She was a woman afraid of her passion, as if releasing the knot in her abdomen would cause her to jerk uncontrollably, say things she shouldn’t, or to explode all together, like she just stepped on a landmine, like she just hit a Pinata with a death blow, her just confetti flying everywhere, coating the trees, the sky a wash of fire engine red nail polish, the color her mother had worn at 84 but would never wear again. The color Claire had never worn. So God awful, she tried it once, but looking at her plump white fingers, she couldn’t get the polish off fast enough. Standing in National Cemetery, the knot tightened. She took a step back. They were opening the box where her stepfather’s ashes were. Her mother was placed inside. Maybe exploding from passion wasn’t a bad way to go, if only there were assurances her sister couldn’t demonize it in front of everyone. In National Cemetery they gathered, her sister with her two grown boys (her husband recently dead) and Claire with her boyfriend of 20 years. No place for emotion unchecked. No place for a very small crowd to say goodbye. Of course, she wondered, who will show at mine?
Claire’s hose sagged around the ankles. She was furry, her eyebrows long overdue for plucking. She had filed her nails short and not painted them. Her sister, on the other hand, had visibly lost weight, wore a tight dress in a failed attempt to look sexy. She had worn red shoes to her mother’s funeral, shoes too big. They kept coming off her naked, supposedly sexy foot. Mind you, their husbands, her mother’s and sister’s, would not have sex with them when they were alive. But because the show must go on, the wives had not missed a beat, wowing people with their appearances that glittered and sparkled. They could impress anyone, except those who knew them.
Claire’s eyes sunk into her head, that is, they tried to escape. Her big pupils took in the scene. It was a good place to be dead. She wished she was. Her boyfriend of 20 years stood by her. If she made a run for it, he would be able to catch her, drag her back, and then her sister would talk shit forever because her sister was the kind of woman who could talk shit forever.
Claire walked a distance from the small group until she could reign her grief in. “You’re the best-lookin’ grandma I’ve ever seen,” a man said once to her mother, not all that long ago. Her mother laughed nonchalantly and gave her I’ll sell you a house smile. But it meant something to her mother to still be glam in her 80s. Claire grimaced. She did not have children, afraid her passion would suffocate them or burn itself out like a super nova or, the worst, the fear she would feel nothing for them. She did not wear gold like her mother and sister. She wore silver, as if an earring habit was better. She did not have lots of money, but she could have. Once again, fear had stopped her. She did not collect valuables, either, have a china pattern etcetera etcetera. She thought people and cats were enough. She didn’t want to walk dogs, or she would have included them, too.
Who had taught her not to cry? She didn’t know. Who had taught her to avoid intimacy? She could not say how long she had been scared of it or what that had to do with her passion, but they were entwined like a tree and a vine, her fear slowly stifling her emotions. And how much of her passion did it take to hold her fear in check? She did not know. Still, it stirred. Her eyes welled with tears. She reached for the hand of the man next to her, her man, and prayed for something her mother, her sister, had never valued and had never risked.
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Carroll Ann Susco has a chapbook, Bean Spiller, and numerous publications, including three in The Sun Magazine and Asylum Magazine. See her LinkedIn page for a list and links.