The week after we ransacked my grandmother’s house for bounty, we drove back to Maple Falls to attend as guests my grandmother’s memorial at the Northwest Hills Community Church. One thing my mother never shied from was a long-haul drive. We hurtled up Route 542, shadowed by Mount Baker.
The mountain was a dormant volcano that had been a glacier, and I felt my mother becoming more agitated as she moved in the direction of the hot flow of home. She turned up the dial for a song we liked, and that I felt was a pep talk for both of us Sloopies. Hang on, Sloopy, Sloopy, hang on!
She was a lawless driver, always, calm as a clam in gridlock, backing through an intersection to avoid circling the block. She would run red lights, not slowing down on a yellow, saying it “felt like a green.” Chances were: no traffic cop, just a consortium of resentful fellow citizens, blaring their horns. These small transgressions added up to a sense of ourselves as special, exempt from the rules—but also disliked, distrusted, untrustworthy, apart.
Arriving at the church, we were directed to the worship hall. We slipped past a few people in navy suits, then faltered, uncertain where to sit. We had worn thrift-shop black, subtly faded over time to slate.
An elderly woman in a proper ink-black dress and modest, sensible heels motioned us over and led us down the aisle, inviting us to sit in the pair of waiting chairs just opposite the pulpit. At the front of the church, the projector hummed. And there, fussing with the remote as it cycled through the same four or five images of my grandmother, smiling and waving, with our same pale eyes, holding a pie, was my aunt Nell.
She sniffed as she made her way back to her seat from behind the lectern. I snuck glances but managed to avoid her eyes. I felt that if I met them, I might turn to stone or worse.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
