On god and the devil in the land of the sun.
Not that they're especially important or symbolic or anything like that, but it's those mushrooms I keep mulling over more than anything else.
I guess she'd been duking it out with the cancer for a while now. It was in her stomach. I hear it made her look pregnant, though I guess I wasn't really around to see that happening. I picture a belly full of ivory babies, shiny and writhing into and under and around each other.
She wasn't really our aunt. Not technically. Not mine and Jannette's and Sebastian's. I guess she was something like an aunt-in-law? Well, she was our cousins' aunt and since we all grew up together, raised by the same people, she was our aunt too. She'd been around for as long as I can remember and probably years before I was even born. Anyway, she was kind of everyone's aunt. One of those ladies who calls you mijo and is always shocked at how big you've grown. The nicest lady you'd ever meet, actually, but everyone always says that about everyone else, so let's move on.
I couldn't go to the viewing last week. Burial, yes of course, I wouldn't have missed it. I just can't do rosaries because it's this thing I have. The lady from our old neighborhood who came over to look at my old apartment, standing in the kitchen while shaking my hand, dressed for tennis and shocked that I'm not three years old anymore? Murdered by her husband a few days later, and there's no way I could have gone to that funeral. Mom's best friend who died of surprise cancer? The girl we went to school with who died in that car accident? I couldn't go to any of their services because it's a thing, you know? Seeing them in that casket looking like they're asleep but of course they're not? And what do you say to the family? To her daughter, who for all intents and purposes is our cousin, all I can offer is a hug and a confused "I'm so sorry." I go to wrap my arms around her and accidentally slap Mama in the face. I feel like a psychic retard.
My cousin Angelica -- the one who taught me how to smoke in Mama's backyard under the pomegranate tree -- she and I leave the church before the procession and get to the cemetery early. She wants me to go for a walk with her. Here's me thinking she wants a cigarette because sometimes we share one just for old time's sake. She doesn't really smoke anymore and stopped completely, of course, when she got pregnant. We're walking and the collar on my jacket is up, but it's still freezing and the rain is more like a mist so everything's slick and wet. We're still walking and she points to a little hill at the far end of the place, but I'm astounded by what's underfoot. I couldn't tell what it was until we got closer, but it's a field of mushrooms. Like a path, almost, growing from the military guy with the bench to the elderly couple with the plastic flowers, and I'm so amazed my mouth actually falls open. Mushrooms everywhere, just allowed to sprout up by whoever's supposed to be taking care of the sod. Big white and grey caps, some rounded, some flat. Some look like regular button mushrooms, some look like Chanterelles the size of dinner plates, some look like something out of the looking glass, all just growing out of these graves. And not just there, either. The closer we get to the hill, the more mushrooms. Angelica kicks some over and they pop out like loose corks. I picture her foot getting poisoned and maybe she kicks me and then we both die.
On the hill, she stops at a stone marker surrounded by flowers. You know about those little picture frames they put on gravestones? The little frames with the little lid you lift up and there's a picture of the person underneath? I didn't either, but it has one of those.
"Open it," Angelica says. At first, I have no idea what she's talking about and I'm confused by the possibility that she's talking about the actual grave itself.
"The picture, stupid. Look at it."
When I finally figure it out, I realize the girl I'm standing on at this very moment used to live in our old neighborhood. She used to live across the street from Angelica. Everyone in Cantua Creek knows each other, you see.
We walk a little further.
"Remember her?" she asks about the frame a few stones down. It's the girl from the car accident. I think it's her senior portrait.
Then, one under a tree.
"Remember Aaron? That's his sister."
Then, a blue one.
"That's a nice one, but I don't know."
Then, a married couple.
"Is that...?"
It's the tennis lady.
We're at the top of the hill now. From here we can see everyone just starting to arrive, the lot looking like Lazarus' tempest-tossed. The sea of mourning. Then mom walking hand-in-hand with Sebastian. Mama and aunt Esther, the one who was my surrogate (and possibly even genetic) mother with the family who likes to discuss politics and religion. Jannette locking DJ (the hound of hell) in the car. Our cousin Adriana who looks more like my sister than Jannette does. I look over at Angelica who's inspecting another marker. To her right, more mushrooms. We're surrounded by the graves of people we know and they're all growing mushrooms.
