The Dusty Car
by Frances McKean
“So, where are we going, anyways?”
“Some banquet hall, maybe 10 minutes away?”
My mother loosens her grip on the steering wheel before tightening it again, then loosening it once more. She keeps alternating, adjusting her grip and tapping her fingers on the wheel.
“Oh Shi-oot! What are you doing?!” she yells, feebly censoring herself as another car at the intersection cuts her off.
My sister and I exchange an amused glance, both of us thinking about what she might have said had we not been in the car.
“So, why aren’t we wearing black?” I ask.
“Because, sweetie, it’s a memorial service, not a funeral,” my mother replies.
“What’s the difference?” my sister asks.
“Memorials aren’t as sad, I think. Also, there’s no body.” My mother grits her teeth as another driver wrongs her. “God, I hate driving out here! And Lord, why is everyone so slow? Don’t they have places to be?”
“Apparently not,” adds my sister, watching the cars we pass.
“Now Julia, when you start driving—”
My mind begins to drift away towards our surroundings as my mother lectures my sister. I really hadn’t noticed a big difference between the drivers here and those in the city, though I do feel like there are a lot more minivans out here. The houses are certainly different. So many are perfectly identical, just distinguishable by the number next to the door, or a different colour of marigold in the front garden. I wonder if people who live here ever forget their house number and then can’t find their house.
The sky is a collage of greys, with the lightest being overhead, and the darkest in the distance. I wonder if it’s going to rain, or more likely, sleet. The ground is caked in old slush, all of which is a distasteful tie-dye of greys, browns, and blacks.
“Who’s going to be there?” I ask, noticing that my mother and sister have finished their conversation.
My mother pauses, thinking for a moment.
“I’m not sure, honestly. Your father’s organizing this, and you know how he can be. Definitely the cousins, and your father’s siblings, Grandpa, probably some more of Dad’s family.”
My father is already at the hall; he got a ride in with my uncle earlier in the morning to help set up. We were supposed to join him, but he insisted we stay back and sleep in.
“Are Fiona and Jack already there?” I ask.
My mother shrugs. “Probably, they didn’t have to drive 45 minutes.”
“Lucky them,” I remark.
My sister laughs,“Yeah, I mean that means they have to live here, so I’m not sure how lucky I’d say that is, but y’know, pros and cons.”
Her comment prompts a disciplinary, but playful swat from my mother as we pull off the highway and into the parking lot of the banquet hall.
The building had clearly once been a church; it was the only old-ish looking thing around. Maybe it was the last remains of the since-forgotten farming community that first lived here. A sign in the parking lot read Rosewood Event Venue. The looming steeple and large oak double doors are imposing, almost threatening.
“There’s a lot of cars here,” says my sister.
“Strange, I wouldn’t have expected this many people,” my mother replies, as she steers the car towards the back end of the lot.
“Are they all related to us?” I ask, surveying a moderately sized crowd mulling about outside the hall.
My mother laughs, “No, I don’t think so.”
I open the car door and step onto the damp gravel. The air feels stale, caught in the uncomfortable stage between winter and spring.
“Jesus Christ, the car is filthy,” notes my mother, gazing at the rest of the lot, then back at our hatchback, which in all fairness, is substantially grimier than those next to it.
“Mom, no one’s going to notice,” advises Julia, leading my mother away from our car. “And besides, no one’s even going to know which one is ours.”
I nod in agreement and we walk towards the venue. We pass the gaggle of people outside, and while I had thought that they were simply all too busy greeting each other to go inside, it turns out a majority of them are simply taking a smoke break. I look through the crowd as my mother ushers us past, seeing if I recognize anyone from past family functions, but I can’t seem to. Their faces seem to blur together, distorted by the swirling grey smoke rising from their cigarettes. I wonder for a moment what that tastes like.
The handle of the door is cold, and the door itself is even heavier than it looks. But I pull it open, and we step inside.
The inside is far less impressive than I thought it would be. The front doors lead directly into a musty foyer, its walls plastered carelessly with faded yellow flowery wallpaper. It smells of mothballs and heavy-duty cleaner. There’s a sign that reads:
A Celebration of the Life of Keith Hughes
March 2nd, 1931 - March 1st, 2017
“He died the day before his birthday?” Julia asks.
“Seems so,” replies my mother.
“That’s sad,” I say.
“It is,” says Julia.
“What did Uncle Keith do anyways?” I ask.
“He ran a motel out on the highway,” my mother answers.
None of us really knew my Great Uncle Keith that well. We had met him a few times, but I can’t really pick out any fond memories or treasured moments with him. I scan the photos that line the walls of the foyer; I notice that he seems to be smiling in very few of them.
I become so fixed on the photos, I barely notice the soft tap, tap, tap of high heels on the hardwood behind me.
“Why, hello there!”
The three of us turn away from the photos to see my Aunt Eileen, holding a baby in her arms.
“Oh, hello,” we accidentally say together, in passable unison.
“Oh Eileen, I’m so sorry about Keith,” says my mother. “He was such a wonderful man.”
Aunt Eileen sighs. “Thank you, Linda, but now’s not time to grieve. Now we’re celebrating his life.”
I sometimes have trouble seeing how Aunt Eileen is my father’s sister. She’s nine years older, but her frown lines add to the age gap. Her amber-coloured hair is thin, and damaged from the dye, but it’s arranged neatly to hide that fact.
“Of course,” says my mother, prompting some nervous yet understanding nods from Julia and me. My mother, sensing our discomfort, switches topics to the baby in my aunt’s arms. “And how is Hunter?”
Aunt Eileen smiles and bounces her grandson up and down. My cousin Abigail got married when she was twenty-three, and eight months later, Hunter was born. “Splendid, he’s talking now, you know.”
