I'd Give Anything(21)

“I don’t want a funeral.”

I sat back in my chair. “You’re not a big preamble person, are you? You just sail right in.”

“I don’t handle you with kid gloves. You should take it as a compliment.”

“I do, I guess. But, wait. You don’t want a funeral? You?”

“Of course not.”

“What? I always pictured something huge with governors and senators and ex-governors and ex-senators and trumpets and pomp and circumstance and long eulogies and maybe some lying in state, whatever that actually means.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Or maybe like what they did with Lincoln. Put your fancy coffin on a train for a couple of weeks, go through a hundred-something cities, stopping every few miles to let the townspeople line up to pay their respects.”

“I don’t want people discussing me, telling stories without me there to edit them for accuracy. I refuse to allow others to get the last word, particularly when they’re just trying to garner attention for themselves.”

“Ah. Controlling the narrative, even after you’re gone.”

“I have always lived life on my own terms.”

“That’s true. Sometimes, other people have also lived their lives on your terms.”

My mother shrugged. “There’s a little thing called free will. But many don’t have the fortitude to exercise it.”

I wondered if she was talking about Trevor. Or about me. But I didn’t ask.

“I’ve written my obituary,” she said. “Henry Hill has a copy. He also has my will. Trevor gets a small sum, enough so that he can’t contest. Everything else goes to you and then to Avery.”

“By ‘then to,’ you mean when I die?”

“Everyone dies, Virginia.”

“I knew that, actually. But thanks for the reminder. But, Mom—”

“I know what you’re going to say, and I can tell you that Trevor has never wanted to be my beneficiary in any capacity. He’s disdained benefiting from my generosity, my expertise, my help since he was twelve years old. He wouldn’t want my money even if I’d chosen to leave it all to him. If he were to contest my will, it would merely be to spite me.”

“But it could be a last gesture of goodwill, a way of letting him know how you really feel about him.”

“Oh, I think he’s well aware of how I feel about him,” said my mother. She gestured to the far corner of her bedroom. I turned to look.

“Your vintage Louis Vuitton suitcase? You want Trevor to have that?”

It was from the 1920s, hard-sided, in nearly perfect condition. A truly exquisite object.

“Good God, no. It’s for Avery. I filled it with books I would like her to have, some valuable, others not. Things I think she would like. There’s also a note from me inside. I was hoping you’d consent to allow her to open the suitcase and read the note in private. I just wanted to give her something personal to remember me by.”

“Mom, that’s lovely. Of course she should do that.”

“Thank you. Please bring it with you when you leave today.”

“Oh, but why don’t I bring her by this weekend and you can give it to her yourself? Wouldn’t that be better?”

Then, my mother said, in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, “I don’t think I’ll be here this weekend.”

A shiver ran through me.

“What? Don’t say that.”

My mother leaned back in her chair, her hands resting lightly on its arms, her expression almost gentle.

“As I said before, I have always done things on my own terms. You know that,” she said.

I leaned over and put one of my hands over one of hers. We were not people who often touched each other, but for the second time in thirty minutes, I held my mother’s hand in mine. Her skin was soft, thin and loose as a silk glove.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I would like you to take this box of books and give it to Avery.”

“You wouldn’t do anything—rash, would you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she scoffed. “I am many things, but I am never rash. I am also never desperate or despairing or whatever else you might be thinking.”

I nodded. “Yes, you’re never any of those. But please just remember—”

I almost said it: I love you. Because what I felt for my mother might not have been the staunch camaraderie I used to feel—mostly still did feel—for my faraway brother, Trevor, or the utter comfort of being with Kirsten or the weary but long-standing affection I’d always felt for Harris. Certainly, it bore no resemblance to my fierce, exhilarating, searing, bone-deep, sky-wide, all-in love for my daughter. But it was love all the same, love distant and fraught and inescapable.

I couldn’t say it to her, though. Saying those words would be like introducing an invasive plant into our fragile little ecosystem of a relationship.

Instead, I said, “Mom, you could live a lot longer than you or anyone else expects. You never know.”

My mother smiled. “When you were a girl, you used to love that phrase. You never know. Remember?”

My breath caught in my chest.

“You noticed that?” I said.

“You’d say it all the time, not with anxiety the way people sometimes do, but with relish.”