Published: October 30, 2008

It is a Sunday and they are dressing her in black.

She stares at the plain black dress laid out on her plain white bedspread and can’t even begin to describe the outrage she feels. Black. On a Sunday. God doesn’t appreciate black. He didn’t make that color. His pigments made the reds and the blues and the yellows, and she’ll be damned if she shows up in church wearing a garment that represents the one thing God did not create: nothing.

She’s only ever worn all black once before, once in her entire life, and that was for her mother’s funeral.

At least the dress she had chosen for her mother’s ceremony was a lot nicer than the one currently facing her, an extraordinarily dull frock that is guaranteed to hang around her body like a poorly constructed tent.

The girl enters the room and she’s dressed in black too, although that’s not a surprise. That girl always seemed like the type to disregard God. There was no real evidence to go on, just a feeling that this girl would never go looking for anything greater than herself.

The girl looks from the woman to the dress and senses the aura of discord.

“What’s wrong?” the girl says blandly, already knowing the answer.

“‘What’s wrong?’ You want to know what’s wrong, do you?” Isabel grips her walker and takes one rolling step towards her. “A black dress! To Sunday church! Where do you people think I’m going! A funeral?”

The girl doesn’t look at her. She keeps staring at the dress with a look of pure disinterest in her face.

“You are, Grandma. You are going to a funeral. You’re going to your son’s funeral.”

Isabel stares at the girl, challenging her to make eye contact as she so often does. The girl refuses this time, continuing to stare at the ugly black dress on the bed.

“I don’t know why you say those things to me. Such awful vile things. I will be happy to have you know that my son is currently in Albany with his wife and his daughter, and they are expecting their second child. He is as healthy as a damn horse and never drives over the speed limit. And he always wears his seatbelt.”

Still unable to make eye contact with the old woman, the girl takes a glance around the room and her eyes land on Isabel’s nightstand. For the first time in a long time, she seems to take in the picture residing there. A young man, handsome and smiling, has his arm wrapped around a radiant young woman. There is a little girl on his lap, happily showing the camera her half-melted ice cream cone.

“I’m sorry, Isabel,” the girl whispers softly, a certain tone to her voice that has never been there before, “I don’t know why I said that.” The girl finally turns to Isabel and the two women make eye contact for what Isabel feels is the first time possibly ever. She can’t help but feel a strong twinge of pity for the girl. She looks as though she has been crying for days, but the kind of crying you can only do alone and goodness knows that’s the worst kind.

“Oh, my dear. What’s wrong?”

The girl eventually finds the ability to speak.

“My father died.”

“Oh dear. I really am so sorry.” Isabel says, and she means it. She really means it.

“It’s fine.” The girl (her name is Laura, and even Isabel knows this, somewhere, deep down, she knows this) wipes her tears away on her own black dress, which is more nicely cut than the one on the bed and is beautifully accented by a front bow. “I’m fine.”

If you say it enough, people begin to believe it.

“If you say it enough, dear, people begin to believe it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. So I’d watch myself if I were you.”

The old woman and the young woman don’t look at each other. They stare at the dress. They stare at the picture. And they think.

Laura speaks first. “I was thinking, Isabel, that it would really mean a lot to me if you came to my father’s funeral.”

Isabel doesn’t respond, not at first. She doesn’t want to admit it in front of the girl, but she hates funerals. She’s hated them since the last time she saw her mother’s face; it was smoothed out and made-up, and all she could think of was that her mother’s fingernails never, ever looked that nice.

The door opens and a young man enters, quietly, hesitantly. He doesn’t want to intrude, doesn’t even want to be there really. But he needs to be. He should be.

“Hi, Izzie.” He smiles, unsure if he’s addressing a mourning mother or an Alzheimer’s-stricken old woman.

Her face lights up, indicating the answer. “Hello there, Mark.”

He is not Mark.

Ryan, with his dark eyes and his dark hair, tries to meet Laura‘s gaze, but only receives the back of her own dark hair. She’s not looking at him. Because she’s fine.

