Rite of Passage
by Kelly Harriger
Frank folded his newspaper and rose from his seat before the train had completely stopped. As he walked the aisle, he looked out onto the platform and saw Alice standing near the edge of a group of people, her hands clenched together, her face drawn, her eyes searching the crowd. He had hoped she would not make a scene, but when he stepped from the train, she rushed toward him and he was embarrassed when she threw her arms around him and began to cry. Frank tried to walk away from the platform, but she stopped and turned to him.
“I’m glad you came, Frank. I really didn’t think you’d come.”
“Of course I came. Why wouldn’t I?”
She pulled away and raised her shoulders in a slight shrug.
“We don’t exactly see a lot of you lately,” she said.
“Well, I’m here now. And please stop crying.” He tried to say it without sounding annoyed, but he failed.
“I’ll stop in a minute. When I’m good and ready.” She smiled lightly and straightened the lapels of his suit. “You look nice. You always look nice.”
“How is mother taking it?”
“She’s holding up,” said Alice. “She’s just being herself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Is she okay or not?”
Alice turned away. “Frank, don’t start that. Please don’t start that now.”
Frank held her at arm’s length and raked his eyes across her. She knew what he was doing and she would not meet his gaze. Her hair was streaked with gray and it frightened him. Her eyes, once blue and electric, were flecked with middle-aged resignation, possibly surrender. Frank held her thin wrists in his hands and felt a tiny bird-like pulse tapping inside. He released her wrists and they fell to her side. Frank put his arms around her and hugged her gently.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m sorry.”
They left the station and walked to the car without speaking. Frank stared across the roof of the car as Alice unlocked the doors. Her movements were nervous and rabbity, and it annoyed Frank although he wasn’t sure why. Inside the car, Alice leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“I’m glad you came,” she said.
“Has Ernie arrived yet?”
“He came last night.”
“Alone?”
“Frannie stayed with the kids. Ernie thought they were too young to come to a funeral.”
“Never too young to start.”
“Frank…”
“All right. I’ll stop.” He held up his hands in surrender.
“I’m glad you came.”
“You already told me that.”
“I know.” She leaned over and kissed him again. “I’m just glad, that’s all.”
They left the station in Hartford and turned towards home. Alice drove, and Frank leaned back against the headrest and rocked his head sideways to look at her. He studied her profile, thin, and nearly elegant, for several minutes before she turned to him.
“Stop that,” she said. “You’re making me nervous.”
“You’re looking thin, Alice.”
“I’ve always been thin. I just wasn’t gray before.”
Frank turned and looked out the window. The clouds were low and gray, and there was only a glowing clump of sky, like dirty cauliflower, where the sun should have been. Wet fields rose through the melting snow.
“Did he die in his sleep?”
“Yes,” said Alice.
“Were you there?”
Alice nodded. “Mother found him in the morning when she woke up. She was sitting at the breakfast table when I came downstairs. She looked very peaceful. She just looked at me and said, ‘Your father’s dead. We need to call the proper people.’”
“That’s it?”
“I know,” said Alice. “It’s not like I ever imagined it would be.”
“Had he been sick? A cough? A cold?”
“No. Nothing. He just didn’t wake up the other day.”
They drove in silence for another ten minutes, both staring straight ahead.
“Well, he picked a hell of a time to die,” said Frank suddenly.
Alice sucked in her breath sharply and faced away from him, looking out the window. Frank placed his hand on her arm, but she would not look at him.
“Are you going to be this way at home?” she asked.
“I certainly hope not.”
“I hope not, too. Mother is going to need you.”
Frank leaned back in his seat and rolled his head toward the window again.
“Has the sun been out since the last time I was here?”
Alice laughed, and her breath swirled out of her.
“Yes, Frank. A couple of times.”
Frank entered the house and walked to the living room. He set his bags down and stood in the center of the room. Little had changed since his childhood. The row of photographs on the mantle had spread with the birth of nieces and nephews, and a coat of paint had been added shortly after his graduation from college. The furniture was covered with the same crocheted spreads, and the two floor lamps were on as they always seemed to be, the perpetual flames that lit the living room like a mausoleum. His mother had always kept them on during the day when Frank was a child, claiming that they gave the room a warmer feeling. And it sure as hell needed it right now, thought Frank.
He looked down the hall to the kitchen, and the bookshelf in the hallway was bathed in a harsh, angled light that fell through the doorway, bringing the rows of books into sharp relief. There was movement in the kitchen, and Frank walked down the hallway.
“Mother?”
“She’s still sleeping right now,” said a voice from the kitchen.
Ernie sat at the kitchen table reading Sports Illustrated and sipping a cup of coffee. He rose and cheerfully held out his hand when Frank entered the room.
“Hey, Frank.” Ernie slapped Frank on the arm as he shook his hand.
