All They Left Behind
written by: Kevin Barney
A few weeks after I turned 28, my older sister called me. Our parents had been killed in a car crash. They had lived in Wayland’s Crossing. I was a struggling artist in Baltimore while my sister was in Seattle with a 3-year-old named Oscar and another on the way. Wayland’s Crossing was a 3-hour drive for me, and I didn’t have anyone except a hyperactive, drooling 50-pound mutt and a lethargic girlfriend. I ditched the less interesting of the pair and drove to Wayland’s Crossing with Saliva-dor Dali. I’m a huge fan of Dali, and with my pup having those overactive drooling glands, the name was perfect.
We arrived at the house I grew up in, and I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and grief. Saliva-dor was overwhelmed with the long hallways and the massive yard. Being a city dog, she didn’t have many opportunities to run at top speed in a straight line. She slept well those first few nights there. I did not.
I found a bag of cat food and two empty dishes on the kitchen floor. I didn’t know my parents had cat(s). I didn’t know where the cat(s) was(were).
Four bedrooms, an attic, and a garage. All full. My dad was a writer juggling multiple projects. My mother was a surrealist. Mostly painting, but she also dabbled in writing and music. There were books, canvases (empty, half-filled, filled), magazines, musical instruments (both store-bought and homemade), jars of stuff (ranging from paint to perhaps marmalade), and hundreds of knickknacks. My mom loved small metallic sculptures of insects. Just like real insects, they were everywhere.
I cleaned out the fridge.
On my second day there, I sat on a wooden crate, and the top gave out. I limped up the street to Dr. Armstrong’s house, my childhood doctor who worked out of his basement.
Thankfully, he had not retired, at least not fully. We both had a good laugh about the metal cricket that was currently embedded in my left butt cheek. A tetanus shot, some fresh hot coffee, a lot of talk about grief, and some catching up exhausted the rest of the afternoon. His wife had passed away a few years earlier. He said he was more wistful than anything because they had a good, full life.
I showed him the scar on the palm of my hand. Nine-year-old me was running through the woods, when I tripped and landed on a broken bottle. He had stitched me up. He traced the path of it with his finger, which caused me to collapse in tears.
***
I talked to my sister daily. She asked me about the house. About me. I wandered up and down the hallways as we talked. What kind of memorial service should we have? What would they have wanted?
I was saddened that my new nephew would never meet his grandparents. I had kept putting off a trip with Saliva-dor. Now my parents would never meet my dog. That hurt too.
I went through their mail. How does one stop junk mail for dead people?
I ordered a couple books on grief from Amazon. When they arrived, I unpacked them and set them on the dining room table where they stayed until Saliva-dor mistook them for a chew toy.
The third night I was sitting on the porch talking to my sister. Cold beer in hand, snoring dog at my feet. I noticed the McCafferty place was boarded up. I wondered if she had passed away. I asked my sister. She didn’t know.
The wifi was off in their house. It took me two hours and four beers to find the router. My mom had built a special box for it so that it blended into her studio space. I turned it back on.
I found a painting that I had done in second grade. I don’t remember doing it, but I recognized the painting style as mine. I wondered why my mom had kept that one.
I found a load in the washing machine. It was starting to mildew, so I turned the machine on.
It was all a bit much for me.
My mom’s cell phone rang. I stared at it through the plastic bag that the medical examiner had put it in, along with all her other effects. I didn’t know who Alberto was. There was a similar bag for my dad.
I walked over to the McCafferty place and knocked on the front door. The small stained-glass panels on each side of the door had been painted over with black paint from the inside. I touched the glass, marveling at the muted color.
The door opened. Mrs. McCafferty squinted at me. “You’re home?”
“I had to. How are you?”
“Why?”
Shit. She didn’t know. “My parents are …were … they passed away last week.”
Her eyes widened, then darted back and forth across her front yard. “Was it the people that crawled in through the windows?” I shook my head no, not understanding what she was talking about. “I’m so sorry.” She grabbed me in a fierce hug, sobbing into my shirt. A few deep breaths and she let me go. “I liked them,” she said as she closed the door on me.
Something clicked for me. Between the McCafferty place being boarded up and the hours of pacing the hallways, something clicked. I called my sister, told her about my memorial idea, which confused her. Her confusion helped me flesh out the idea to the point of viability for me and understanding for her. She eventually liked the idea. So, we picked a date – which would give me time to set everything up and give her time to pop out my new nephew.
I started.
I took pictures of all the bedrooms. I blacked out the windows on the second floor. I installed proper lighting (red safelights) in the bedrooms. I bought some ULF (ultra large format) film, framed and hung them on the bedroom walls. I printed out some pictures of my parents.
Three weeks into this process, I got a call from my brother-in-law. Felix was early. He and his mom were doing well. I told him that I thought Felix was an old man’s name and we laughed. We set a memorial date.
My sister’s family arrived. I took Oscar, my three-year-old nephew, upstairs into one of the bedrooms.
There was a picture of my parents behind us. In front of us was an unexposed piece of film in a frame. I explained to him what the idea was – the bedroom was a camera. I would turn on the shutter (the overhead light) and the image on the film would be a combination of my parents, him, and I. He nodded like he understood, but I think he was just in an agreeable mood because he was holding a cookie.
We took the picture. I developed the photo and showed it to him. “Shuttered,” he said. He reached out and wiggled his fingers. I handed him the photo. He stared at it for a bit, seeing my parents behind us in the image. He touched their faces. “Lolly. Pop-pop.” My idea was going to work. Our neighbors and friends could come, reminisce, and get one last photo with my parents. Felix and Saliva-dor would get their first photos with them.
My heart was full. With tears in my eyes, I smiled.
We were going to be okay.
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