Once Removed

Once Removed

Ken La Salle

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016 Ken La Salle

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Once Removed

By Ken La Salle

To Kelly and Ash

Chapter 1

Isabelle Montez sat in the front row at her husband’s memorial service and listened to her daughter speak with the cold objectivity of a woman in shock. Her hands flat in her lap, Isabelle couldn’t bring herself to watch what she knew would be her daughter’s tear-streaked face so she looked down at those hands, as if to assure herself that they were still there. She observed the wedding ring sitting pointlessly on her finger. She looked past it at the dark blue dress she wore. Her daughter, Iris, had told her it was something called Tolopea but Isabelle wasn’t at all sure it was appropriate for a funeral. Still, it had been Terry’s favorite dress. When Terry had been alive, he’d loved that dress.

But it was more than that we loved about daddy, Iris continued, catching Isabelle’s ear. Isabelle couldn’t recall what she’d said before. She thought of her child up there, standing in an orchid dress and black jacket. Certainly, this wasn’t the reason why she had purchased the dress. Death never considers your wardrobe. But, there she was. There was just something about the way he walked into a room and people knew. They knew things were going to be alright. It was just the way he made them feel. And I was fortunate, because I had that all my life.

Isabelle tried to think about the way her husband walked into a room and made everyone feel better. She tried to remember it. She would have liked to remember that, it would have made her feel better, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t take her mind off the trembling in her gut, the deep kind of tremor that made her afraid she was going to throw up at any minute. The world had turned to rubber and she was on stilts. Was it any wonder she was numb?

Isabelle knew that thinking along those lines was not going to help her feel any better. She focused, instead, on how far she had to go before this was over. The program, upside down in her lap, was fixed in her head. Iris would finish speaking. Then Louis, Terry’s best friend, would say a few words. Isabelle would not get up and speak; she’d been very clear about that with the Grief Counselor. She couldn’t remember if that was exactly the title he’d given himself. Bereavement Caregiver or something like that – the undertaker.

She remembered his name was Bill. She could remember that. She remembered he was tall and blonde, almost Aryan. The cold efficiency with which he’d tackled Terry’s service went far to cement that impression in Isabelle’s brain. Beyond that, Isabelle wasn’t sure how much else she could remember. Her mind was plastered with a sick tapestry depicting the events of the past few days and she found she couldn’t stop running it over and over in her head. Top to bottom. Top to bottom. The events ran like some early kinescope: joltingly comical and impossible to understand.

She remembered she’d been asleep. Morning light pushed through her curtains and warmed her but she had refused to get up. She’d been sleeping in because it had been a Saturday. It was the only day she could sleep in.

The knocking had broken through her sleep with the efficiency of hard pavement and Isabelle remembered being slightly irritated.

She had opened her front door and there stood an officer. She remembered how understanding he had been as he told her why he was there – how goddamned understanding – as he had stripped away the only thing that made her normal and turned her into this broken zombie who sat in the hall of this funeral home in downtown Fullerton trying to appear as though everything inside her wasn’t broken. Isabelle knew she was doing a horrible job at that. She tried to listen to her daughter’s words but, strangely, could only focus on the memory of the officer asking, Are you okay? Are you okay – with the emphasis on the you, as if he’d been included, too. As if he’d been hurt somehow.

And he’ll always be with me. Thank you. With Iris’ final words, a gentle applause took Isabelle out of her grief for just a moment, like a distraction.

Isabelle stood and put her arms out, letting Iris step into her embrace. She knew she should say something but just then couldn’t think of what to say. It’s okay, mom, Iris was telling her. She felt her daughter take her arm like a doll and put her back in her seat. Then, Iris sat back down next to her. Isabelle looked over and wondered who this person was beside her. Only a few years before, she and Terry had sat in a gymnasium watching this girl graduate from high school. Now, Isabelle realized her daughter was looking after her and was for a moment ashamed.

You did really well, she whispered.

Thanks, Iris whispered back.

Thank you, Iris. Your father would have been very proud. Isabelle turned her attention to the speaker. Smiling down at her in a brown suit that must have been purchased a decade before, the Dean of Religious Studies at Cal State Fullerton took the podium. Isabelle didn’t even try to remember his name. She remembered Terry commenting that being the Dean of Religious Studies at a state school was only useful because they needed someone to pray for funding. Terry had been a professor as well – not just a professor but Associate Dean of the Philosophy Department – and Isabelle could usually keep his coworker’s names in her mind.