“Ern, how have you been?”
“Good, Frank. All things considered.”
“And Frannie? The kids?”
“Good also,” he laughed nervously. “Sprouting up. You know.”
“No, I don’t know. I don’t see them that often. Just how old are they now?”
“Seven, five, four and two.”
“Jesus. They are sprouting up. Why didn’t you bring them?”
Ernie squirmed and his eyes wandered around the room, eventually locking onto something behind Frank. He reached out again and slapped Frank on the shoulder.
“Geez, you’re looking good. You always look good.”
“Cut it out, Ernie. You’re starting to sound like Alice.”
Frank leveled his eyes on Ernie, but his brother would not be pinned down. Ernie walked to the window, and Frank followed him, placing his arm on his brother’s shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
Ernie spun around, his eyes flailing for something solid.
“Sure,” he said.
“Completely?”
“Lay off, Frank. I’m fine. It’s me you’re talking to.”
“I know.” Frank heard a tiny shuffling sound behind him. He and Ernie turned together. Alice stood in the doorway.
“How long have you been there?” asked Frank.
Alice flushed. “Only a little while. I wanted to let you two get caught up on things and finish talking.”
“We’ve talked,” said Ernie.
Alice ignored him and kept her eyes on Frank. She smiled at him before she spoke.
“Mother’s awake now, Frank. She’s getting dressed. She’ll be down in a minute.”
When he first received word of his father’s death, Frank’s first concern was for his mother. Her life had been tightly meshed with her husband’s, and Frank could not imagine how she’d handle her loss, especially since it had been so sudden, and without any warnings. They had spent fifty years together, and Frank had never detected any weaknesses in their bond. He actually had wished a few times that he could detect some sign of a fracture in their relationship, if only as a justification for his own solitary life.
The episodes of his own existence were strung together by a piercing loneliness that ran through his life like cold piano wire. He often wondered if his loneliness was something he’d brought upon himself, or if it was a condition he’d been born with, something that had followed him around since birth. All he knew for certain was that he’d grown comfortable with it and that if he let it go, the fear would rise in him and he was uncomfortable with fear. The loneliness had been around for so long that he now thought of it as a friend and protector because it kept the fear at bay, and that seemed like a small price to pay for basic survival.
He had always tried to unravel the secret of his parent’s marriage and their strong bond, but it had always evaded him. On the surface, their marriage appeared innocent, innocuous, and effortless, but it also seemed devoid of any exquisite joy or tempestuous battles. Maybe that was their secret, that they’d carved out a safe haven in the middle, but he didn’t want to believe it. There had to be something else he was missing, and he worried that he’d be searching for it all of his life. His thoughts returned to his mother, who was alone now, and he knew he was not prepared to see her.
His mother appeared in the doorway, looking composed and tranquil, and Frank could detect no stray emotions. He stood in the dim light of the hallway and studied her face as she walked toward him. The wrinkles around her mouth and eyes casted soft shadows and her skin held a sheen like rumpled silk. She reached Frank and put her arms around him. He returned her embrace and looked over her shoulder to see Alice and Ernie watching from the doorway. He glared at them until they retreated to the kitchen.
“It’s good to see you again,” said his mother without raising her head from his chest. “It’s been more than a year, if I recall. I wish you could have seen your father once more.”
Without answering her, he leaned back and looked into her eyes. They were vacuous. She had not been crying. She smiled at him and he was disturbed because it was a pleasant smile, a how-do-you-do smile meant for a stranger. He saw in her composure a vast detachment. He held her at arm’s length, stunned to realize that he was holding a shell, a physically-functioning body without a person inside. He kissed her on the forehead as a lunar quiet settled in the hallway. Her arms fell to her side and she leaned onto him. He felt warm liquid collecting in his right shoe and he stepped back to see a puddle of liquid forming at his mother’s slippers. He held her upright until he was certain she was standing on her own, and slowly backed away. She stood where he left her, still smiling, head cocked slightly, the backlight from the window circumscribing her body and cutting it away from him. Frank slowly backed into the kitchen. Ernie was back at the table thumbing through his magazine.
“Where’s Alice?” Frank hissed under his breath. “Where the fuck is Alice?”
Ernie shrugged, but pointed to the living room.
“Alice?” Frank walked through the doorway to the living room and found her just inside, standing near the fireplace, her hands held together, her fingers interlocked.
“How long has she been like this?” he asked her.
“Like what?”
“Like what? Like what? Fuck, Alice. She just pissed herself and she’s still standing there smiling. Is that what you mean by ‘just being herself’? I don’t see her ‘just being herself’.”
“Frank…”
“Don’t Frank me. Fuck, Alice. She just isn’t there.”
“What did you expect?” Alice asked. “Just what did you expect?”
