LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER 1

      WE ARRIVED IN OUR BORROWED CAR at the gates of the New Brimfield Memorial Cemetery, a series of hulking Gothic spires. The cemetery faced the vacant high school. It was a Friday in late spring and students were out early that day for a reason unknown to me. I stared at the school from our car and attempted to imagine what kind of student my father had been. Probably the opposite of what life was like for me, a fifteen-year-old sophomore with no idea what my future held. He was likely the “king of the school” in his day, with his sharp wit and natural charisma. Everybody adored him. He was a society man, although not high society. He was the type of man with a reserved barstool, a regular order of Dewar’s on the rocks set on a fresh cocktail napkin when he stepped through the door, and old drinking pals waiting in line for a tirade of dirty jokes.

      Until recently, I hadn’t realized there were multiple versions of Thomas Daly. There was the public version, of course, the young, strong, entertaining man my mother fell in love with so many years ago, the worldly man, the intelligent leader who always had a comeback and knew the right thing to say in any situation. But there were other sides to him, ones the outside world never saw or wasn’t even aware of, and ones I’d never given much thought to until today. Frustrated, miserable, introspective, a raft lost at sea, weighed down by burdens I couldn’t possibly fathom. The last time I saw him alive he had transformed into a weak and brittle old man, dissolving before my eyes. I didn’t know he was sick at that point, but I should’ve known. I only suspected that after years of not taking care of himself nature had taken its due, not that he was dying. He didn’t tell a soul, but I should’ve known just by the look of him.

      Beside the seriously brooding cemetery gate stood a short, chubby man. He wore a faded blue polo shirt that barely tucked into his belt due to a bulbous stomach. He was balding except for patches of gray hair that sprouted from the sides of his head and stood straight out, as if he’d suddenly awakened from bed and rushed out of the house without looking in a mirror. He waved at my sister Catherine and me. She rolled the car window down.

      “We made it … finally,” she said.

      “Hey there,” Uncle Neil responded, resting his hand on the car roof. He was alone. “Nice to see you two. I told you not to worry about time. The important thing is you’re here.”

      “Where do we park?”

      “Go ahead and use the school lot,” he told Catherine. “Nobody will bother you there.”

      Catherine and I had driven miles from where I currently lived, a small town in upstate New York called Wellbourne, to Dad’s hometown of New Brimfield. Our trip had been rife with complications. We were two hours late, having wandered curvy, poorly marked roads, unable to see past a mist left over from an early-morning thunderstorm. Having lived upstate for most of my life, except for the two-year period when Mom dragged us to Florida, I was familiar with how most back-country roads weren’t marked for a driver’s ease and how most directions were given by word-of-mouth. We weren’t supposed to stress about being late but I could tell how much it bothered Catherine.

      A gray package, about the size of a jack-in-the-box, sat in the backseat. Dad’s remains. He had died two weeks earlier when the snow melted and was cremated in Albany, per Catherine’s directive. The funeral director in Albany had handed Catherine his remains on the day she flew up from Florida, simple ashes in an overly priced box. I stood beside her as she received our father. I stared at the thick gold rings on the funeral director’s swollen fingers. Dad’s official cause of death was questionable to say the least, but one thing was certain. On his deathbed the doctor said that despite a half-century of smoking unfiltered cigarettes, Dad’s lungs were the cleanest and strongest he’d ever seen. Dad never would’ve shared that either.

      Catherine guided our orange hatchback, which we had borrowed from one of her old friends, into a vacant parking spot facing the brick high school. Between the parking lot and the cemetery gate stood a smaller building that matched the school and likely held maintenance equipment. Catherine reached into the backseat and unbuckled the box of Dad’s remains. Worried that one wrong turn would send the box crashing to the floor, spewing ash all over the car’s interior, we had strapped it in when the country roads grew especially bumpy. She pulled it close to her chest. The two of them had always been so close, but I guess the same thing could be said about Mom and me. Catherine thought the world of Dad, no matter what happened to him. If he had been a mass murderer, she would’ve defended him to her last breath.

      Uncle Neil eyed the box as we approached. “Is that … him?”

      “Yes,” said Catherine.

      He shivered and slipped his hands into his pockets.

      Catherine was cordial with Uncle Neil, but kept her defenses up. She thanked him for working with us on such short notice to finalize our father’s arrangements. There had been no real time to prepare. If anyone should have known it would’ve been her, but she gave no advance warning. I assumed she didn’t know, but I was always the last to hear of anything involving our family. Dad’s death didn’t feel real to me; rather, I was watching a movie about somebody else’s life. Uncle Neil didn’t seem shocked about my father’s death at all. He sounded more like an old classmate who hadn’t run into my father since they graduated high school.

      “Not a problem, he was my brother after all, even if I hadn’t spoken to the son of a bitch in years,” he said, chuckling. “Ian, I don’t know if you remember this or not, but I spoke to you once over the phone. You must’ve been a little boy. Your father put you on the line. You probably don’t remember.”

      I tried my hardest to remember, but I couldn’t. Whatever part of my brain was responsible for collecting and storing memories was defective. It seemed as if—with the exception of a few worthless recollections—major chunks of my memory were missing, particularly those before the age of ten. The ones that remained were drawn from tales Mom had recounted over and over again, and featured in the collection of photographs she hung proudly on our walls, sometimes even of strangers, to fill empty space. I desperately dredged the recesses of my mind, which seemed filled with dark mud, but came up with nothing. The truth was, I couldn’t remember what Uncle Neil was talking about, but I had to answer him, so I lied. I didn’t want him to feel insignificant, like his was a frivolous memory I hadn’t bothered to file away.

      “You know what? I remember now, yes, I do,” I said, grinning. “I was standing in our kitchen, I think, the one with black-and-white tiles. Dad handed me the telephone and he was ecstatic that you had called.”

      Catherine peered at me. She knew I was lying. I wasn’t as good as everyone else in my family and she knew my tells.

      “Hmm, sure doesn’t sound like him,” said Neil, scratching his chin. “Usually, he was pissed whenever I called him.”

      “Oh,” I said. “Well, that day he was in a great mood.”

      “I see. Well, either way, it’s still nice to finally meet you in person after all these years.”

      Lying was wrong, I understood that, as any reasonable person would, but I also felt good about having lied to Uncle Neil. He didn’t know the difference. Why make him feel bad by saying my father never mentioned a word about his brother? We had just met and I preferred keeping the peace. Uncle Neil smiled. I think it made him happy that I lied, whether he knew it or not.

      “I took the liberty of picking a nice spot for Thomas,” he said, pointing to a squat hill in the distance.

      “Are we going there now?” asked Catherine, checking her wristwatch.

      “Yes, yes. We should get things started.”

      Dad had been raised a Catholic, which didn’t exactly support the burning of one’s body for burial, yet his final arrangements were ultimately Catherine’s decision. Dad had no legal will, at least not that any of us could find. He never discussed being buried or cremated, but Catherine said she couldn’t stand pumping his body full of embalming chemicals for a morbid viewing and archaic

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