A Woman Gone Mad (27 page)

Dad and I end up admitting Mom to the emergency room. By the time I got there, she had attempted twice to throw herself into oncoming traffic on a highway near Mom and Dad’s house. It took almost five grown men to get my one hundred ten pound mother in the back seat of the car.

My dad and I are in the waiting room and we haven’t spoken a single word. There isn’t anything to say. My daddy has lost his son and is now scared he’ll lose his wife as well. I lost my baby brother, my best friend. And I’m scared to death that I’ll lose my mother as well.

This isn’t natural. Nothing about this is natural. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t know how the universe has let something so fucked up to occur. I just can’t wrap my mind around it.

After the ER has Momma heavily sedated, Dad and I get her home and in bed. Throughout the night, when she rouses, it’s only for a split second and only to cry out and beg in staggering, whispered words, “No autopsy. Don’t let them cut open my baby boy, David.”

This was the hardest and longest night I’ve had to live through up to this point in my life.

The next day, Dad, Mom, and I are in a room that seems to hold a hundred caskets. Metal ones, wood ones, pink ones, blue and white ones. Even with all of them everywhere, I only see one. I walk to it and lay my hands on it, lovingly stroking the dark cherry wood. It matches his bed perfectly.

Mom is studying every single casket that isn’t pink. She does this when she gets uncertain and doesn’t know what to do. Instead of making a decision, she’ll stand here until she has studied each and every casket. Then she’ll do it again until someone makes the decision. Anyone else but her.

Walking over to her, I wrap my arm around her shoulder and lead her to the one I found. I know she isn’t going to be able to make these decisions. And Dad doesn’t want to mess up and upset her any more than she already is. “Come here, Momma. I found the one.”

She stares at it for a while. Then, for the first time, in my life I witness my mother crumble in front of my eyes. It breaks me apart even more.

“See, Momma? It looks just like the bed you bought for him when he moved into his apartment. The dark cherry wood—it’s perfect. He loves his bed…” Trailing off because I’m at a loss for words, I refuse to acknowledge him in the past tense, but I also don’t know if this is hurting my parents more by keeping him in the present.

“He does.” A gut-wrenching sob escapes her as warm tears begin sliding down my cheeks again. “It is perfect, Lillian. He’ll love it. David, tell the guy, wherever he his. Tell him we want this one and that we also need a vault. I won’t put my baby in that ground without a vault to protect him. I have to protect my baby boy, David.”

“Okay, I’ll let him know.” Dad hurries from the room.

Mom and I have moved from that God-awful casket room and we’re sitting in a kitchen at the funeral home while Dad gets the rest of the arrangements taken care of.

“The wake for us—me, you, and Dad—will be tonight. Do you need anything? Stockings? Heels? Handkerchiefs?” I watch her blank stare and wonder if she’ll even hears me.

“No… Yes, I need handkerchiefs. And a pair of black stockings.”

“Okay. I’ll get them.”

I watch as a light seems to click on. She’s cognizant that tasks need to be done and this spurs a flicker of light back in her eyes. “Allen needs some dress pants. Your daddy wants him in a suit. He hates wearing suits.”

“Allen is not wearing a suit. The last suit he wore was at my wedding and he pulled at the tie the entire time.”

“Yeah, Allen doesn’t want to wear a suit.” I hear as her voice turns sure again.

“Okay, when I go to the department store, I’ll grab him some khaki dress pants. What about a belt? Does he have a nice belt?” I want to keep both her and myself focused on these tasks. I feel as though it’s the only way any of us will make it through this.

“Get him a belt. He needs a nice belt. And some nice socks too.”

“Okay.”

She grabs my face and looks pleadingly into my eyes. “I need to find that shirt. It’s his favorite shirt. The pale yellow and white one. The one he always looks so handsome in. I have to find that shirt.”

“Okay, Momma. When I stop by his apartment, I’ll find it.”

“You find it. Find his shirt and get him some nice pants. Don’t forget to get him a nice belt and dress socks too.”

“I won’t, Momma. I promise, I won’t.” I smile a weak smile at her and squeeze her hands in mine.

On my way to Allen’s, a song comes on by Melissa Etheridge called Breathe. The lyrics hit me, and they are so crippling that I have pull the car over to breathe through the pain of the song.

I’m all right, I’m all right. It only hurts when I breathe.

I’m trembling by the time I make it to Allen’s apartment.

I walk straight through the apartment and into his room, pull back the covers on his unmade bed, and burrow myself into his pillows and under his covers. My tense body sags in relief. I smell him. I smell the very essence of my baby brother, and I swear to God I feel his arms tighten around me to hold on to me as tight as I’m holding on to his pillow.

“Why!?” I scream into the pillow to muffle the sound. “Why, Allen! WHY?!” Gasping between breathes, I continue to scream at him, demanding to know why, begging for him to answer me, but my screams only bounce off the walls and the only response I hear is the AC cycling back on.

After a very long time, I somewhat collect myself. I dig through his closet to find his shirt and his new pair of Polo dress shoes. I grab a t-shirt of his off the floor and slip it over my head, needing something of his to help carry me through this hellish day ahead me.

I drop his shirt off to be dry-cleaned while I’m at Dillard’s gathering the most expensive pair of khaki pants, belt, and dress socks I can find as well as stockings for me and Momma and five boxes of handkerchiefs.

Then I head to my quiet home, dress myself in black on black, pull my hair up in a half-ass French twist, and smear on some lip gloss before I head to the funeral home to drop off all of Allen’s things.

Had the thought crossed my mind at that time that Allen was in that building when I was, I would have gone stark raving mad right then and there, torn down walls with my bare hands, and fought any motherfucker who tried to come between me and my brother.

