Little Black Book
It seemed as though whenever there was a funeral it was rainy outside, weather to match everyone's mood. Not today though. The sun beat down on her black outfit making the sun seem ten times hotter than it already was. Lacey stood next to my mother and my mom’s sister who was moaning pitifully over their lost sister Adele. The fabulous Dell. Her favorite auntie. Lacey still had not shed a tear. She was holding herself strong so that her mother she always found so meek would not fall apart. Her no-good father was in the back looking like he had been on another bender last night. Nothing new for her. Lacey's father had been a career drunk her whole life. Sweet as pie when he had no liquor in him but once he got a little in him he was meaner than a skunk. Several times she remembered the bar calling to the house and if her mother was gone, which was often, the dutiful only child had to get up and walk the six blocks to the local tavern to pick her drunk father up and pay the tab with her modest McDonald’s job. She would have to leave his car keys with Telly the bar owner who looked at her with pity as she picked her cussing father up and put him under her arms before walking him out of the bar and put him to bed after cleaning up his throw up. It was no wonder that when her mother would finally make it home from the second shift job that she would take over for Lacey without a word of protest. But in the small time frame that he was still awake, he would berate her with crazy words. Her father John would tell her how she ruined her mother and his relationship. She was not supposed to be born and her mother hated her for coming into their lives. She knew they were just the words of a lost drunken man but it cut her to the core no less. Lacey could never understand why her mother took the abuse. She never fussed back, she never complained, she just took it and took it. Her mother had been a beautiful woman. All the Sweeney’s were. They all had fair skin, long sweeping curly hair, and were a mix of Italian and black. When her mother had married an Irish man my grandmother and grandfather about turned their back on her for good. But it was her auntie Adele who made them see the light. She had always been the black sheep in her family. Loud and beautiful and ready to conquer the world by storm. Before she passed she had wanted Lacey to come out and see her but she never made it, to catch up in her own bull to be there for her aunt. She remembered her dad always saying “Why can’t she get a respectable job, how am I going to be able to tell anyone what my daughter does for a living. Aunt Adele was a dancer at a fancy strip club and every man wanted to be with her. Wanted to see her shake what her momma gave her. As unappealing as it was to everyone else Adele couldn’t have cared less who didn’t like it. She could have been anything in the world but she wanted to dance and bring a little bit of joy to the lonely men of Downers Grove. The procession line began to move and Lacey stared at her aunt laying there in the casket pissed that they had not followed her directions to be cremated. She knew that Adele would be rolling in her grave if she knew people were gawking over her in a long turtle neck dress at that to cover the ugly scarring around her neck from the hands of whoever had strangled her to death. The preacher was saying something and her mother was leaning on her so hard that Lacey had to switch positions and actually try and lean her in the other direction. The first dirt clumps that hit the casket set the lump further up in her throat. The rest of the funeral flew by her without her knowing what was really going on. She dutifully thanked the people who had came and walked with the pallbearers. The only words that hit Lacey’s ears were her mother whispering to God that she should have forgiven her sister while she was still alive. But forgive her for what? Lacey had no idea.
