‘Where to?’
‘Fresh Pond Crematory.’
‘Where?’
‘Brooklyn.’
He starts driving. ‘Where in Brooklyn you want?’
Dad consults his map and then Mum says, ‘Mount Olivet Crescent.’
‘It’s Queens,’ says the driver. ‘Not Brooklyn.’
We’re silent.
Three wet ravens sitting in a cab.
The streets are almost as full as they usually are but people are walking close to the buildings for cover, and the streetlights and headlights are bleeding into the wet cityscape like a montage from a beautiful science fiction movie.
‘The flowers will be there when we arrive,’ says Mum.
‘Lilies and roses,’ says Dad.
Mum shakes her head and squeezes my hand. ‘It doesn’t feel real. It feels like she might call me right now.’
Dad and I stay quiet. We cross the Queensboro bridge, and the East River looks like it’s about to burst its banks.
‘Storm surge,’ says the driver. ‘Don’t worry, this is an Irene, it ain’t no Sandy.’
We keep on driving through old industrial areas and then through quiet streets. We do not speak to each other. They need the silence and I need it too. Hardening ourselves. Steeling for what will surely come.
New text from DeLuca. Beneficiaries of the life insurance policy are Paul and Elizabeth Raven. 125,000 dollars.
I don’t reply. I just glance at Dad.
A cardboard box gets blown down the street and a police car drives past us with its lights flashing and its sirens wailing.
We reach the crematorium.
‘This is it,’ says the driver. ‘Fifty-one dollars.’
Mum pays the driver and we all step out of the cab and run to the entrance of the crematorium. It looks like a cross between a chapel and a government building.
The manager ushers us inside.
The floor is made of stone and the air inside is chill and it is hushed.
There are small alcoves and nooks in the walls. Urns occupy the spaces. I can hear music in the distance, from another room.
Text from DeLuca. The insurance policy was taken out last week.
I turn off my phone. My sister deserves my full attention.
‘A service is just ending,’ says the manager, a man with thin grey hair. ‘You’ll be able to go through in about ten minutes.’
Dad shuffles on the spot.
Mum holds my hand tight.
Everything about this feels wrong.
We walk through and there’s a long cardboard box, raised on a wheeled platform. On top of the box are two flowers. A red rose and a white lily.
Mum swallows a gentle sob.
We approach the box.
We cannot see her, but we know she is there. At peace.
Beyond the box is a brass door. Mum and Dad opted to see the box enter the oven itself. To say their last farewells.
‘You can say goodbye now,’ says the manager.
Mum approaches the box and then falls to the ground, her hand up in the air, her palm flat against the cardboard. Her weeping is silent but I can see, from her back, that she is sobbing.
The final words from mother to child.
Dad kneels next to Mum and bows his head and says something to my sister that I cannot hear. Mum rests her head on his shoulder.
A chill runs down my neck.
They look back, both with tears in their eyes, and they beckon me to the cardboard box. They step away and hug each other and Mum sniffs and she cries.
I approach the box. A rose and a lily.
A flame flickers in the background, beyond the doors, some kind of pilot light.
I place my palm on the box.
‘Half of me,’ I whisper. ‘Half. I will never be the same without you. I love you.’
The manager coughs and I step back to Mum and Dad. We hold each other’s hands. Dad’s is cool and loose. Mum’s is hot and tight. Her wedding ring pushes into my knuckle. The doors open and the box moves. Music in the background I didn’t notice before. The box is pushed in and the doors lock shut.
And then the fire.
Mum wails.
I feel so desperately sorry for her. And sorry for my twin sister, for living here, for making this tragic life decision, for relocating to New York. And I feel sorry for holding the pillow over her face until she stopped struggling.
Chapter 23
It takes an hour and ten minutes for the cremation to complete and for the ashes to cool.
The wind is whistling under the door, creating an eerie howl around the crematorium. Mum and Dad have stopped crying.
A man steps through a door carrying a plastic box with a rose and a lily on top. He hands it to my parents and then walks away.