Let’s just thank God that it didn’t cross my mind that day. In my head, he was still lost, and the only thing I held on to was that I had a time and a place to meet him, when he wouldn’t be lost anymore.

At the time, I don’t know what cold reality that meeting is going to cost me though. I only hold on to the promise that he won’t be lost anymore. And Lilly keeps my mind from going any further than that single thought.

Momma, Daddy, and I are in the car on the way back to the funeral home for our first meeting with Allen. Then we’re parked and being ushered into a hallway. It’s only us—no one else.

The funeral director opens the door. Walking in first, I’m the first to see my baby brother lying in the casket. Asleep. He’s just asleep! I’m at the casket before I realize I’ve even moved. Faintly I hear my momma wail. It’s muffled against my daddy’s suit jacket.

I can’t stop myself even if I want to. I slide my hands around his neck and bury my face into the crook of his neck and shoulder. Jesus Christ, he’s so cold, and he’s so stiff I can’t get him to move. He’s frozen stiff. Then I immediately I start running my fingers through his hair and I realize they cut it.

They trimmed his hair. He was growing it out. He said that the ladies like it a little long because it curls at the ends, but the assholes at the funeral home cut it.

I move his awkward body again, trying to get wrapped around him, but it’s so damn hard because he’s so stiff. I’m crying. The voice that’s been screaming from somewhere down the hall—it is mine. I don’t even remember starting to cry. Then I feel Mom’s cold hand rubbing my back.

Shit! I didn’t mean to break down like that. I step back, looking into Momma’s eyes, and whisper, “I’m sorry, Momma. I didn’t mean… I gotta go outside.”

I rush out of that small, enclosed room, haul ass out of that Godforsaken building, and find a bench. I sit down, digging through my purse, and feel a moment of relief when I pull out my flask and a pack of cigarettes. I sit there, taking drags off my cigarette between each pull off the flask.

After a while, I bend myself in half, wrapping my arms around my knees to help keep my heart and soul in my chest. Then, looking up, I scream towards the sky, “God, I want to know why!” I seethe between my gritting teeth. “Why the FUCK is my brother in that fucking building, COLD, STIFF?! WHY?!” The words come shrieking out.

But God doesn’t answer me. No one answers me. Lilly’s gone. I don’t think she died when Allen did, but she damn sure went silent when he died. She knew nothing was going to be okay again.

Allen Davis Shaw died on March 25
^th
, 2004 in a motorbike accident that killed him instantly by fracturing his neck.

We laid him to rest on March 28
^th
, and it was the most beautiful and heartbreaking day in all of my life. There were over eight hundred people in attendance at his funeral. The line from the funeral to the grave site was over eighteen miles long, bumper to bumper. That’s how many people my baby brother Allen touched in his twenty-six years of life. I always knew that Allen was special. Of course he was; he was my kid brother—the best kid brother anyone could ever ask for.

However, what I realized that day was that he was so much more to so many other people. I didn’t know he’d been so busy not only lighting up our family with his handsome, charming smile, making us laugh with his antics and laughter, but apparently he’d been doing the same to these waves of people who stood around us at his grave site on that clear and cloudless March afternoon.

That thought both weakened me and strengthened me, but it didn’t bring Allen back.

A few weeks later, I get home from running errands and Nick is again nowhere to be found, thank God. I’ve showered the day away and slipped on a long nightgown and my cashmere robe. I’m pouring myself two fingers of bourbon when words rush at me. I sit down at my desk and begin my first of many letters to Allen:

Dear Allen,

I suppose some may say that I started this letter a little late. But those who say that have never lost their baby brother. I want to start by saying that I have few regrets. Thank you for forcing me to love you, see you, feel for you what I feel. You know it’s hard for me to get close to people. But you are like a magnet and we are all metal. You made it hard not to love you wholeheartedly. You taught me so much in your life, and it’s funny because I thought I was the one who was supposed to be teaching. All the lessons I tried to stress to you, to teach you—they didn’t need to be taught.

You were silently teaching me, us. And you did it with so much quietness that we didn’t even realize it. And your lesson was the greatest lesson of all. Live life to the fullest, as there is only one life. And to live is to have life. You said it more times than I can count, but at the time, I never paid attention: “Ride this bitch until the wheels fall off.” This is the lesson of life I learned in your death.

My sweet, sweet brother, your heart in life… Did you realize the magnitude it had? How can one person love that much? How did you have room? I have never seen anyone with a heart as big as yours. It was so big it shined through your eyes and pores.

And Allen, if I could physically see it, just one more time, I promise that I could make it through this life happy. Just once more. Can I feel you, smell you? I saw your empty house in that casket. But that is not what I wanted. It was empty, lifeless. My baby brother’s body, his shell. I had to bury it. We had a funeral for it. And we all cried because it was going to be the last time we could see your sweet face, touch and feel your skin.

I’ll never for as long as I live forget how cold your hands were. They were so cold, Allen. I tried hard to warm them up but I couldn’t cover enough of you fast enough. Once I got one side of your hand warm, the other side would already be cold again.

Why did you die? Why did my little brother have die? I will ask you this every day. I’m not upset with you for leaving me. I just want to know why. And why didn’t someone clue me in before this happened?

Why couldn’t I tell that last Christmas was going to be your last? Why couldn’t I see it in your eyes that would be the last time I would look into them? Why didn’t someone whisper in my ear the last time I held your life-filled body in a tight hug that it would be the last time?

I have so many questions and so much I want to tell you that I will probably never finish this letter.

Did you see all of those people at your funeral? Oh my God, Allen! I never realized. I thought our love—me, Mom, and Dad… I thought it was only us who loved you so fiercely and were so devastated when we lost you. I hadn’t realized, little brother, just how busy you were in your life.