“I don’t really know,” said Frank. He realized he was close to losing control, and he took a slow breath and paused. “Not this, though. I didn’t know what to expect. I guess I just wanted her to be strong. Instead I get the feeling she’s stepped out the back door and may not be coming back.”
“She’ll be okay,” said Alice, and she looked sure of it.
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I know Mother.”
“And I don’t?”
“You don’t live here. I do. She’ll be okay.”
“I see. So now you’re the expert. The resident expert. Can I help it if I have a job and a life that keeps me away from here?”
“Your brother has a job and a life, and a family too, I might add. He manages to get home every month.” She glared at him across the room. “You’re running out of excuses, Frank.”
“I can’t live my life for them. I have my own life.”
“We’re the only family you have, Frank.”
Frank didn’t answer, and Alice continued.
“You selfish son-of-a-bitch. I can’t believe how selfish you are. Does Dad’s death cramp your style?”
Frank was stunned. Alice had never spoken to him like this before. He stepped toward her.
“What’s the matter with you?” she whispered. She said it again, but so quietly that Frank had to read the words from her lips as she backed from the room.
Frank left the house through the kitchen and did not take his coat. He walked slowly through the back yard, looking down at his feet and watching the snow on his shoes melt into tiny beads. The sky was a seamless gray, but growing darker now. In the far corner of the yard, still sitting on cement blocks, was his first car, a late 1950s Chevrolet he had bought for one hundred dollars during his first summer out of high school. It had never run. His father helped him tow it home and block it up where it now sat. Fifteen years had passed since Frank had abandoned the project. It was covered with a canvas tarp, and his father had kept it relatively clean and rust-free over the years in the hopes of seeing the project completed someday.
Throughout his college years, Frank had collected parts for it, and spent his weekends with his father, toying with the car, replacing axles, brake drums, spark plugs and cables. The engine had been bad when he bought it, and Frank and his father had decided to rebuild it themselves rather than pay for a rebuilt engine. It was an event still pending, and now lost forever.
Frank moved to Boston after finishing college, but the car remained. After a few years away, Frank told his father to just tow it away, or sell it to some high school kid who was still big on dreams and low on common sense. But his father kept it, insisting that it would be worth something someday. Frank lifted the tarp over the grillwork and realized his father had been right. He was amazed how clean his father had kept the car. He walked to the driver’s side, threw the tarp onto the roof, and climbed into the driver’s seat.
The seat covering was brittle and covered with a thin film of dust. As Frank sat, the seam across the front of the seat separated and lay open like a clean incision. He put his hands on the wheel and released his breath against the windshield. The windshield fogged to the point where he could no longer see through it, and he released the wheel and leaned back in the seat, shivering. He closed his eyes, pressed the accelerator to the floor, and hurtled away from his youth.
He was still in the same position two hours later when the sky darkened and he heard a tapping on the window. Alice held up his coat.
“Do you want this?”
Frank nodded yes and opened the door. Alice stared at him without showing emotion.
“Are you all right?”
He nodded again. Alice hesitated before speaking.
“May I join you?”
“No,” he said, and was instantly filled with sorrow and regret. He closed the door anyway.
He watched her through the window. She stood shivering, her arms clasped across her chest. She reached out and tapped on the window again. Frank rolled it down.
“Dinner’s ready, Frank. Please come in.”
Followed by his family, Frank entered the funeral home shortly before eight. The parlor was filled with the children of cousins, children whose names he vaguely recalled. Several of his aunts broke away from their families and drifted toward Alice and his mother. He and Ernie were greeted by their uncles with low nods and clipped smiles that showed no teeth. They all shook his hand warmly and asked how he’d been lately. Out of habit, Frank tried to detect sarcasm in their voices but realized they were incapable of any, and he was ashamed of himself for thinking there might be. Their lack of guile had always amazed him. They were good people.
His own life was firmly grounded in cynicism since he could remember, and he grew up thinking he’d been given the edge he needed to escape his little town. He had no idea where it had come from, as neither of his parents had been cynical by nature. And yet the thought of reconsidering his cynicism hit him hard in the gut, and he took a deep breath. His relatives surrounded him and he looked into their faces. He saw their pain and resignation around death, but no surprise, no shock, no fear of death. He realized that they were better people than he was, and he suddenly felt like he could not breathe.
Frank was filled with a fear of death. He had not dealt with death on an intimate level since he was a teenager, when a friend had been killed in a car accident. After he left town for college, his only dealings with death were remote, a few lines in a letter from home, a brief phone call from his parents, a clipping from a local newspaper, but nothing more. He wanted it that way, and his parents knew better than to ask if he was coming home for a funeral. His grandparents had both died while he was in high school, and then a few distant relatives had drifted away while he was in college, and Frank let them fade from his memory. Death had become a quiet shadow lurking in his distant future, something to be dealt with at a later time, and it had never frightened him until now.
