“And I didn’t know if anyone else was going to water the plants and the bushes,” Tad is saying. “And I didn’t want them to… you know…” He lets the word die hang in the air, unspoken.
“I appreciate it, thank you. I was actually coming by to start packing up.” Your cue to leave, Tad, but Tad just looks at me. He puts a hand on my shoulder again. Squeezes meaningfully without breaking eye contact.
“That fucking sucks,” he says. He walks over to Mother’s fridge and opens it. Reaches down to the bottom shelf where there are a row of beer bottles gleaming. When did Mother start drinking beer? Beer, she’d mutter if it was offered, making a face. I just don’t get it.
He opens a kitchen drawer—he knows which drawer, I notice—and grabs the bottle opener. I watch his biceps come into relief as he cracks open the bottle. Some faint stirring of lust visits me briefly like a ghost. He hands me the beer. Clinks his bottle against mine. “To Noelle,” he says. The sound of Mother’s name in his mouth conjures her up briefly again. Silk-robed and smiling in a light that loved her. I watch him take a long sip. I take one too. It’s surprisingly refreshing. Crisp. I gasp in spite of myself.
“I didn’t come to the party,” Tad says. “No disrespect to your mom or anything.”
What party? I think, then realize he must mean the funeral.
“I’m just not really a death person, you know.”
“Right.”
“Also, I don’t really dig her crowd.” He frowns as if recalling something deeply unpleasant. I think of Mother’s crowd. Mostly wolfish gentlemen of a certain age and their wives. Sylvia, of course. That strange woman in red outside.
“But I paid my respects, in my way,” Tad says. “I want you to know that.”
“Thank you,” I say. I wonder what this looks like, Tad paying his respects. Tad on his knees in a room decorated with conch shells, maybe a framed poster of white stones on tilled sand, lighting some sort of scented candle. Tad at an outdoor tiki bar, raising a beer to the bloody sunset. Taking a somber sip. It tastes bittersweet.
“Did a one-man paddle-out just yesterday,” Tad tells me.
“Really?” A surfer. Of course.
“It was amazing. I could feel her energy out there, you know? All around. Big-time. There was a seagull flying around and around over my head.” He raises his index finger, making it spin. “A dolphin even came up out of the waves and sort of smiled.” Now his hand is a dolphin’s beak rising out of the imaginary waves. “And the waves were just… perfect.” He drops his hand and sips his beer. “Pretty sure that was all your mom saying hey.”
“You think so?”
“Oh yeah. I could feel it. Right here.” He pumps a fist gently against his left pec and I immediately drop my eyes to the shattered pot at my feet.
“That’s nice,” I murmur. When I look back up, I see he’s now seated on my mother’s red velvet sofa. Reclined. At ease. His feet on the glass table. One foot jittering like it’s on speed.
“Sorry, do you mind?” he says. “I’m just a bit wiped out from all the landscaping.” He pats his taut, bare stomach. Anjelica, Mother’s very white cat, immediately leaps into his lap and settles herself on his crotch. “It was a hot one today. I’ll finish this and be on my way, okay?”
“Okay,” I say. I’m just standing there staring at him, at Anjelica purring on his crotch. She looks fiercely content. Her blue eyes, just like Mother’s, half closing with ecstasy.
“I’ll just roll this here and smoke it outside.” I watch him pull a tin of tobacco from his pocket, careful not to disturb Anjelica. Clearly they’ve done this dance before.
“So what’s your plan, anyway?” he asks me.
“My plan?” I watch his tongue lick the white rolling paper. So tenderly.
“For the place. Are you selling? Are you staying, you think? Going back to Canadia?”
“Canada,” I correct.
He smiles. He knows it’s Canada, he just made a little joke, see? Lighten the mood a bit. How old is Tad? I wonder. He looks a little younger than me, but definitely in his thirties too. Very Jesus-y.
“I’m selling,” I tell Tad.
“Why sell? If it were mine, I’d hang on to it.” He grins at me.
“Because my mother spent all her money on bullshit,” I say. I look right at Tad when I say this. “I have to sell the place if I want to crawl out of the black hole she dug for herself.”