Don't Forget to Say Goodbye

When I was little girl spending many nights alone in my mother’s RV while she did what she did there were endless Cinderella aspirations running through my head. To just get as far away as possible from a trailer park in Dead End, America latched itself to the back of my head when I got older and realized fairy godmothers only existed for other kinds of girls. Prettier, with more tragic stories than mine. At least I had a mother. That was more than any fairytale princess could say. In place of an evil stepmother I was spared by receiving platitudes from our neighbors. You can always have it worse, Magnolia.

Worse when you’re flat broke is things staying the same with no end in sight. Hope has lost all meaning and the bills are going to a mother in her last stages of dementia ranting and raving about summers in Ireland. When my mother passed away I would just take her place. My high school boyfriend was going to move in, probably get me pregnant, and leave before anything could change for him. I would resent my child, as was tradition for my mother and my mother’s mother, and the cycle couldn’t break no matter how much I tried. My mom and grandmother had tried. At the cost of being there to care for the child, they were out doing what they did to keep money coming and going the way it needed.

The breakup with the high school boyfriend came the day of mom’s burial. He had forgotten about it and just wanted to make clean breaks in our hometown before he fled to California. I remember every single detail about that day but not how I felt about him telling me I wasn’t worth sticking around for. I went to the graveyard alone and was surprised to find a priest was there as a charitable service. I asked him to say something nice, but light on the religion. I didn’t want to think about if my mother was burning in hell for trying to provide for me. He promised he would do as I needed but it didn’t matter to me. Even if he did talk about eternal damnation there was nothing that could make the day worse.

Just the two of us stood side by side as people hired from the state lowered her body into the ground. I turned away and looked at the rolling green hills. Her dementia had gotten to the point where all she knew in her last days were those fantasies of Ireland. That she was buried somewhere green, though I didn’t really know how much she’d planned things like this out, brought a sense of comfort. The priest and I sat on the hill beneath the tree somehow had planted for their loved one a long time ago when this wasn’t a cemetery yet. He offered to help me plant flowers for my mom. Since my name was Magnolia, he assumed she must have liked them.

“I’m named after my great-aunt. She thought if she did that, Aunt Rhoda would send us some money.”

“Had she?”

“Not that I know of. She died when I was twelve, so. It’s a little late to wonder now.”

“I’m named after an aunt as well.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that right?”

He half-smiled, apologetically. “No, but I didn’t know how to segue into introducing myself as a comforting friend and not just a preacher.”

“Christ.” I looked up at the marvelous blue sky. “You’re the only one here with her and I couldn’t bother asking.”

“That’s alright. I’m Paul.” He held out his hand for me to take. The wind pushed forward and back, tossing his curls around his boyish face.

“Nice to meet you Paul. I don’t think we could have ever met on better circumstances.” I said in earnest. To feel a comfort on the worst day of my life must have been a talent.

“Would you mind if we had dinner together? Food is always served after burials to family members.”

“I wouldn’t mind at all.”

By no means was it a date, given the circumstances. That first dinner together turned into several breakfasts and lunches after as he came by the trailer park to help me clean out my mother’s things. He was a lot more casual than I’d expected from hanging out with a preacher. Paul knew how to communicate with me without treating me like the porcelain doll that had been shoved off the shelf. I stopped going to work because they wouldn’t stop looking at me with that tilted head of sympathy which meant nothing to me. The end of conversations with strangers who’d known my mom would end with me comforting them, as if their pain were more important than mine. Ordinarily I would have believed it. Paul let me be angry, to go through the grief.

He was patient with me when I cursed God for what He put me through. Never knowing if my mother loved me, being told she was selling her body, getting teased because they saw her in raggedy trash clothes. Confused about her. Not understanding her. Getting used to her, then getting used to her again as her mind left her. How she hated me, rarely remembered anything about loving feelings when I was around, the loss of her doing her best to keep us the same. Why would any God put me with a woman like her and shred her apart when we were just starting to find the connection? Why was it that at no point, I could unlove her?

