, originally from Columbus, Ohio, lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where she edits confidential documents for the government. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, and Nimrod. She serves as a reader for Emrys.