Page 9 of The Cajun Doctor

“Just wait ’til the singing starts,” she said. “Father Sylvester is gonna lead us in hymns.”

“Yippee!” Aaron said under his breath.

“At least it’s not Barry Manilow songs,” Daniel murmured back, with a hand over his mouth.

“Gag me at the Copa,” Aaron quipped.

Despite their whispered remarks, neither of them would ever deliberately hurt Aunt Mel, who had been with them since they were toddlers. In fact, she had given Aaron his first flying lesson when he was twelve years old and later welcomed him as half owner of her air shipping company.

“I know it’s cornball, having a theme funeral, but your mother and I never made it to Hawaii. Fate intervened.” Tears welled in her eyes and dripped down her flat, round face onto her lei. “Do you think it’s crazy? Or disrespectful?” She spread her arms out to indicate the whole shebang.

“No, it’s wonderful.” My nose is probably growing.

“This is just what I want when I die,” Aaron added. “A theme funeral.”

Daniel gave his brother a sideways glare of warning.

“Except mine would be held in a strip club, or a Playmate Mansion kinda place. Clothing optional. And there would be a wet T-shirt competition, and lap dancing, and Victoria’s Secret models, and—”

“Oh, you!” Aunt Mel punched Aaron playfully on the arm. At least the tears were gone, which had probably been his intention.

“Mellie!” State Representative Rogers stepped up and gave her a sympathetic hug. “Come with me. There’s someone I want you to meet.” Before they walked off, Aunt Mel told the two of them, “We need to talk later. I have something important to discuss with you.”

She probably referred to their mother’s will, which surely left everything to her, as it should. “There’s no need, Aunt Mel. We can talk later this week.”

Aunt Mel shook her head. “No. I promised your mother.”

On that puzzling note, she strolled off with the politician, whose wife had been a longtime MS patient of their mother’s.

They were silent then as they sipped at their drinks, then grimaced at the sickening sweetness.

“I keep thinking Mom will step out of the house and push her famous gumbo on us,” Daniel remarked. Or talk to me about medicine. She understood what it was like to lose a patient. Lots of patients.

Aaron looked at him with concern.

Oh, great! I probably have tears in my eyes, too.

“If that hula dancer over there in the grass skirt decides to give me a lap dance, I won’t complain.” Aaron was clearly trying to cheer him up, like he had Aunt Mel.

“Yeah, right. That’s Kirima Kulowiyi, a nurse from Mom’s practice,” he told Aaron. “She’s married to a roughneck who does hard manual labor out on the oil rigs. That’s him over there by the barbecue . . . the guy who looks like he could bench press a polar bear.”

“Okaaaay,” Aaron said with a laugh. Then, blinking rapidly to hide his own tears, he put down his fruity drink and took a beer out of a cooler and handed a second one to him.

Raising the bottle, as if in a toast, Daniel took a long draw before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I quit my job today,” he announced out of the blue.

“Job? Being a doctor isn’t a job. Do you mean that you won’t be working at the pediatric medical center anymore?”

“No, I mean that I’m quitting medicine.”

“No way, Dan! You love being a doctor.”

“Correction. I used to love being a doctor.” Daniel didn’t elaborate. It went without saying that working day in and day out with terminally ill kids ate away at a man’s spirit. Losing his mother was the last straw. Did I mention that Deke Watson died on Tuesday . . . just two days after Mom? Ten years old, and he weighed fifty pounds. Amy Lewis lost two of her baby teeth on Wednesday . . . and all her hair. Lionel Harris got his tenth spinal tap yesterday. Shiiiit!

Just then, Father Sylvester and Aunt Mel could be seen wheeling a portable organ into the backyard. Aaron and Daniel looked at each other, put their empty beer bottles on a picnic table, and headed toward the front yard and their cars parked in the driveway. They’d already said their goodbyes to their mother.

“Whoever said that funerals are for the living, not the dead, knew what they were talking about,” Aaron remarked, as if reading his mind.

“Yep. Singing ‘Amazing Grace’ isn’t going to help Mom now.”