FICTION

The Inheritance

A Short Story by Susan Ioannou

Grandma died in early December. Winter lay heavy that year. The ground froze by the 5th, and the undertaker said no burial. Grandma must wait in a drawer until spring.

I was young. Later, Mother told me these things, after Father kept me home from the funeral. He said looking at Grandma's dead face would upset me. And whenever we waited for Mother at funeral parlours, the thick-sweet smell of carnations turned my stomach.

Besides, I wanted to imagine Grandma my own way: her smile wide as sunshine, a spray of forget-me-nots stuck in loose strands of bunwound hair, and, as she bent toward me, the barn and spring orchard spread out grey-green behind. No weeping, no crimson drapes, no carpet plush under-foot. No hushed whispers, or hands grasped, or downcast eyes. She ought to be dead softly, a soul hovering in sunlight; not some stranger rouged and powdered in the mortician's casket; not the emptiness, the finality, the sense of being robbed. With me, Grandma would be kept safe, despite having slipped into the upper air like a good spirit of the Golden Age.

On the day of the funeral Mother told everyone I was home, sick. I kissed her good-bye. She wore her mink cape and black dress. Her hair was neatly waved, and her lipstick leapt crimson beneath powdered cheeks... A distant look misted her eyes. "Have fun, Mum." I had to say that. Did she understand? She didn't hit me. Wordless, she turned her back, and fumbled for the train ticket in her purse.

At school I worked long division problems all day, right through my favourite paper-bag lunch.

When Mother got back she was quiet. She slumped in the dim living room still in her mink cape, sipping coffee till after midnight When I crept in, she slid one arm round my waist. It was a good funeral, she nodded. They set the coffin on wooden chairs in the front room, the way Grandma wanted. No funeral parlour. Yes, lots of flowers; she was surprised how many flowers. No, more Chrysanthemums than carnations. And so many people. The front room hadn't bulged that full since the 80th birthday party. Everyone came: the Weitzels, the Leiskaus, the Merklinger boys, and cousins and farm neighbours she hadn't seen in ten years. Old Mrs. Wetlaufer died in September, and Aunt Leve moved into The Willows last June. Yes, the minister talked a long time, and told what a fine woman Grandma was: her help to the church in younger years, her Christian courage at the untimely losses of husband and son. He read some sonorous lines from the Bible, Mother forgot which ones, and said a prayer for Grandma to find joy with the Lord. Then the hearse took Grandma away, and Aunt Ruby stayed on to supervise until Thursday. Uncle Hubert grumbled she wanted first grabs at Grandma's belongings.

In April the ground thawed. Aunt Ruby, of course, took care of everything. Grandma looked well preserved in her drawer, she said, just a little rouge dusted off one cheek. Grandma had bought a steel case to enclose her coffin - waterproof, wormproof, just like her husband's. Two men from town were hired to sink her next to Grandpa and Uncle Arthur in the Lutheran family plot. Just outside the cemetery gates, Aunt Ruby said, three new houses were built that spring, and Johnny Merklinger had moved his mother, Grandma's best friend, into one.