“I know, sweetie. It hurts.”
“Do my parents know?” He asked with businesslike efficiency.
“The coroner’s office called them since your dad is next of kin.”
His parents got to hear the news before him. Equally unfair. Mac pinched himself, hoping this was some nightmare. He missed his stupid, petty college bullshit drama so much right now. He didn’t miss Aunt Rita yet. He still couldn’t believe she was gone. Aunt Rita in the past tense did not compute.
Mac’s stomach clenched with a new level of worry. “Helen, where are they burying her?”
“Pittsburgh,” she answered.
He breathed a sigh of relief. He only had to deal with his parents, and maybe a few other relatives. He didn’t have to go back to West Virginia. Helen gave him the information for the funeral service. Mac was already online booking his bus ticket before she hung up. He gripped his four-leaf clover keychain until his fingers turned white.
“Where was my damn good luck?” He asked it. Then he threw his keys across the room.
Φ
Helen waved to him when he got off the bus, but it wasn’t her usual enthusiastic greeting. Just a wave to let him know where she and her Corvette were. Mac didn’t sleep on the bus. His body was exhausted but his mind was wide awake. He got in the car and shut the door.
Helen pulled him into a hug. His side dug into her center console.
“Oh, Mackie,” she said to him, to herself, to the world. He rubbed her arm. He didn’t know what to say back. This fucking sucks didn’t seem appropriate. “Let’s go home.”
She meant to her house, where Mac was staying. Not his real home. It was understood that Mac didn’t want to sleep alone in the house where Aunt Rita died.
“Are my parents in town yet?”
“I assume so,” Helen said. “I got a call from your mother about the time and location of the funeral. They’re working with the funeral home.”
Mac whipped his head to face her, his jaw rusting in place again. “My mom called you?”
Helen nodded. She glanced at Mac, surprised. “She and your dad are putting together the service and arranging the burial. They’ve been notifying friends and family.”
Not all family, apparently. Mac checked his phone. No missed calls. No texts. No emails.
“Do they have your phone number?”
“Yeah,” though Mac wasn’t completely sure.
“I’m sure they assumed that I would call you,” Helen said, desperately trying to sound positive.
“But what if you hadn’t? What if you didn’t have my number?”
Mac’s vision went blurry with anger. He sure as hell wouldn’t shed a tear over what his parents did.
“I know this is a tough time, but maybe it’s these experiences that help people reconnect. Grieving is a communal activity.”
And I’m not part of their community.Mac’s distance from his parents had been tough over these years, despite all the good times with Aunt Rita and his friends in Pittsburgh and Browerton. He had people, but just not the two people he wanted most. Yet he thought, in the back of his mind, that whatever happened between them could be repaired. That no matter how bad things had gotten, no matter how much time had passed, that they were his parents and he was their son, and that fact would triumph.
Looks like I was fucking wrong.
“It’s going to be okay, Mackie.”
Mac looked out the window, never feeling more alone.
Φ
Mac watched TV in Helen’s living room, which smelled of lavender and cigarette smoke. The TV was merely background noise to him, so the house didn’t feel so quiet. Helen had to run some errands to prepare for the funeral, like getting her dress dry-cleaned and picking up some food for Mac to eat while he stayed with her.
