Free Where We Are Now by Carolyn Osborn Page B

and two women sang over Miss Kate while yellow and white chrysanthemums ordered from a careless florist fell in clumps from sprays and pall. Nor would they have understood why Uncle Phillip arrived at his beloved mother-in-law’s funeral so drunk that my cousin Fergus had to lead him inside.
    Before the ceremony began we’d all viewed the body. Remembering my mother’s service—all funerals seemed to roll into one—I was on the verge of tears when Aunt Lucy said, “Mother doesn’t look like herself at all.”
    In the midst of the primitive necessity of looking at the body, I had to keep myself from laughing. Who looks like themselves when they’re dead? Uncle George, dutifully wheeled in, was helped to a semi-standing position by Jean and Dave, the retarded child who had grown up to serve him. He peered down at Miss Kate.
    â€œThey put her teeth in, Lucy. Mother hasn’t worn teeth in years.”
    Marshall whispered to me, “Why is Fergus propping Uncle Phillip up?”
    â€œHe drinks before funerals. It’s the way he gets through them, I guess. Fergus told me he was drunk at Mother’s. I was too numb to notice.”
    After the brief ceremony, we left for the cemetery, chrysanthemum petals whirling around the pallbearers. While Fergus took Uncle Phillip home, the rest of us stoodon cold, rain-sodden ground to see Grandmother buried next to Grandpa. The empty looking space on the other side of him, Fergus said, was probably Uncle Howard’s. Wind blew mist through generations of the Moores’ gray stones. When we gathered at Jean’s and George’s to warm ourselves afterward, Uncle George was still angry with Uncle Phillip.
    â€œMiss Kate wasn’t his mother. Why did he have to get drunk?”
    â€œBrother, he just can’t…. He can’t help himself,” Aunt Lucy said quietly.
    â€œOh George!” Jean remonstrated, “Phillip is one of the sweetest men in the world. You know he drinks before everybody’s funeral.”
    â€œIf he’s going to do it, he ought to hold his liquor better.”
    â€œI guess that’s just it, honey. He doesn’t want to hold anything back.”
    Jean, so adept at peace keeping, looked over at me. I raised my drink in her honor.
    â€œI hope he’s not the chief mourner at my funeral.”
    â€œThat’s my part, George.” She smiled at the rest of us and went on talking. George, I felt then, had finally met the right woman.

    Marshall and I were in England when Jean died. She seemed to stumble just before she fell in the middle of her kitchen where she and Aunt Lucy were drinking coffee. This was the only information I could get from Aunt Lucy, still in shock when I tried to talk to her.
    Uncle Phillip got on the phone. “Marianne, a heart attack killed Jean. She never mentioned it, but she had high blood pressure and a lot of other problems.”
    â€œI’m sorry I missed the funeral.” I wasn’t. I was sick of funerals.
    â€œIt was a big one. Half the town was there. Filled up the church. Jean had a lot of friends in Franklin.”
    I didn’t ask him for any more of the details, but he went on talking about her children coming out to the farm and carting all her things away. Jean’s former husbands and children were largely mysteries to me. She married into the family at the same time Mother and I began trying to escape. Uncle Phillip and Aunt Lucy were her friends. I admired her from a distance.
    â€œHow is Uncle George?”
    â€œHe’s taking it hard.”
    â€œI’ll be up there sometime.”
    â€œAll right, honey.”
    Uncle Phillip never said, “You ought to…” or, “Why don’t you…?” He was such a benign person I couldn’t understand how Fergus got to be so rebellious. What could have provoked him? Was it partially his father’s mild nature? Whatever the cause, he seemed to