Not today.

Brown suit had taken the usual duties of a clergy member in this service. Isabelle had not only agreed to this inclusion; she’d been relieved. Terry had long been ambiguous about his religious leanings even with his wife. One week, he was Buddhist. One week, he was Atheist. Sometimes, he was just a Contrarian because it struck him as fun. Such was marriage to Terence Montez.

Brown suit must have said something else but Isabelle’s scattered mind missed it. The next thing she knew, brown suit was stepping away from the podium and Louis Wheeler’s long legs were striding up to stand before the assembled. Like a rock star, he took the stage. He was everything Terry hadn’t been: tall, certain, charismatic. Terry had been short and a bit too round and there were plenty of times Isabelle knew he had kind of despised his best friend for avoiding the pitfalls of age. Louis was just as old as Terry had been and looked a decade younger. He took the podium with a smile nobody else could have matched and his first words, I come to celebrate my dear friend, Terence, washed over the burdened room like a cool breeze.

Isabelle found herself sitting a bit taller in her chair. Her long neck came up proudly. She held her daughter’s hand and listened to Louis speak.

The world was clearer for Terence being in it. It made more sense. It held more hope. There was just something about him, Louis said, pausing to smile again, You just knew it was going to be okay. That was the gift he gave us.

Isabelle watched Louis’ smile and found herself smiling a bit as well. It was a little inside joke she was smiling at and she knew Terry would have smiled as well. Terry had been a little short and a little round; he’d even lost much of his hair once he hit his forties. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who made you feel safe or at ease. But Louis was right about Terry. He made people’s lives easier, somehow. Isabelle felt herself torn by pride and loss, listening to Terry’s best friend speak. She looked at Louis’ long arms and broad shoulders and thought about how she had cried on them only the day before and how uncomfortable he must have been. Isabelle had cried so long and deeply, she had needed some base makeup to cover the bruising around her eyes. Once again, Terry had come through without even knowing it by making sure someone had been there for her after he was gone.

Yes, Isabelle knew she would be taken care of. Louis had been a good friend and she knew he’d check in on her. Iris had arrived on Isabelle’s doorstep with two packed bags, intent on staying in the La Habra home for a while instead of the apartment she shared with two other college girls in Culver City. After all, it was June and Iris insisted she could afford to miss summer session. Even Isabelle’s mother, Elaine, had come up from San Diego to be at her side. Isabelle certainly did not feel alone.

What she felt was abandoned, as though her husband of nearly twenty-three years had left her just a few days before their anniversary. It was as though he had made the decision to do it. Terry had died late Friday night, June 15th, the police had told her. Their wedding anniversary had fallen on the 19th, on Tuesday. The couple had made no real plans aside from a dinner at La Vie En Rose, which would have been that very evening. Isabelle imagined wearing this same dress and how they would have sipped champagne as they had on previous anniversaries. They might have opened a bottle of good Shiraz back at home. Terry might have put the Temptations on the stereo and maybe they might have danced out on their patio, if Isabelle was tipsy enough. If they hadn’t danced, they might have sat together on the rose velvet settee, sipped wine, and talked about the possibility of making it to twenty-five years.

Now, that was gone, torn like a fresh wound out of her memory. Instead, she had the description of a scene she had never witnessed, told to her by a stranger: her husband’s broken body lying at impossible angles on the pavement outside of one of those huge, concrete towers where his classes were held. They said he must have jumped from the fifth or sixth floor, from the stair well. Had he ever expressed any thoughts of suicide, the police had asked her…

Applause took her from her reverie and that same Novocain numbness that had been in her bones since the drive to identify Terry’s body made it difficult to move or understand what was going on. She stood in response to her daughter’s guiding arm. She brought her hands together, softly and politely. She realized she wasn’t smiling any longer but that didn’t surprise her at all.

Louis came up and gave her a hug. I know, Izz, he told her. Something broke inside of me, too. He looked into her eyes with that understanding, therapist look he had. We’re going to get better. It might not be for a while but it’ll happen. Okay?

Isabelle nodded, letting Louis move over to Iris and give her a hug, too. Again, she felt stranded for a moment, as if each experience was now a distinct series of leavings, reminders of what Terry had done. She hated how that felt. Isabelle turned to her mom but Elaine gave her little help; she was just as struck as her daughter. Terry had become a son to her over the years, his own parents having died long ago. She was just as robbed as Isabelle.