“Laura?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you pick out this beautiful dress for Izzie?”

She stares at him, finally, and her stare always cuts. It’s usually only a brief sting, one she immediately heals with laughter or a kiss, but this time it’s a stare that doesn’t take bullshit or condescension or white lies, even in a room that has lived off them for the past two years. It’s a stare he doesn’t know and one he can’t take.

“Please. I’m just trying to help you,” he whispers.

She smiles, weakly, desperately, her own brand of condescension. “I’m just trying too.”

This time it’s his silence. His stare. Her move.

“Yes. I picked out the beautiful dress for Izzie.” She heads towards the bathroom and leaves the two alone. They are practically strangers, connected only by ties to the girl who has just left the room; although Isabel hasn’t known this for years and Ryan hasn’t felt it (not really felt it) for months.

Isabel sighs. “Her father died.”

“I know.”

“Do you remember when Mom died, Mark? It was so horrifying. I think she wants me to go with her to the funeral. But I just don’t think I can do it. Not so soon after Mom.”

Ryan stops short. He’s gotten accustomed to being referred to as a dead brother, but isn’t sure how to react to a dead shared mother.

“You know, Isabel, I think you should go. It would mean so much to Laura. You two have become such good friends and you were so strong when Mom died.” His mother isn’t dead, but he can pretend. He can pretend if she needs him to pretend. “She could really use your strength today.”

Isabel examines him in silence, takes in his dark suit and his kind eyes, so well fitted to his comforting smile. She smiles herself.

“Gosh, Mark. You never call me Isabel.”

He’s done, almost. He doesn’t need to be talking to a woman who thinks he’s a man who died twenty years ago. He doesn’t need to be talking at all, not really.

He glances at the closed bathroom door and seriously considers leaving. Leaving the building, leaving the city, leaving a girl who isn’t even close to being anything he ever pictured staying for. The room behind the door is silent. He can’t even begin to guess what she’s doing in there, although then again even if he did, there’s nothing he can do about it. What can anyone do about it, is the question he has always asked himself.

“Laura is growing up so nicely, don’t you think?”

The name captures his attention, as it always has, as maybe it always will. The brain becomes conditioned to pick up certain sound patterns; certain words mean certain things, certain names mean certain emotions. How much time can pass without hearing a name that you can forget about all its connotations? Is there a boy (or a man now, probably a dead one) out there whose mere name used to mean so much to Isabel, and only now she can hear that name without a second thought.

Do you have to completely lose yourself in order to let go of people who used to mean so much, is maybe what he is wondering.

“She is going to be such a beautiful young lady, Mark, I’m telling you.” He looks at this woman and sees that she’s staring at a picture on her bedside table.

He had never seen the man in the picture looking so alive. He had never seen the woman looking so happy.

And the girl. He had never seen that girl before at all.

“Did you hear, she wants to work at an aquarium someday. She absolutely adores penguins.”

Surprisingly, reluctantly, against his own will, he feels a genuine smile on his lips.

Once upon a time, long ago, he had wanted to move to Alaska. Because he adored penguins.

“Sometimes that dreadful girl reminds me of Laura’s mother.”  Isabel takes a few faltering steps towards the bed. “But I really do love Laura’s mother.” She is staring at the dress on the bed, questioning it, perhaps seeing some semblance of hope in it.

Sometimes that’s all you need, because that’s all you have. For the time being, at least.

“Mark, sweetie, would you mind helping me put on this dress until she gets out of the bathroom?”

The combination of her wrinkled skin and her gray hair and her voice, her old old voice, would send the best of people to their best excuses. She asks the question so nonchalantly, with such little shame, simply because she feels he is part of her family.

And this is what family does.

This is what you do to make people your family. This is how you make sure people know you want to be their family.

For better and for worse, or so he hears.

He still doesn’t have to be here. He still doesn’t have to say one word. He certainly does not have to feel any responsibility to this deteriorated old woman standing in front of him, on the verge of undressing.

But he does. Because she needs him to, maybe. And it’s worth a shot.

Maybe.