“I tell her to shut up all the time,” she assured me. “She doesn’t take it seriously.”
I couldn’t believe children told their parents to shut up and survived to tell the tale. It wasn’t—and still isn’t—the way my family worked. Even aged twenty-five, I wouldn’t dare. It’s not like I’m scared of Mum, because I know I can outrun her now, but I just don’t have the attitude in me.
Or I didn’t.
I press send.
Maddie
Yes. Very annoying.
Chapter Twenty-five
I’m eating lunch in my room when my phone rings with a private number.
I’ve been looking forward to this stew and I’m really hungry, so I think about just letting it ring out, but decide last minute to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Madeleine Wright?”
I clench and my heart drops. The woman on the phone has a tone that is slow and sad; it’s to do with Dad.
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Hello, dear. I’m just calling to give you your father’s postmortem results. Your number is on the contact sheet and we can’t reach your brother. Is now a good time?”
She tells me Dad died of twisted intestines, medically known as “distal large bowel obstruction,” which is a complication that can occur when suffering from Parkinson’s. For some reason, she tells me that Dad would have been in pain, only briefly, but still. I feel a knot in my own stomach. She tells me we’ll need to register my father’s death next and I almost ask her if this process will be over soon. I instead end the call in a more socially acceptable manner.
I ring Mum to tell her, but it goes to voicemail, so I try James. No answer. I text them both instead.
I put on a comedy show and when James calls back, I ignore it. I go to bed, leaving the stew on my desk.
Google: When do you start feeling better after losing a loved one?
It can take up to five years
There is no one-size-fits-all time line for grief; it will vary from person to person
Rather than it getting better, it gets easier
So long as the memory of the person lives on, will you ever stop grieving?
Grieving doesn’t always mean crying your eyes out and yelling, “Why, God, why?” So long as you still miss them, you’re still grieving, but that doesn’t mean you’re not getting better. There are no rules to this process.
* * *
Mum eventually calls to say that Auntie Mabel’s finally changed her return date so the funeral planning needs to start moving forward.
“You and I both need to go to the funeral home.”
“I thought you were going to get Uncle Freddie to fill out the forms?”
“I tried, darling, but the funeral home wants the person who is making the deposit to be the one to sign. When can you do? Two days from now? Don’t forget, we need to register the death tomorrow.”
* * *
I feel sick from the moment I wake up and it happens again; my body freaks out and my brain turns soft. I wait it out on my bedroom floor. I can’t tell if this panic attack is longer or shorter than the ones before. As I shower to wash away the sweat, I consider the possibility that this is my life now. Even thirty minutes later, the pressure on my chest lingers.
The call to register the death is scheduled for half past one and then we’ll need to call the funeral home after.
I arrive home ten minutes ahead of time. Mum did offer to come to my place, but she’d probably stay longer than I’d have liked, and I don’t want to deal with introducing her to Jo and Cam.
I don’t go into the living room and head straight upstairs to Mum’s room instead.
“Hello, darling.” She gives me a long hug and rubs my back, which she hasn’t done in years. I find it soothing.
The Register Office calls and I already want to be back at my flat. I don’t understand this aversion to being at the house; maybe I just hate having to be in the same place where my dad died, but Mum and James don’t seem to have that problem. I’m tapping my foot on the floor when I notice the pressure again in my chest. It feels like smoke slowly filling a stoppered bottle.
The woman on the phone gets her fatuous pleasantries out of the way and then the form-filling, on her end, begins. She asks for my dad’s name, gets it wrong when we tell her, then asks us to spell it out. When Mum spells over the phone, she makes things twice as long by using the NATO alphabet. I try to calm the sudden storm brewing in my head by silently coming up with my own. G for “ginger.” E for “elephant.” O for “opioid.” R for “reality.” G for … “Gandalf.” E for “Earth.” Then W for “water” …
“Did he have any middle names?” she asks.
“No,” Mum says.
“Was he known by any other name?”
The simple answer to this is also “No,” it’s also a very stupid question because what does it matter, but of course Mum wants to ruminate on this.
“Well … no, I don’t think. I mean, his friends would call him Fiifi. No, there are no Es. It is pronounced ‘Fee-Fe’ but spelt with Is. Yes, Fiifi, that’s his name day, but only his close friends and myself called him that, so does that count?”
Why tell her all of this? Why risk confusing the slowest secretary in the world?
“Okay, that’s fine,” she says. “Bear with me.”
The longer she’s gone, the hotter my chest burns and my patience is reaching its limit. I’m picturing the sands of time when she finally returns.
“Right, so that’s George Wright,” she says. “Where did he die?”
“At home.”
“What’s the address?”
“Thirty-seven Cornisham Grove.”
“One moment.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “Is that Cornisham Avenue?”
“No, Grove. Grove.”
“Dear God,” I say under my breath.
“Bear with me,” the lady repeats. Two minutes and a massage of my temples later, she’s back to ask, “He died of a large distal bowel obstruction, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t you have the coroner’s report?”
“Mum!” I snap. “Let her finish!”
Mum pauses and stares at me, stunned.
“Just one minute,” the lady says.
“What?” But she’s already gone.
“Okay, sorry about that. What was George’s occupation?”
“He did many jobs,” Mum says. She eyes me, and I lock my jaw. “Security guard,” she adds quickly. “Just put that.”
“At the time of death?”
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“No, he was retired due to medical reasons.”
“Okay, one minute, please.”
“Another one?”
Tick.
“I’m sorry?” she says.
“You need another minute?” I clarify. Tick. “We’ve been on this call for twenty minutes and you’ve hardly taken any information. What the fuck is this?” Tick. “You register the death of loved ones—of all things to be inefficient in, this is not the fucking one!”
Boom!
“Maddie!”