So, how was it that Iris was doing so well? Isabelle turned to her daughter just in time to see her make a joke with Louis. A joke. Somehow, Iris was grinning through a tear; Isabelle never imagined having the capacity for tears. They’d been stripped away with her guts. She didn’t blame Iris for having some kind of release; she envied her. It must have had something to do with youth. After all, Iris wasn’t even twenty-one years old, yet. She was still in her Junior year in college. Isabelle was sure Terry would have something pithy to say just at that moment but understood that the days of Terry’s wisdom were long over.

Chapter 2

Isabelle blinked and suddenly the service was over. She was standing in a sea of strangers, all of whom expressed their most heartfelt condolences whether they meant it or not. People were shaking her hand and others were holding her in a blur of stilted, emotional awkwardness. Most of these were the lucky ones, those not attending the reception following the service. They had to appease their last remains of guilt before hitting the road and returning to their lives. Isabelle imagined Terry calling it something like The Pecking Order of Grief". Isabelle ruled the top tier, followed by her family. Those who attended the reception came next. These people, milling and crowding around her before she even had a chance to leave the hall of the funeral home, they sat at the level where they were obliged to care. Co-workers, former assistants, possibly the publisher of an article, they wanted to make sure their attendance was known.

Isabelle programmed her insensate mind to say, Thank you for coming.

When a fresh hand took hers, she whispered, Thank you for coming.

When an arm pulled her close for an emotional and sometimes tearful embrace, she said, Terry would have been touched. Thank you for coming.

The words came forth with a faux sincerity, an exhausted sincerity, the only kind of sincerity she had left to give, until the milling crowd thinned around her. It thinned and thinned until she realized she was standing inside the funeral home, still near the podium, surrounded no longer by the obligated but by people who actually cared. Without the support of people taking her hand or holding her in an embrace, she felt as though she might fall down.

Louis was there and he must have seen this because he put an arm around her. How are you getting to the reception, he asked. His deep blue suit may have been out of season – Isabelle was sure Iris would mention this. After all, style was her thing – but there was no denying how well it fit him. Somewhere inside, Isabelle grinned because she knew how Terry would have hated it.

I’m driving her, Iris answered, stepping up beside her mom.

Something about the proximity of these two people made it possible for Isabelle to take a breath. And then, something occurred to her. You are not, she said. She certainly wasn’t some kind of invalid.

Louis put a comforting hand on her back but, to Isabelle, it felt patronizing. You’re having a difficult day, Izz. Why don’t you take it easy and let Iris drive you?

Because I’m not broken, Isabelle replied, stepping away from his touch. She turned around so she could look at them all. Only three people were standing there, Louis, Iris and Isabelle’s mom, but they felt like a mob.

Elaine gave her a shrug and sounded a bit offended, I’m letting people drive me.

Well, you don’t actually have your car. Do you, mom? Isabelle asked. Now, listen. She cast a decisive, undeniable stare at each of them. I can drive. My legs aren’t broken. I’ll be fine.

Mom, your legs aren’t what we’re worried about – though I have no idea what your legs have to do with it anyway. I mean, if I’m driving, Iris said.

Isabelle stopped her. I was making a point. She hoped Iris would let it go at that. Where is the reception, anyway?

It’s at Doctor Fuller’s off Crawford Canyon in Orange Hills. If you follow me, I can show – Louis began to explain but Isabelle put a hand up to stop him. How could she explain that her lack of enthusiasm had nothing to do with Doctor Fuller or Crawford Canyon or Orange Hills? The reception could have been two inches to her left; she simply didn’t want to go.

Just find me a map, she said, sounding far more exhausted than she cared to. Every time she felt she should be strong, Isabelle looked for the one person she knew she could lean on and realized he was gone.

Iris turned to look around. I think I saw some on the table by the entrance.

Sure enough, the Fullers had been kind enough to print a tasteful invitation complete with a very detailed map to their home. They’d been especially kind to offer to host the reception on such short notice. Isabelle felt that she probably should have done it herself but knew she never would have; all she really wanted was for this day to end.

The last four attendees took invitations and exited the funeral hall. Bill met them outside, reassuring them what a lovely service it had been. Isabelle figured he should know but she didn’t say this. She just thanked him and shook his hand and gratefully walked out to the cars with the others.

Louis moved towards his Charger but hesitated. You sure you’re okay to drive? he asked.