“I don’t understand it either, Nola.” Paul remarked when we were sitting in his truck. The one last place we had to clean out was an old barn on someone’s property where she kept her valuables. I’d brought boxes expecting it to be loads of more decades old makeup to throw out and earrings to donate.

“She raised me to know that I could always have it worse. Going through a barn full of her garbage is a good way to do it.” I said while tying my hair up to keep it off my neck and out of my face.

“It’s not too late to turn around and just have whatever’s in there donated.” Paul pointed out.

“You were the one who said this would be cathartic.” I reminded him. “I could have just watched Marie Kondo and gotten all of that too, by the way.”

“She’s the female Mr. Rogers!” He defended himself.

I rolled my eyes and got the key to the barn out from its hidden place in the grass. Even if it wasn’t obvious the lock looked as though I could have broken it off with a good squeeze. Whatever she had put in here must have meant a whole lot for the weakest security system since the No Girls Allowed sign. I pushed the door open to let out all of the trapped heat.

“She left you a tractor?” Paul noted the rusted thing taking up space.

“Mr. Poker said he’d put the boxes under a tarp.” I explained, looking around for one. When I saw it I tugged on his shoulder and pointed up. “Of course.”

Paul went to back the truck closer to the barn doors so, if it were trash, we could toss it in from up on the second landing instead of going up and down a shaky ladder. I grabbed a couple of empty folded boxes from the truck bed and scaled it carefully without trying to put all my weight on one spot lest it broke. I tossed the boxes up onto the landing ahead of me and sent sawdust and hay flying. If I had thought about it I should have brought an extra box to sit on instead of the oil stained, disgusting woodrot.

Mom really did have to make this a process.

I pulled off the tarp to see the crates Mr. Poker had mentioned. Thankfully they’d already been opened and I wouldn’t have to scavenge around for a crowbar or whatever it took to open them. I had just opened the first one when Paul called out for me to guide him so he wouldn’t hit the tractor. I held the ladder for him when he appeared very unsure about climbing up with me.

“Are you afraid of heights?”

“More and more by the second.” He crawled onto the landing and got as close to the wall as he could. There was standing room, but Paul didn’t seem keen or comfortable with elevating himself higher.

“You can go back down. It’s hotter up here anyway.”

“I told you I wanted to help you through this, I’ll do it.” He gripped tight to one of the crates and raised up on wobbling legs.

“You’re going to have fun getting back down.” I laughed as I picked up the envelopes on top of the boxes inside the create I’d already opened. My heart thudded as if it knew before me what I was about to find.

She kept every birthday and Mother’s Day card. She had a thousand thank you notes from nursing homes dated back when she was a teenager. The entire crate was letters from friends, old boyfriends, teachers, co-workers, every person she probably had ever met. Just as I was annoyed why anyone didn’t come to the funeral, I got to the bottom. Funeral cards for her parents, many of her friends, a lot of them very young, and sympathy cards. For each good thing there was an equally emotional yet opposite horrific. She had bibles from many different religions and guides on how to study them.

She had five death certificates. Two from her parents. One for my father who I was told ran out on us. One for a baby before I was born, another for a baby not long after when our father was still alive. You have no idea how much worse it can be, Magnolia.

“There’s no cycle.” I said, forgetting Paul was even there. He cautiously placed a hand on my shoulder and showed me a jewelry box. On top of it had a picture of me, her, my father and my maternal grandparents. I popped the box open and nearly dropped it.

Old family pictures with fire damage. Her and my father, her as a baby, she and my great Aunt Rhoda.

“Do you see that?”

I couldn’t see anything through my tears other than my mother’s young face. He was pointing at a picture of a stone with writing on it. “Giant Causeway?”

Paul got out his phone and looked it up. A sigh left him and I didn’t need to see the confirmation.

Giant’s Causeway. 1966. Ireland.