I guess she'd been duking it out with the cancer for a while now. It was in her stomach. I hear it made her look pregnant, though I guess I wasn't really around to see that happening. I picture a belly full of ivory babies, shiny and writhing into and under and around each other.
She wasn't really our aunt. Not technically. Not mine and Jannette's and Sebastian's. I guess she was something like an aunt-in-law? Well, she was our cousins' aunt and since we all grew up together, raised by the same people, she was our aunt too. She'd been around for as long as I can remember and probably years before I was even born. Anyway, she was kind of everyone's aunt. One of those ladies who calls you mijo and is always shocked at how big you've grown. The nicest lady you'd ever meet, actually, but everyone always says that about everyone else, so let's move on.
I couldn't go to the viewing last week. Burial, yes of course, I wouldn't have missed it. I just can't do rosaries because it's this thing I have. The lady from our old neighborhood who came over to look at my old apartment, standing in the kitchen while shaking my hand, dressed for tennis and shocked that I'm not three years old anymore? Murdered by her husband a few days later, and there's no way I could have gone to that funeral. Mom's best friend who died of surprise cancer? The girl we went to school with who died in that car accident? I couldn't go to any of their services because it's a thing, you know? Seeing them in that casket looking like they're asleep but of course they're not? And what do you say to the family? To her daughter, who for all intents and purposes is our cousin, all I can offer is a hug and a confused "I'm so sorry." I go to wrap my arms around her and accidentally slap Mama in the face. I feel like a psychic retard.
My cousin Angelica -- the one who taught me how to smoke in Mama's backyard under the pomegranate tree -- she and I leave the church before the procession and get to the cemetery early. She wants me to go for a walk with her. Here's me thinking she wants a cigarette because sometimes we share one just for old time's sake. She doesn't really smoke anymore and stopped completely, of course, when she got pregnant. We're walking and the collar on my jacket is up, but it's still freezing and the rain is more like a mist so everything's slick and wet. We're still walking and she points to a little hill at the far end of the place, but I'm astounded by what's underfoot. I couldn't tell what it was until we got closer, but it's a field of mushrooms. Like a path, almost, growing from the military guy with the bench to the elderly couple with the plastic flowers, and I'm so amazed my mouth actually falls open. Mushrooms everywhere, just allowed to sprout up by whoever's supposed to be taking care of the sod. Big white and grey caps, some rounded, some flat. Some look like regular button mushrooms, some look like Chanterelles the size of dinner plates, some look like something out of the looking glass, all just growing out of these graves. And not just there, either. The closer we get to the hill, the more mushrooms. Angelica kicks some over and they pop out like loose corks. I picture her foot getting poisoned and maybe she kicks me and then we both die.
On the hill, she stops at a stone marker surrounded by flowers. You know about those little picture frames they put on gravestones? The little frames with the little lid you lift up and there's a picture of the person underneath? I didn't either, but it has one of those.
"Open it," Angelica says. At first, I have no idea what she's talking about and I'm confused by the possibility that she's talking about the actual grave itself.
"The picture, stupid. Look at it."
When I finally figure it out, I realize the girl I'm standing on at this very moment used to live in our old neighborhood. She used to live across the street from Angelica. Everyone in Cantua Creek knows each other, you see.
We walk a little further.
"Remember her?" she asks about the frame a few stones down. It's the girl from the car accident. I think it's her senior portrait.
Then, one under a tree.
"Remember Aaron? That's his sister."
Then, a blue one.
"That's a nice one, but I don't know."
Then, a married couple.
"Is that...?"
It's the tennis lady.
We're at the top of the hill now. From here we can see everyone just starting to arrive, the lot looking like Lazarus' tempest-tossed. The sea of mourning. Then mom walking hand-in-hand with Sebastian. Mama and aunt Esther, the one who was my surrogate (and possibly even genetic) mother with the family who likes to discuss politics and religion. Jannette locking DJ (the hound of hell) in the car. Our cousin Adriana who looks more like my sister than Jannette does. I look over at Angelica who's inspecting another marker. To her right, more mushrooms. We're surrounded by the graves of people we know and they're all growing mushrooms.