I'm Glad About You(106)

That last bit she couldn’t say out loud because Megan had been there, she was the one who had told Rose she should go ahead with this. It wasn’t Megan’s fault, there was no way she could have known that there were other ways to approach this situation and Mom might not be dead now. And no one of course would even whisper that Alison hadn’t been proactive enough, she should have gotten more attention faster from the hospital staff and maybe she could have stopped Mom’s whole system from going into arrest. No one would ever ever suggest the hospital had been incompetent and Alison hadn’t done enough. People would do that in New York. In Cincinnati it would be rude, to accuse a hospital of laziness or ineptitude or anything, those people worked hard, death is a part of life, you accept that and don’t blame anybody. But Alison felt the full weight of it. Her mother was dead, and nobody had really done anything to stop it. It was her fault. She couldn’t get them to save her. And now there they were, on a cool wet day, standing around a hole in the ground, listening to yet another priest read exhausted verses out of the Bible, reassuring them that Rose’s spirit had drifted upward and crossed some sea and now was sitting at the right hand of God.

“It’s not your fault,” Megan informed her.

“I know,” Alison said.

“Nobody thinks it’s your fault.”

“She’s dead, though, she died and now she’s dead and I didn’t stop it.”

“Alison.” Everybody knew she thought it was her fault and it gave them an excuse, for once, to stop teasing her and to just take care of her. Jeff, back from Hong Kong with a Chinese wife, cornered her in the kitchen and explained in no uncertain terms that the hospital did what it could but that Rose’s colon had been compromised far too thoroughly and far too quickly, even before Alison arrived. Andrew hugged her in passing and handed her a beer. Lianne ignored her, which was as close as she could get to asking how she was doing. Paul smiled at her sadly and asked if she wanted to ride to the funeral in his car.

And now here they were, a sea of Moores, everywhere the eye could see. Dad up front, looking completely lost. “I don’t know what he’s going to do without her.” Megan sighed.

“I could never tell what he did with her,” Alison observed. “Even when he was retired he was never there.”

“Well, he’s going to miss her now,” Megan said.

“We all will,” said Alison, the tears starting up again. It had been a terrible, long week. “I can’t stop crying,” she muttered. “I feel like I’ve been crying for a week.”

“It’s okay, Alison, at least you were there,” said Megan. “Maybe you have to cry for all of us.”

Maybe that’s what artists did; maybe they cried for everybody who couldn’t. Certainly the rest of her family had fallen into a sort of dull sobriety. Her father up front, unable to move. Paul endlessly making sure that everyone had a ride. Jeff almost single-mindedly focused on his Chinese wife. And now, in the middle of this, there was Kyle.

“Don’t you think you should talk to him?” Megan said. “It’s nice that he came.”

Was it nice that Kyle came? Alison wasn’t so sure. But she really didn’t need much of a push. She corralled her grief, and drifted through the mourners who were now drifting away. He looked up. He knew she was there.

“Hey, Kyle.”

“Hey,” he said. His greeting was husky, heartfelt and simple, and tragically, you could see he was better looking than ever, once you were within five or six feet of him. His hair had gotten darker, which made those gray eyes even more startling.

“I’m sorry,” he said. She knew he was talking about her mother, but for a moment she allowed the sentiment to float over her. Sorry we never got it together, sorry I let you go so easily, sorry sorry.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a big shock,” she said. “She wasn’t even sick, so nobody, you know. Nobody thought this could happen.”

“I wish there was something I could have done,” he said. This was actually so aggravating it was better. Better to be on antagonistic footing. It made more sense, honestly, to just stick with the facts, and to express some of what she had been feeling for five days, while everyone mourned the fact that there was “nothing to be done.”

“I wish that too. When I called you I was really in the soup. Those stupid hospitals, they act like everybody’s just going to die anyway, so what’s the point. I could have used some help, because she didn’t, actually. She didn’t have to die. She didn’t.” Okay, crying had not been in her plan, but what are you going to do. Her mother was dead.

“It was her time.”

Did he actually say that? “It wasn’t her time,” she informed him. “It, there were a lot of things that were—that’s why I called you, because I couldn’t get anyone at the hospital to help me. I tried, but I, and no one would help me.” Her face was a mess now, she knew it. She had really been careful with her makeup, too; she wanted to look beautiful for Mom, so she had also gone out and bought the chicest black dress she could find in Cincinnati. And now her makeup was running all over and as far as she could tell, there was snot dripping down her face, and of course not a Kleenex in sight. Her utter failure to be a good daughter to Rose hung over her like a curse.