Michelle spent most of the following day in bed, nestled under her charcoal grey down comforter. As the sun made its descent towards the horizon, she fixed her gaze out the window. She always enjoyed looking out at sunset, even though the window faced east. In the distance, between her window and Yankee Stadium, stood a 12-story, brown brick apartment building. The building’s windows reflected the glow of the retiring sun like a spectacular piece of art, beauty so far beyond words, it was almost painful to behold.
The day after that, she stuck with her plan and returned to Florida. The family gathered at the Kingdom Hall for the service. Approximately 200 people showed up, mostly strangers to her. Knowing she’d be little support to her mother once she went back to New York, she was relieved to see so many friends show up for her mother. People spoke to each other in huddles, but the atmosphere remained silent and colorless. Internally, Michelle screamed, and imagined herself running for the exit with her father’s ashes. The white walls with bas relief and beige, industrial carpeting all seemed sun-bleached to her.
Allen and a middle-aged man in a brown suit approached her. Allen wore a dark grey suit with a tie in fall colors. “Michelle, do you remember Lon Soeur?”
Lon’s green eyes had deep crinkles around the corners, making them look merry, despite his somber expression. His dirty blond hair receding and thinning, he stood eye to eye with Allen.
Michelle shook Lon’s extended hand. “Yes, of course. Lon, it’s good to see you after all these years. Thank you for being here.”
“Of course. Yes, it’s good to see you, too, although I wish it were under happier circumstances.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you,” said Michelle, nodding.
“When Allen and your mom sat with me to craft the words of the talk I’m about to give, and they told me about your father, I could tell Allen had a lot of his same strong qualities. I could see, of course, his entrepreneurial spirit and his business sense.”
Lon kept talking, but Michelle’s mind circled around what he’d just said. At that moment, she realized that when Allen had said someone told him he was a lot like his father, the words had come from Lon, someone who didn’t know their father at all, or he would have known her father had financially propped up Allen’s business. Hopelessly anti-Capitalistic and cynical of wealthy people, her brother couldn’t take direction from bosses or from clients. His intricately detailed plans left him spinning in endless circles, barely eking out a living. Business sense?
“So,” Michelle said, “you’re giving the eulogy, based on sitting down with my mom and Allen? Leon and I weren’t included in that.” Her look of astonishment at Lon turned into a glare at her brother. She couldn’t feel her body.
“We had to move quickly,” said Allen, in a condescending tone.
“You mean behind our backs,” Michelle said, almost shouting. “Not cool. It’s bad enough that nobody who knew him even gets to say anything, but the eulogy has no input from Leon or me, like we don’t exist.” Her limbs tensed up involuntarily. She didn’t know what to do with her hands.
Lon and Allen both looked uncomfortable, mumbled, and turned to walk away.
Her stomach turned somersaults and she wanted a baseball bat to crush heads. The only way to find out what details of her father’s person had been included or overlooked would be to sit through the talk from Lon, a person who hadn’t spent any time with the man.
End of excerpt
Mackenzie
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