“Ahhh, baby,” I hear. My vision is blurred, but there is no one in the room but me and Mom. “Shhh, Lulu.” Something weightless and warm touches my back that I know is my mother, soothing me like when I was a child.
I try to say, “Come back. Don’t leave me, please!” It comes out garbled and disjointed.
I feel her around me, calming me as my cries turn to painful hiccups. “Cher, baby of mine.”
“Don’t go.”
There is a hand on my shoulder. This time it’s real. “Lou Ann!”
I lift my face and see Lindsey through my swollen, tear-filled eyes. “My momma’s gone.”
23
July 30
I’m alone and lost.
I AM ADRIFT, no longer connected to anything. A vital part of me is gone. It feels like my heart no longer beats in my chest, yet I am still here. Mother is across the parlor from me. I can see her profile, but she is not here. She stayed with me for the first two days after her passing, but I felt her leave the night I requested an autopsy. I don’t know if that is a coincidence, or if she’s mad because I went against her wishes, but I don’t think I could live the rest of my life not knowing why my mom died. I know Lindsey couldn’t. Her guilt was almost as paralyzing as mine until learning Mom suffered a heart attack due to a blood clot that originated from a microbleed in her brain. Even if someone had been next to her and immediately called 911, she likely would have died on the way to the hospital. Lindsey seems comforted by this. I am not. Likely only adds to my guilt.
The past five days have passed in flickers of time. I’m in one place, and then I’m somewhere else, and I hardly recall the in-between.
I am dressed in my black suit and new Louboutin heels like the day I took Mom from Golden Springs. The day my life changed, the day my priorities changed. A pillbox hat sits on top of my head, and my lips are Seductress Red in honor of my mother.
Patricia is embroidered in blue on white silk inside the casket; I hadn’t realized how opulent the interior draping was the day she picked it out. The shirring and tassels alone are pure brothel, just like she wanted. There are several poster-size photos of Mom about the room. Most of them are black-and-whites of her and my grandmother and great-grandmother. She would have loved the portrait I had colorized of her wearing her blue organza prom dress, which I placed at the head of the coffin, but my favorite is the picture of her wearing the big blue hat with the broken ostrich feather taken the day I pulled the trunk from the attic. Lindsey and I picked out some of her Bob Ross paintings to display on the mantel above her casket.
Moonlight Sonata plays on the old Victrola, and I sit on the chesterfield where Mother and I talked and laughed and sometimes argued. I can almost smell a lingering trace of Pirate’s Booty on the cushions. Lindsey sits next to me. Her eyes are as swollen as her ankles. Raphael is unusually quiet and still, seeming to mourn with us.
There are people here whom I’ve never met. Some are from Mom’s childhood, others are relatives so distant I’ve never even heard of them before. More than I imagined have come from around the area to pay their respects to a woman they’d never met.
They’ve brought food and say they’re sorry for my loss. They say they know how I feel. I don’t think that can possibly be true. Not unless they’ve experienced a pain so deep it pierces their soul. Not unless they are completely alone in the world and nothing will ever fill the massive hole where their heart once beat.
Simon is here somewhere, but I cannot look at him. He has reached out to me several times, but I cannot see him without being overwhelmed with guilt and shame. While I was kissing him, feeling my body come alive with his touch, my mother’s body was doing the opposite just down the hall. It’s not his fault, but I blame him just the same.
I look at the pointed toes of my shoes. It’s been five days since I walked into Mom’s bedroom and found her on the floor. Five days of planning her funeral according to her wishes.