She inches forward ever so slightly as she interrupts me, her finger pointed now toward my face. Her composure drains out of her body, the poise flees from her face. “Listen to me. I don’t know you and I don’t trust you. But my son’s body will be cremated, Elsie. Just like his father’s and like his grandparents’. And the next time you get the idea to try to tell me what to do about my own son, you might want to think twice.”
“You gave this to me to do, Susan! You couldn’t deal with it yourself and you pushed it onto me! First you try to stop me from even getting his wallet and keys, keys that are to my own home, by the way, and then you suddenly turn and push all of this off on me. And then, when I try to do it, you try to control it from behind the scenes. You haven’t even left Los Angeles. You don’t need to stay in this hotel, Susan. You can drive back to Orange County and be there by dinner. Why are you even still here?” I don’t give her a chance to answer. “You want to torture yourself because Ben didn’t tell you he got married? Then do it! I don’t care! But don’t keep going back and forth like this. I can’t take it.”
“I really don’t care what you can take, Elsie,” Susan says. “Believe it or not, I don’t much care.”
I try to remind myself that this is a woman in pain. This is a woman that has lost the last family member she had.
“Susan, you can try to deny it all you want. You can think I’m a crazy lunatic who is lying to you. You can cling to the idea that your son would never do anything without you, but that doesn’t stop the fact that I did marry him and he did not want to be cremated. Don’t have his body burned because you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Elsie. I simply—”
Now it’s my turn to cut her off. “Yes, you do, Susan. You hate me because I’m the only one left to hate. If you thought you were doing a good job of hiding that, you’re wrong.”
She stares at me and I stare right back at her. I don’t know what has given me the courage to be honest. I’m not a person inclined to stare anyone else down. Nevertheless, I hold her gaze, my lips pursed and tight, my brows weighted down on my face. Maybe she thinks I’m going to turn and walk away. I don’t know. It takes so long for her to speak that the break in the silence is almost startling.
“Even if everything is as you say it is,” she says. “Even if you two were married, and the marriage certificate is on its way, and you were the love of his life—”
“I was,” I interrupt her.
She barely listens. “Even so, how long were you married to him, Elsie? Two weeks?” I work hard to breathe in and then breathe out. I can feel the lump in my throat rising. I can feel the blood in my brain beating. She continues. “I hardly think two weeks proves anything,” she says.
I think about turning around and just leaving her there. That’s what she wants. But I don’t do it. “You wanna know something else about your son? He would be livid, to see what you’re doing. Heartbroken and positively livid.”
I leave her hotel room without saying good-bye. As I walk out the door, I look behind me to see a dirt stain the size of my shoe on her pristine white carpet.
Two hours later, Mr. Pavlik calls to tell me Susan has taken over burial plans.
“Burial plans?” I ask, not sure if he is mistaken.
There is a pause, and then he confirms. “Burial plans.”
I wish it felt like a victory but it doesn’t. “So what do I need to do?” I ask.
He clears his throat and his voice becomes tight. “Uh,” he says. “I don’t believe anything else is required of you, Elsie. I have Mrs. Ross here and she has decided to take care of the rest.”
I don’t know how I feel about this. Except tired. I feel tired.
“Okay,” I say to him. “Thank you.” I hang up the phone and set it down on the dining room table.
“Susan kicked me out of the funeral planning,” I tell Ana. “But she’s having him buried. Not cremated.”
Ana looks at me, unsure of how to react. “Is that good or bad?”
“Good?” I say. “It’s good.” It is good. His body is safe. I did my job. Why am I so sad? I didn’t want to pick out a casket. I didn’t want to choose flowers. And yet, I have lost something. I have lost a part of him.
I call Mr. Pavlik right back.
“It’s Elsie,” I say when he answers. “I want to speak.”