He looked into the viewing room and saw the casket surrounded by flowers. His father’s profile rose above the edge of the casket, and Frank looked away as he walked toward it. He stopped in front of the casket and looked down on his father. He noticed how tightly the skin was drawn across his father’s face. The cheekbones were more pronounced and his jaw was thrust skyward. Frank laid his right hand upon his father’s chest and pressed down slightly, not knowing why he did it, or what to expect. He released the pressure and let his hand rest softly on his father’s suit. On the edge of his periphery, he saw Ernie rocking back and forth, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. He heard Alice crying softly behind him. He kept his open hand upon his father’s chest and closed his eyes.
Three years earlier he had taken his parents to the Cape for a week. He recalled that his mother had taken her daily routines with her, but moved through the day with a buoyancy that she had never displayed at home. His father had been remote but very happy, leaving the cottage late in the afternoon and disappearing up the beach until sunset, walking for hours alone. Frank had taken a pile of novels to read, and spent most of his time on the beach, reading for hours, catnapping when the urge came over him, and returning hazily to his reading. They went with no plans to do anything in particular except relax, unwind, and eat their meals together. They all chatted quietly and politely when they ate, and Frank could tell that they were at peace and happy, and that the break from their routine was good for them.
On the last evening of the trip Frank sat on the front porch and watched his father return. He rose from his chair on the porch and walked out to meet him. His father stopped when he approached and then smiled and motioned for Frank to sit near the edge of a sand dune. He made a grand gesture as if he’d just offered Frank the best seat in the house. Frank looked around and thought that maybe it was. They sat in the sand, ten feet apart, their gaze parallel, and stared out to sea. Frank caught a movement at the corner of his eye and turned to find his father staring at him.
“Are you okay?” asked Frank. It struck him as an odd question to ask.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly.” In fact, he had no idea what he meant.
His father smiled. “I didn’t think you did, but I’m fine. How about you?”
“I’m happy right now, but I’m not usually. I don’t know why that is.”
“You’re chasing the wrong things,” said his father.
“I’m working very hard. I’m socking away a lot, Dad. I’m doing everything you taught me to do in life to be successful. I’m just not happy.”
“And you’re surprised by this?” His father looked amused.
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m not. You’re chasing the wrong things. I taught you how to work hard. There’s no secret there. I just never taught you how to choose what should be important to you. I always hoped you’d figure that out for yourself. I guess you haven’t yet. You said you’re happy right now, though. Do you know why?”
Frank thought about it for a moment. “No, I don’t.”
“Figure out why,” said his father. “I could tell you but you’d never buy it. The answer is too simple and too obvious, so it goes undiscovered by most people, who are looking for some astounding revelation. But I know you’ll figure it out. By the way, thanks for the vacation. Your mother and I really, truly appreciate it very much.”
Frank looked into his father’s eyes and found himself staring into a face he hoped would be his own someday. It was the face of a man at peace, a man in love, a man who’d discovered the answers to his questions, and had learned to live with those answers. He looked into his father’s face and saw no signs of surrender, no anger, no weakness, and across the span of a generation, the face smiled back at him through the frail gauze of time.
Frank lifted his hand from his father’s chest and opened his eyes. What lay before him was cold and permanent and beyond his recall. Frank felt pressed by the burden of succession, and he was not ready. He leaned toward his father and waited for a reprieve, but his father—lips firm, eyes tight—confirmed that there would be none.
Frank stepped away. “Goodbye,” he whispered. “Goodbye, Pops. Goodbye.”
Frank stood on the front porch and waited as Alice backed the car from the garage. He buried his hands in his coat pockets and stared at the sky. It had not changed. The past three days had offered up no blazing lessons in life, offered no real peace, offered no real explanations. Frank was almost too exhausted to care. He realized that the only way around grief is through the middle of it, a step at a time. He loved his family. He knew for certain now, and was surprised to realize he’d had doubts. He knew not to worry about Alice, fluttering through her life, appearing fragile, but far more resilient than he’d ever dreamed possible. He worried a little about Ernie, who brushed off pain and suffering, never really dealing with it until it caught up to him and forced his hand. His brother hugged the boundaries of his existence, dragged along by Time and God and other forces beyond his control, a slightly broken and tragic man, but one who appeared to be a survivor nonetheless. He worried most of all about his mother, whom he suspected had shifted latitudes on them all and might just remain there for the sake of survival despite Alice’s assurances to the contrary. He appraised his own life calmly and without emotion and knew some adjustments were in order. The realization came as no surprise to him. He watched his breath fade into the air and knew he’d be coming home more often.
Alice parked in front of the house and rolled down the window. She smiled cheerfully and waved to him from the car.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” said Frank, as he stepped from the porch to the wet earth. “More or less.”