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...in the nights of goodbye

Aaron Bragg

    It really couldn’t have been a better day to spread ashes. Not a cloud in the sky, but what sunlight actually hit the ground was first filtered through a leafy lattice of aspen and Sitka spruce. In all directions, everything was cast in a deep emerald green—even the water, whose mirrored surface was only occasionally broken by rising trout. If Bud were still alive, rather than sealed in a nondescript cardboard box in the trunk of Roberta’s ’84 Chrysler LeBaron, he might have packed his fishing gear: it was this place, less than five miles from the Pacific coast on Oregon’s Alsea River, that was Bud’s favorite fishing spot, and Roberta figured he might like to commence eternal life by floating, ever so gently, downstream toward the ocean.
    Of course, nobody had bothered to ask Bud before he died. He would have balked at the thought of what amounted to somebody emptying a barbecue at such a pristine section of the river. It was symbolic, though, in a way—at least Roberta thought so—since Bud spent most of his retirement days fishing. It’s what he would have wanted.

***

    The funeral was in February, a couple of weeks after Bud’s heart stopped mid-surgery. There was no casket, no body; the service seemed a little like church, only more patronizing. That Bud would rather have been on the Alsea than in the sanctuary of Albany United Methodist on a Saturday morning was lost on Roberta, who seemed to relish the attention from parishioners who had met her husband only once or twice. Strange, she thought, that Bud’s doctor isn’t here. Perhaps someone else was dying on an operating table.
    Roberta was stoic. She’d had some time to adjust, time to cry, time to curse God, and time to practice her new widow’s smile in the mirror. (The smile was a strange admixture of self-pity and cold detachment Roberta first saw when her neighbor Ivy lost her husband in a freak car accident. She’d been looking forward to adopting it for nearly ten years now.) Details had been carefully planned and rehearsed: flowers and music selected from Roberta’s favorites, a light luncheon—no alcohol—prepared with an eye toward her own dietary needs; even the guests seemed weighted toward Roberta’s circle of friends.
    Their only child, Alan, had arrived from Spokane the day before with his second wife, registering at a dingy but conveniently located motel just off the freeway. There was plenty of room at the house, of course, but that wasn’t so convenient for Roberta. She didn’t approve of Alan’s first marriage—the one that produced a grandson only seven months after the wedding—but at least it was a proper wedding. This time around, Alan had phoned Roberta from an ashram in the Sierra Nevadas to tell her he’d found his soul mate, marrying her in a late-night ceremony with two other couples. Worse, the unlikely-named Heather was Puerto Rican. Or was it Dominican? Roberta was pretty sure she wasn’t a Methodist.
    The funeral—memorial service, please—could have been for anyone. It was strangely without specificity, as if the reverend had photocopied the “Death and Remembrance” section from one of the overstuffed binders saved from seminary and now collecting dust on a sagging shelf, filled in the blanks, and proceeded as ambiguously as only a Methodist could. Women in the requisite dark-colored but ridiculously out-of-style dresses sat next to husbands in navy blue blazers. A handful of children in khakis and tennis shoes squirmed.
    The pastor knew instinctively when to smile, when to frown, when to feign concern. He’d performed a hundred or more funerals, mostly for folks he didn’t even know, and this one was really no different. A prayer, a sermon, a brief eulogy: what did it matter? Bud wasn’t a believer as far as the pastor was concerned, and no amount of ritualistic tomfoolery would change God’s mind about the ultimate destination of Bud’s soul. Of that much the pastor was certain.
    Roberta didn’t say much after the service. Mostly her lips remained pursed as she nodded acknowledgement, perhaps a thin smile when someone recounted a story about Bud and why he would be missed. There were some thank-yous scattered here and there: thank you for coming, thank you for the flowers, thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Before long, even the pastor had left, locking the sanctuary doors and giving instructions to the janitor. All that was left on the buffet table was some dry bread, small bowls of mayonnaise with yellowing skin, and paper-thin meats and cheeses with rapidly hardening edges. Roberta noticed that nobody had touched the cauliflower plate.
    Alan, uncomfortable with outward displays of emotion, uncertain of funeral etiquette, wasn’t sure exactly what to do with his mother. It went without saying that everybody had loved Bud, so why say it now? It seemed somehow disingenuous, even offensive, to tell her how you felt, when you hadn’t bothered telling him first. Bud knew, though, didn’t he? He must have known.
    In the foyer, Heather studied her nails. Alan stared at the floor. Chuck, the illegitimate grandson who somehow managed to arrive fifteen minutes late for the service, shrugged and walked outside to his beat-up van.

