“What’s going on?” he said.
I wasn’t able to speak for a moment. There weren’t clear words for what I was feeling. The closest I could come was:
“There’s no such thing.”
My dad’s mouth was still half open. There was a small piece of lettuce between his lower front teeth. He put his hand on my shoulder and then took it off again.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Closure,” I said.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, but it didn’t help. The tears were coming now, like it or not, and I was quickly becoming a slobbering fool.
“We can’t do a living funeral for Mamie,” I said. “And I just wanted it so badly. She deserved it. But it’s not going to happen.”
My face was smashed against my father’s sweater now, against the rough fibers that scratched against my forehead. His arms were around me. They were long and clumsy, but I was happy to have them there.
He didn’t ask me any more questions. He just sat absolutely still and let me cry for the next few minutes. It was something he had always been good at, knowing whennotto say something. When I removed my face from his shoulder there was a damp spot there. I looked up at him and calmed my voice.
“There’s not really any closure,” I said. “Is there?”
“I don’t know, Tess,” he said.
“So, then what’s the point of what we do?” I asked. “If we can’t provide that.”
“Well...” he said. He handed me a napkin for my tears. “Maybe part of it’s just to reaffirm to people.”
“Reaffirm what?”
He looked away and scratched his chin, covered in black and gray stubble. Then he met my eyes again, and for once he didn’t look like a sad clown. He looked serious.
“That we don’t need as much closure as we think we do.”
25
Mamie Lee died a day and a half later. When she fell, she had fractured her skull above the ear and torn an artery. Her brain was beginning to swell even when she spoke to me that last afternoon. By the time they brought her in for surgery the swelling was irreversible. She died in a coma, and later that day my dad was notified that she had left money behind for her funeral and she wanted his business to plan it.
“Tess,” he said when he showed up to my room, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’re sorry.”
“For what exactly?”
“For not taking Mamie seriously,” I said. “And please just tell me you want to do this right.”
He leaned against the doorframe.
“Okay. How is it going to work?”
I told him about Harry Palmer’s.
“Jesus,” he said. “You went to that place by yourself?”
“Harry is a shrewd businessman,” I said.
“I wish you would have told me,” he said.
“I bet you do.”
