By Kathleen Quigley
Close her eyes and draw a blanket around her shoulders. She won’t wake up swinging anymore.
Look around the room for your phone. Text, not call, your brothers. They won’t be able to say you played favorites. Let them tell their children.
Call your son. Leave an innocuous message, relieved you don’t have to speak. Mouth the words until you’re numb and can say she’s gone without choking.
Wait to call hospice until your brothers reply. They live out of state. It will be hours before they arrive.
Wonder how long it takes for rigor mortis to set in and remember after rigor mortis, the body softens and eases into death. Where did you read or hear that? A true crime podcast? Reach for your phone to research and set it down. It doesn’t matter.
Call the newspaper and cancel the e-subscription your mom forgot she had. You had delayed as if ending the subscription acknowledged your mom’s dwindling attention span.
Cancel the cell phone and cable but keep the Wi-Fi. Your brothers might be annoyed they can’t watch sports while sorting through the detritus of a much bigger house and the husk of memories your mother has become.
Contact the estate sale company. Its website said not to throw away or donate anything. You can’t fathom hosting a garage sale with frugal neighbors haggling over her collectibles, paintings, and jewelry. You refuse to fight over who gets what and will divide the proceeds by three.
Kneel next to the sofa and brush your mother’s hair, the fine wisps rising to kiss the hairbrush. You hadn’t expected static electricity to survive.
Begin the countless loads of laundry to remove the scent of her, her cigarettes, her perfume. You will miss that scent more than you thought possible.
Look around again and bury your frustrations about making decisions she could have made before she died.
Wipe your nose with your sleeve. You hate blowing your nose in tissues reeking of smoke.
Select clothes for her cremation and think it seems like a waste of a perfectly good outfit. As you dress your mother, resist the temptation to lift a limb and let it fall, playing dead like you and your brothers used to. She would not be amused. Tug on her jacket; the sunny yellow is harsh against her pale skin. Apply makeup and a spritz of cologne. Decide her dentures can stay in their dish. She hated them.
Open all the windows and doors. Depending on the season, you may tuck an extra blanket around her shoulders.
Wash the dishes in the sink. Your brothers can deal with the ashtrays like they did when you were young, and you would exchange a sink full of dirty dishes for a half dozen ashtrays.
Play an Irish ballad CD, but decide “Danny Boy” is too much, too soon. Ask your mom if she wants Carole King or James Taylor. Of course, she doesn’t answer. You decide on Petula Clark.
Begin a list and vow to be more prepared when you die. Maybe you’ll find a cheerful magnet to anchor your bullet-point list to your fridge or file cabinet.
Remove all the Sacred Heart petitions from her refrigerator. Sixty sets of Jesus’ eyes do not need to witness your carefully harnessed emotions crumble. You like to cry alone.
Gather every pack of cigarettes you can find and systematically hack each cigarette into small pieces.
Look for the file with information about burying ashes with a sapling. Would the tree die from the carcinogens in her ashes or would the phosphorous in your mother’s bones remain and nourish the tree?
Imagine that tree growing, breathing.