***

    It was only 3:30 in the afternoon, but Roberta was tired. Alan and Heather were leaving first thing in the morning. In a few hours, she would be alone after fifty-three years of marriage. There was no one to mow the lawn anymore, she thought. And who will prune the roses this spring? My beautiful yard... She walked down the hallway to her—her—bedroom, closed the door, sat on the edge of her bed, and silently wept.
    Chuck was almost to Portland before the first tear arrived. Through the rain he absentmindedly watched the oncoming headlights just to the left and slightly below the grass median of Interstate 5. On the radio, some twenty-something NPR reporter, no doubt fresh out of Columbia Journalism School, was deconstructing Brian Eno’s Music for Airports. His shoulders violently shaking, Chuck pulled the old van to the side of the freeway, over the rumble-strips, and onto the gravel slope. The rain slashed through the glow of red taillights as logging trucks roared past. A McDonald’s sign shone cheerfully in the distance out the passenger-side window. And Brian Eno consoled Roberta’s grandson while he, too, wept.

***

    Alan closed the trunk of his car, looked uneasy for a few moments, and half-heartedly offered to stay a little longer. You know, maybe help clean out the garage or something. Roberta flashed her widow’s smile—it came more readily now—and shook her head no. Alan shrugged and made certain Heather was situated before backing out of the driveway. Roberta didn’t wait: The front door of the house was closed before the car was out of reverse.
    She’ll never make it, thought Alan as he approached the on-ramp to I-5. She’ll be dead inside a year.

***

    It was late April, and Roberta’s widow’s smile was coming along nicely. So was her yard, thanks to a grass-cutting service that came by once a week and the help of some volunteers from the church youth group. The roses didn’t fare so well, nor did her fuchsias, but they were in the back yard where passersby couldn’t see. The oil stain on her driveway from Chuck’s van was at last fading to a light brown, and the appearance of normalcy from one end of the property to the other was overwhelming.
    Inside, the house hadn’t changed a bit in the last two months, since Roberta had always made the decorating decisions anyway. Bud had laid claim to both the garage and the shop early in the marriage, but the house was off limits. Gold-gilded picture frames, velvet curtains with gold-braid tiebacks, plush carpets in purples and greens, and everywhere Roberta’s oil paintings. It was a kitschy blend of 50s mod and 70s tack, and Roberta was perfectly at home in it, provided guests removed their shoes at the door. Like outside, a carefully cultivated normalcy pervaded, and one half-expected Bud to come in the back door at any moment.
    Roberta had scheduled the ash-scattering (she wasn’t quite sure what else to call it, since she’d already had a memorial service) for the last Saturday of the month. Arrangements were made with the proprietor of a boat-launching facility on the river to make use of one of the docks, and only immediate family and close friends of Roberta’s were invited.

***

    Bud’s ashes had arrived at her home via crematory courier six weeks earlier. The driver, a lanky college kid who checked the number on Bud’s box against a sheet on a clipboard, awkwardly accepted a rolled-up one-dollar bill from Roberta in a clumsy pass. The widow’s smile was flashed—ever so briefly—while the driver shifted boxes in the back of his filthy pickup, mentally mapping out his delivery route.
    Roberta waited, staring at the box that had been dumped unceremoniously on the sloping driveway. The driver stared back. Silence drew a line from Roberta to the driver to the box and back to Roberta. The widow’s smile was replaced with a look of stern, pietistic disapproval. The driver relented. Stooping over and picking up Bud’s remains, he asked Roberta where she would like them. She nodded toward a corner of the garage among some rakes and pruning saws and a metal dustpan, where one of the church youth group volunteers had swept a small area clean. The driver turned and, tripping over a hose, fell forward, dropping the box on the cold concrete floor of the garage. It hit with a dull thud. A puff of gray escaped from a seam under the tape on the box, but Roberta was already in the house.