“Aww!” I exclaim. “When were his first words? What were they?”
My aunt’s smile turns cool. “He said ‘Mama’ to Abigail on David’s birthday, back in January.” She makes direct, authoritative eye contact with my mother. “It was so exciting that almost the whole family could be there for his first words.”
I watch in awe as my mother does not burst into flames, but instead manages to turn her smile to stone. “Well,” she says, “We were so sorry we couldn’t be there.”
“Oh no, no— no trouble at all, we understand.” Aunt Eileen eyes up both me and Julia, as if assessing our value. I feel her gaze fall to my hair, which I recently had cut to just below my ears, and which, from her expression, I can tell she’s not a fan of. She finishes her evaluation, clearly unimpressed. “I really should go give Hunter back to Abigail…you know how new mothers can be!”
The three of us nod as she walks into the main room.
My mother lets out a sigh as soon as she’s out of earshot, and begins murmuring some choice words under her breath.
“I mean, at least she’s not pretending anymore,” says Julia.
I laugh lightly, but my stomach is uneasy.
“God, that woman!” says my mother, exasperated. “She knew we weren’t going to be able to go to that stupid birthday party. Also dear god, I still can’t believe Abigail named him Hunter.”
This year, my cousin Abigail’s husband’s birthday had fallen on the same weekend as Chinese New Year, which we celebrate with my mother’s family every year. We had not been too disappointed about not being able to attend the birthday party.
“Anyway,” continues my mother. “Let’s go find your father.”
We enter another set of double doors, lighter ones this time, and go into a large, open room. It somewhat reminds me of a school gymnasium, not only in size, but it also had that same exhausted atmosphere. Like it was once a much nicer room, but had started to fall by the wayside about twenty years ago, and had continued to deteriorate since then. There are tables and chairs set up around the room, and tables of food lining the walls. There seem to be just as many people in here as there are outside. Dull jazz music acts as a translucent sheet draped over the muted buzz of conversation filling the air.
I see my father near the centre of the room, speaking to some other people.
“Should we go over there?” I ask.
“You wait a moment. Go find somewhere to sit first,” advises my mother, and she makes her way over to him.
Within moments, we’re swarmed by relatives, some of whom I recognize, some I don’t. They comment on how good it is to see us, how tall we are, how big we were the last time they saw us. I force a grin as another one of my aunts makes a comment about missing us at my uncle’s birthday.
Yet, as quickly as the rush of loved ones comes, it passes. After we answer a few questions about school and life, they move on.
Julia and I eye each other expectantly, both of us wanting the other to lead the way. Julia, being the eldest, gives in and trudges towards the nearest table.
At the table are our cousins Jack and Fiona, whom both my sister and I would consider some of our favourite members of our father’s side of the family, though that is not exactly high praise. Despite that, it has become tradition that we stick with them during family functions.
As we take our seats, we discuss pleasantries, new movies, the news, the weather. Slowly, we move towards the topic of school.
“So Fiona, how’s university?”
The mention of that word makes her eyes widen, her pale cheeks turn a deep red. Jack does the same, looking at his sister with a calm expression, put panicked eyes.
“Fine,” she says, after a moment.
Julia and I exchange a dubious glance.
“Oh,” says Julia, “That’s good to hear.”
A dead silence settles in, acting as a fifth member of the table. Each of us looks around the hall, trying to find something else to focus on. I stare at the stage, which was, at one point, clearly where the sermon would have been given. Now there rests a wreath of yellow flowers, and the same commemorative sign that was in foyer.
I notice the jazz music start to fade out, and look to see Aunt Eileen standing at a microphone placed at the corner of the stage.
“Excuse me,” she says, her strident voice echoing through the hall. “If you’ll all please be seated, Keith’s family has a few words they would like to share.”
One by one, the older members of the family, including my father, all go up to the microphone and talk a little about Great Uncle Keith.
Most of their speeches seem to revolve around how important family is, how much Keith loved his family, how accepting he was, and how great a man he was. I wonder about how much of this is true. How much of it is real, and how much is people just being nice because he’s dead. I wonder if he really did love his family, or if he was just pretending, because he was stuck with all of us, and figured we were all he had.
My father steps up to speak, and it’s the same thing, though I notice him smile at Julia and me, and at my mother at another table when he talks about family. I feel strangely more convinced that Keith really loved his family. However, when the next person gets up to talk, I feel less sure again. The repetitiveness of the speeches more hammers in the idea that they all feel obligated to say nice things than it does express everyone’s love for our late uncle.
Eventually, the speeches come to a close, and as soon as Aunt Eileen announces that food will be served shortly, the four of us return to occasional awkward glances as lunch is delivered. Eventually, Jack brings up a new topic, in an effort to steer away from anything uncomfortable, a move which I’ve come to recognize as common- place in my family. We chat, we eat, and everything stays light and happy.
Slowly but surely, the already sleepy event begins to wind down, goodbyes are said, people start leaving. I feel a light tap on my shoulder. I turn and see my mother, who somehow, over the day, has aged just a little bit.
“Come on,” she says. “We’re going.”
Julia and I stand and put on our coats. We say goodbye to our cousins and to a few other relatives as we exit the hall.
“Did Fiona drop out?” asks my sister, the second we leave the venue.
“Yeah,” says my dad. “Did she tell you?”
“No,” says Julia. “I just guessed.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell us?” I ask. “We would’ve found out eventually.”
My mother shrugs. “You know how family can be.”
My family loads ourselves into the dirty car, and my mind doesn’t wander from my mother’s statement.
I wonder, when Fiona dies, if at her memorial we’ll all talk about how much the family loved and accepted her. I wonder if I’m going to grow up and worry about how dirty my car is. I wonder if I’m going to grow up and say, “You know how family can be.”