Death Before Facebook

guess. She told him he had lovely features and lovely eyes, but nobody could see them because his hair was long.”
    “At least he didn’t have a nose ring.”
    “Mom, will you back off?” Neetsie spoke sharply, in a voice different from the habitual ones they used for bickering, a voice that meant business. Marguerite felt the tears sting again.
    “Oh, honey, I just love you so much, that’s all. You know how proud I am of you. Last year, when you did The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, I thought you should be on Broadway, you were so hot. You were great, you know that. I just want—”
    “You just want me to be perfect.”
    “Is there something wrong with that? Is that too much to hope for my one and only child? You’re the only child I have left, do you realize that? Cole just never seems to get it together, year after year after year….”
    “Oh, come on, how about you? You’ve been working on your ‘opera’ for twelve years. Or so you say—nobody’s actually seen you doing it.”
    “Why is this necessary? Why are you trying so hard to wound me?”
    “Look, Mom, let’s go back to Maison Blanche. I’ll just get that first dress. It’ll be okay. You could get a suit, maybe. You’d look wonderful in a really sharp black suit. With a deep blue silk blouse, maybe. Subtle; almost black itself. A midnight blue, sort of.”
    “I can’t afford anything like that. You know I can’t, Neetsie. I haven’t had any money for so long, and all my clothes are full of moth holes—and fifteen years old, too. You just don’t know how hard it is.”
    Neetsie looked alarmed. “Mom, let’s go to the ladies’ room.”
    She turned on her heel, apparently perfectly confident that Marguerite would follow. Which she did, tears streaming, hardly able to see in front of her.
    She had blown it again. She had meant to say how proud she was of Neetsie, to convey somehow how much she loved her, and that if she’d just respect herself a little more, she could live up to what Marguerite knew to be her true potential. She was beautiful, she was talented, she was nearly perfect. Why not go for the whole ball of wax? Marguerite just couldn’t understand it.
    When they were there, in the ladies’ room, Neetsie said, “Mom, are you okay? You seem really out of it.”
    “Geoffrey—”
    Neetsie shook her head. “You sure? You sure that’s all?”
    Marguerite leaned on the vanity top. She felt sobs welling up in her diaphragm.
    “That’s it, Mom. That’s it. That’s just what you need. Go ahead and cry all you want to.” Neetsie left for a minute and came back with a huge wad of toilet paper, which she handed to her mother.
    Marguerite dabbed at her eyes, embarrassed, hoping no one would come in and catch her bawling in the bathroom.
    There was something else, all right. She hadn’t felt this stressed out since the day Geoffrey had died.
    She was terrified. The thought of seeing Mike Kavanagh filled her with dread.
    And he was sure to be at the funeral, had insisted on keeping up a relationship with Geoff long after the marriage was over (never mind the fact that the boy hadn’t cared two figs for him).
    When the sobs started to subside and the toilet paper was saturated, Marguerite looked into the round blue eyes of her daughter (Cole’s eyes; Neetsie had been so lucky to get them) and she saw how sad they were.
    “Neetsie. Neetsie, could I just ask you a question? You know I don’t ask you for much.”
    Neetsie pulled together a smile. “Sure, Mom.”
    “Could you take out the nose ring for the funeral? Would that be possible at all?”
    * * *
    Cole picked up the phone and dialed the nursing home. “This is Coleman Terry, Marguerite Terry’s husband. I don’t know if you know that there’s been a death in our family—we’d like Mrs. Julian to go to the funeral with us.”
    He waited as the secretary got his mother-in-law’s chart, as she conferred with doctors, nurses, probably administrators. Eventually, he was told he could come get Mrs. Julian the next morning, but that, as usual, he shouldn’t expect her to know anybody.
    Next he got out the vacuum. These sorts of chores usually fell to him. Marguerite took care of her animals and her garden; sometimes she cooked a little; she may have worked on her opera, he wasn’t sure. She was a creative person, not one for the constant repetition of household chores; a fair flower of the South who needed to be taken care of, not the sort to get her hands dirty,