***

    Alan and Heather, by now tiring of living under the pall of perpetual death, arrived Thursday evening for what they hoped was the last in a series of events mourning Bud’s passing, checked into the same dingy and convenient motel, and awaited the moment. Chuck pulled into Roberta’s driveway late Friday afternoon, strategically positioning the van over what remained of last February’s oil stain.
    Grandmother and grandson spent an uncomfortable twenty minutes silently praying for the appearance of Alan and Heather. There was a meatloaf in the oven, and neither was looking forward to eating it.
    “How was traffic?” asked Roberta.
    Chuck looked up. “All right, I guess. I got out of Portland before rush hour, so...”
    Roberta nodded. She started to say something when Alan and Heather came in through the front door. Polite, cursory greetings were exchanged. Five minutes later Roberta, complaining of a migraine, retired to her room for the night—it was just past 6:00—and Alan ordered Chinese take-out for the three of them after tossing the meatloaf in the trash. Back at the dingy and convenient motel, Alan and Heather fell asleep to the drone of freeway traffic. Chuck tried in vain to find an adult movie on the television. Roberta, haunted by the ghost of her late husband, slept little. Bud remained in the box.

***

    Saturday morning was warm and muggy. A sense of finality added to the heavy air, and nobody said much. Clothes were packed, suitcases dragged to the front doors of the motel rooms, drawers opened and closed. Chuck had purchased day-old donuts the night before from the grocery store down the street. They were eaten as a greasy afterthought, a means by which breakfast could be checked off the day’s to-do list.
    In separate cars, the three arrived at Roberta’s house. She’d had toast and tea already, read the morning paper, and had even loaded Bud into the trunk of her LeBaron, first wiping the outside of the cardboard box with a damp rag, then lodging him in the shallow depression behind the wheel well. She laid an extra jacket and an umbrella alongside him. Her face was impassive: no evidence of a widow’s smile today. No, this was a day deemed too solemn for any kind of smile. It was the day that Roberta would officially discharge Bud’s remains, he already having spent the last few weeks in a sort of purgatory in Roberta’s garage—it was her garage now, wasn’t it?—a transitory holding pen where his powdery-gray vestiges awaited a more expedient release date.
    Ivy was the only one of Roberta’s friends to come along. Hoping to catch a ride, she had walked from her house as soon as she saw the two cars pull up. Roberta was delighted at the company: It meant they’d have to take another car, which sort of made for a cortège, if you thought about it. Alan tossed his keys to Heather—Roberta wasn’t about to drive the LeBaron herself.

***

    Bud’s last trip to the Alsea River was almost surreal for Roberta, who determined that she’d never come this way again. The route she chose took them first on Highway 20 through Corvallis—where Bud had played basketball at State—then turning on the Alsea Highway just past Philomath. Even Heather found herself lost in the beauty of the Willamette Valley, slowly forgetting the purpose of the journey with each passing dairy farm. Alan delighted in the LeBaron’s on-dash digital mileage report and the remarkable fuel economy as they descended the final grade. Roberta was silent.
    Surprisingly, the little resort with its half-dozen cabins, laundry facility/showers, boat docks, and “General Store” was entirely vacant, and the only sound was the crunch of gravel under the tires as the two vehicles approached. A screen door somewhere slammed shut, and a short, overweight woman worked her way toward the settling dust.
    Brief words were exchanged between the woman and Roberta, who handed over a check. The woman squinted momentarily, looking for a phone number and verifying the dollar amount, and, satisfied, lumbered back in the direction from which she had come. Roberta looked around, silently wondering whether she’d gotten the right place. Bud was still in the trunk of the LeBaron, and nobody knew exactly what to do. Roberta spoke her first words of the day.
    “I wanted us all to take part,” she said, staring each one of them in the eyes. “And maybe say something kind about Bud...he would have liked that.”
    Alan turned and retrieved the box. Slowly and in single file, the group descended the steps to the dock. Heather, apparently bolstered by Roberta’s sudden breaking of the silence, said that it sure was pretty here. Nobody answered.
    Once the group had gathered at the end of the dock, Roberta, with Alan’s pocketknife, gently slit open the box that held Bud’s remains. Mercifully, there was no breeze. Inside was a clear plastic liner twisted shut at the top, and Roberta tried to ignore the gray dust on her fingertips as she spread open the bag. Resting on top of Bud was a small scoop like you’d find in a box of laundry detergent. Roberta straightened up and looked at the faces around her, stopping on her son’s.
    “Would you like to go first?”
    Alan folded his arms across his chest and looked away. This is ridiculous, he thought. It’s a bunch of damn ashes.
    Roberta resumed her search, looking first at Chuck, then Ivy—even Heather—hoping that one of them would step forward and be the first to send Bud downstream; that her guilt would be that much the lesser because she hadn’t been the first to disturb his remains. The dock creaked. Roberta set her jaw. Finally, Chuck, growing impatient with the proceedings, grabbed the scoop from Roberta’s hand and set to work. The others stepped back as he kneeled and, muttering something about how Bud was a wonderful grandfather and how he was always there for him and how he loved to go fishing here and how it was therefore appropriate to release him at this spot, dipped in.
    Bits of coral-like bone chunks scraped at the plastic scoop as he dug. The consistency was like instant cement, only...gross, he thought. Chuck unconsciously held his breath—terrified of breathing in his grandfather—as he reached over the edge of the dock and turned the scoop over. Like sifted flour, Bud entered the emerald-green water, becoming a viscous cloud just below the surface. Chuck idly wondered which part of Bud it was. For the briefest of moments, Roberta smiled. Then, just as quickly, the corners of her mouth turned down as she watched Bud, undulating in the deep green water, move slowly upstream.
    Roberta hadn’t bothered to check the tide tables—perhaps the only detail to avoid her scrutiny—and, this close to the ocean, the tidal currents were strong.
    “Oh, my God...” she croaked, her face draining of color as she realized that Bud may never reach the Pacific Ocean, that all her plans and contingencies for which she had prepared meant nothing, that Bud would most likely wash up on some nameless gravel spit—or, worse yet, a public beach—and that his soul, wherever it lived, was watching her failure.
    Chuck continued to shovel, sending scoop after scoop of Bud’s remains into the water. Heather gave a nervous laugh while Roberta, enraged, lunged frantically toward her grandson, screaming “Stop!” as he lifted the box and shook the last of the ashes over the water.
    Bud was gone, and Roberta, just short of reaching the end of the dock, sank to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Alan, arms still folded tightly across his chest, looked out over the water, turned, and walked back to the car, signaling Heather with a jerk of his head. Embarrassed, Chuck and Ivy followed, each glancing once at the water and once at Roberta, who, still kneeling, struggled to regain control.
    “I’m sorry...so sorry,” she murmured, rocking back and forth, eyes tightly closed. “So, so sorry...” Abruptly, she stopped, looking upward at the clear blue sky. Slowly, her gaze traveled down, through the trees and ending at the spot where Bud had entered the Alsea River just moments before. She began rocking again, whispering something unintelligible, increasing speed until her forward momentum carried her silently into the emerald-green water.