Isabelle waved him away, pulling the key to her little Prius out of her purse.

You keep an eye on her, okay? she heard him say to Iris.

Iris had known him all of her life. He’d been just as constant in her life as her own father; the friendship the two men shared transcended her birth. He’d been the goofy uncle at her birthday parties and the cool friend when it came to giving expensive gifts. So, Isabelle was not surprised to hear her daughter acquiesce.

We’ll meet you there, Isabelle told him, not looking his way.

I guess that’s the best I can hope for, were his last words to her. After that, Isabelle heard the Charger start with its familiar growl as Louis drove away.

He was just trying to be nice, Iris said to her mother as the three women got in to the car.

Isabelle sat in the driver’s seat with a fond familiarity, not surprised to see that her daughter had taken the front seat. Really? You put your grandmother in the back seat?

I’m fine, Izz, Elaine told her as she adjusted her seatbelt. Just drive the car.

He was, you know? Iris told her.

I know. I know, Isabelle told her, putting her head back. And you might not understand this but I’m done. I’m overwhelmed. I’m tired of people being nice. I want them to get back to normal, for a change. She exchanged looks with Iris, halting her response. You think that guy is ever that nice? Ever? He’s rude. He comes in any time and starts drinking Terry’s beer and Terry doesn’t even need to be home, either.

They’ve been friends since college. He probably feels like it’s his house, too, Elaine told her.

Yeah? Well, it’s not, Isabelle countered. And I’ve told Terry that over and over. I guess I’m gonna have to tell Louis that, too… once he starts acting like Louis again.

You can stop buying beer, Iris said.

Isabelle started the car with a shake of her head. No. I like beer, too, you know? She pulled the hybrid silently out of the parking lot and looked up and down the street. So? Where are we going?

Iris looked down at the invitation. You have to take the 55 freeway.

Isabelle had been hoping for something a bit more specific. The day had been such a horrible chore, Isabelle felt lost in a world of concrete and cars, busy moving objects and impenetrable facades. She wasn’t even sure what street she was pulling her Prius out onto. Having lived in Orange County all of her life, though, Isabelle was confident she’d find her way. She had thus far.

The 55 freeway took them to Chapman Avenue, which led them to Crawford Canyon. They drove up and around and down, through the Orange Hills real estate of expansive homes on tiny, slanted lots. These had once been modest-sized homes on large lots but greed had overpowered aesthetics in many cases. Iris directed Isabelle down one side street and then another, until they found their destination. The Fuller home was made obvious by a large, oaken mailbox standing out on a wide expanse of lush grass. It was nice to see the Fuller home was still just a modest ranch rambler, with its wide driveway.

The street was filled with cars but the driveway had been left clear and Isabelle gave a sigh of relief. This was one instance in which she was happy people were being nice to her. With her Prius in the spot, there was still plenty of room. Isabelle was not at all surprised to see Louis arrive just then to muscle his Charger into the remainder of the driveway.

Isabelle remained in her seat, having turned off her car. So… what do we do here?

She felt her mother’s hand reach up from behind her and rub her neck. Elaine’s familiar, old voice said calmly, You let people tell you how much they loved your husband, honey. That’s your job for the next few hours.

Isabelle didn’t like the word job. It weighed heavy on her shoulders. Why is it my job? she asked.

Because you’re the only person who can do it, her mother told her. Isabelle looked back and Elaine gave her a nod. I know. It sucks.

It does, Isabelle agreed.

Elaine nodded again. Just a few more hours.

A few hours later, Isabelle was walked out to her car with her mother on one arm and her daughter on the other. Iris took her key to the driver’s side. Isabelle hardly thought to protest. Like a child, Elaine put her in the back seat, reminding her to buckle up as she sat in front of her. The back of the Prius felt darker and isolated than Isabelle had guessed; it was her first time back there. She didn’t mind, though. Isabelle sat slightly out of her own body and watched her daughter start the car, back it out of the driveway, and drive it into the setting sun.

How are you doing, had been the evening’s repeated refrain. Wherever she went. New people entered the party. Old acquaintances found her wherever she sat. How are you doing? Like a symphony of sympathy. "How are you doing?’

The reception had turned her into a receiver, a kind of human antenna. She hardly spoke, hardly engaged with anyone. People would come her way and give her advice. Nameless figures. Anonymous automata. Isabelle didn’t have the energy to identify them