***

    A fisherman from Newport discovered Roberta’s body a week later, tangled in kelp and draped over a pile of driftwood on the sand near the mouth of the Alsea. She hadn’t made it to the Pacific, either. Crabs, seagulls, and scores of nameless insects had made identification difficult, so it was a couple of weeks before anyone was notified.
    Alan drove back to Albany to claim the body and make the necessary arrangements. Roberta’s house was put on the market, her estate transferred over to Alan, and her body—like Bud’s—cremated. The following Saturday, Alan again found himself on Highway 20 heading west. In the passenger seat of his car rode Roberta in her very own nondescript cardboard box, sealed shut with packing tape.
    Alan was alone this time. Death was something that up until recently had never visited his family, and now...well, now it seemed none of them could remember a time when Death hadn’t touched them in some way, and nobody wanted to make the trip with him. Which was fine—Roberta would have wanted it this way.
    He didn’t notice the fishermen milling around the lot as he guided his car toward one of the last remaining parking spots. Nor did he notice the crowded dock, the noisy children running through the grass, the short, overweight woman sitting on her porch, smoking Marlboros and eyeing him suspiciously. He grabbed the box, felt in his shirt pocket for a copy of the day’s tide table, and approached the dock.
    The overweight woman stubbed out her cigarette and cut him off by the sign that read “Swim at Your Own Risk: No Lifeguard on Duty.” He vaguely wondered whether it would have made a difference to have a lifeguard on duty a couple of weeks ago.
    “Two bucks to park,” she said. Roberta’s son shifted the box under his arm, reached into his wallet, and handed her a five.
    “Keep it.”
    She stared after him as he descended the steps to the dock. Shrugging, she turned and headed back to her chair, her pack of Marlboros, and her half-empty Coors Light.
    Alan positioned himself at the end of the dock, sat, and waited, glancing at his watch every few minutes and idly drumming his fingers on Roberta’s cardboard box. At precisely 9:53 a.m. he reached over and opened the box, discarding the plastic laundry scoop. He studied the grey powder for a moment, then, removing the plastic liner, turned it upside down. Roberta hit the water with a plop, briefly swelling just under the water’s surface before moving upstream to join Bud.
    Satisfied, Alan looked once more at his watch and once more at the emerald-green waters of the Alsea River. He managed a rueful smile before he whispered “Goodbye”; two minutes later he’d found his car in the crowded lot and pointed it toward home.

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