Eulogy

by Diana C. Caporaso

They want me to write a eulogy for him. Him, who single-handedly ended my childhood when I was only seven-years-old. They want me to stand up in a church and proclaim what a sweet, kind young man he was. I’m not even sure if I belong in a church anymore.

“Why are you being so difficult?” my mother asks me in her usual condescending tone. “You’re the one who knew him best, and you know how much it would mean to grandma. This is a really hard time for all of us.”

“A hard time? I’m glad the little fucker is dead,” I say, knowing how much my mother hates it when I swear. Sure enough, a shocked sounding gasp escapes from her throat.

“Caitlin Marie!” she scolds. Uh-oh, she called me by my first and middle name. I’m in trouble. “Look, I don’t understand why you’ve always been such a nasty, sullen child, but you need to grow up.”

Oh, but mother, don’t you understand? My problem is that I grew up too fast, and all thanks to good old Uncle Brody. And now he’s dead and no one will even tell me how he died and they still expect me to speak at the funeral.

Suddenly something inside me clicks. “Okay, mother,” I say, much to her surprise. “I’ll do it. No problem.” Because the more I think about it, I have a lot to say about him after all.

xxx

You see, my mother is wrong about me. I wasn’t ALWAYS a nasty child. Up until the age of seven, I was really quite sweet. Every single day I would make my mommy put my hair into two high pigtails because I truly believed pigtails were the epitome of cuteness.

That was also the year that my parents decided that they’d much rather go on summer vacation without their only daughter. So they sent me to stay at my grandmother’s farm the day after school let out.

My mother warned me about Brody only at the last second. He was my uncle, and my grandmother had had him so late in life that he was only ten years older than me. “Don’t bother him,” she instructed. “He won’t be interested in playing with you. We think he’s a little slow in the head, he won’t talk to anybody and he can hardly read over a second grade reading level.”

She said all of this instead of goodbye.

Grammie was nice but she mostly slept all day or watched boring soap operas, so I was really kind of glad when Brody seemed to take an interest in me after all.

“Hey, little sister,” he said to me on my first morning on the farm. I was sitting on the overgrown front lawn trying to make a daisy chain the way my friend back home had taught me.

I thought he was being silly. I laughed. “I’m not your little sister.”

“Why not?” he asked. “I’m closer in age to you than I am my real sister.”

I kind of liked the idea of being someone’s little sister. Being an only child was lonely, and this way I’d always have someone around to protect me. It never occurred to me that maybe Brody was the one I needed protection from.

“My mommy said you didn’t talk,” I told him. Because before any of this happened, I was always brutally honest.

“That’s not true,” he told me. “I’m just not one to waste words.” He looked at the string of flowers in my hands. “That’s really pretty. You want me to show you around the farm when you’re done?”

“Okay,” I agreed. In a flash, I tied the daisy chain around my neck. “Okay. All done. Let’s go.”

The farm was pretty, but the only part I really remember is when he showed me the old well that was behind the barn. “I love this well,” Brody told me. “It’s so simple and beautiful at the same time. Look how the bricks are so perfectly stacked with such precision. You know, before humans invented running water, wells were very important. Now they’re just forgotten because they’re not good enough anymore.”

“I read a storybook once where a girl threw a penny into a well and made a wish,” I told him.

“Well, I don’t believe in wishes,” Brody responded, staring deep into the well. “Now, how deep do you think that goes?”

I carefully went on my tip toes and looked down, down. It went so far it made me feel kind of dizzy. “I don’t know,” I said truthfully.

“It goes a lot deeper than you think,” Brody informed me. “Remember that.”

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget.

xxx

That night I was almost sleeping underneath the giant pink quilt in Grammie’s guest room. When I first heard the door open I wasn’t sure if it was part of a dream or not.

“Brody?” I mumbled, my voice thick with sleep. I squinted my eyes to make sure.

“Shhh,” he said, touching his finger to my lips. “Be quiet. Don’t say anything.”

“What-” I said, starting to sit up, but he pushed me back down with just two fingers, that’s how weak I was. He brought his face really close to mine and started to whisper the words that I still hear in my dreams sometimes.

“If you don’t let me touch you, I’ll throw you down the well,” he hissed. He covered my mouth with one hand and started to pull the quilt down with the other. “And I don’t think any wishes come true when girls are thrown into wells.”

And that was the night my childhood ended.

xxx

He started coming every night after that. He said if I told Grammie, he’d have to throw her down the well too, and it would be all my fault and my mother would hate me.

Some nights he’d search me all over as if he was looking for something he could never find. Other nights he’d kiss every inch of me as if he had this extreme hunger that only the salt of my skin would satisfy. And the whole time I’d just lay there wishing for it to be over already, but pretty soon I didn’t believe in wishes anymore, either.

“You know,” he said one night near the end of the summer, “If you tried, you might like it.”

But I didn’t want to try. And during the day I stamped out all the daisies on the front lawn until they were wilted and dead.

xxx

When my parents picked me up at the end of the summer, stuffing my little pink suitcase into the trunk of the brand new Mercedes they had splurged on, I didn’t tell them anything. I think part of me hated them the most for leaving me in the hell I had been in all summer while they tanned on beaches and spent their money so that they could feel alive.

“Aw, honey,” Mom said to me as she buttoned up my jacket. “Your hair’s a complete mess. You want me to fix it for you?”

It became completely apparent to me, even at the age of seven, that my mother would never be able to fix anything for me. And to ensure that she would never pull my hair into pigtails again, I took my pink safety scissors and cut it all off.

Brody had said he loved me when he said goodbye.

xxx

And this was the guy that my mother wants me to give a eulogy for, saying he was sweet and caring and how he didn’t waste words.

My hair is still short to this day… too short for pigtails at least. I’m in the bathroom of the church in a little black dress, staring in the mirror and tugging at a strand of hair so hard I almost pull it out.

Mom had me practice my eulogy in front of her before, and I gave her a fake one using all the words I knew she wanted to hear. I had the real one in my head, memorized and ready to go, and now I only prayed I had the guts to go through with it.

She had tried to send me back to Grammie’s the next summer you know. But I had demanded summer camp or nothing. Even with the lumpy beds and killer bugs and the cabin mates who snored, I slept well every night.

I think about this and gather up all my courage again when I hear my mother knock on the door. “Caitlin! C’mon, we’re about to start!”

The service begins as any normal funeral would. Closed casket, of course. It was closed casket for the wake as well. The grownups had simply shaken their heads and mumbled, “Tragic… so tragic.”

The priest looks so kind and holy in his white vestments that I almost feel guilty that I’ll be saying such horrible things in his presence. After the readings he welcomes me to the front of the church.

I face the congregation. Grammie’s eyes are so red that it almost kills me. I look away.

“Brody was my uncle,” I announce. Okay, that was the part they already knew. Here comes the fun part. I pause for what seems like an hour. They probably think I’m too choked up to say anything. But then, finally, I speak.

“He was also a sick pervert who molested me every night the summer I was seven. He-”

You can’t hear anything else I say over the roar of the crowed. My mother shrieks and instantly pulls me off the altar. Her hand is so tight around my arm it’s cutting off circulation. She pulls me out of the church so she can start screaming at me away from everyone.

“How dare you, how dare you, how dare you?” she asks three times as if once isn’t enough. “Are you completely out of your mind? How dare you… on a day like this… in front of his mother!!! It’s bad enough you have these sick little fantasies, but then to share them in front of everyone in such a horrifying manner… Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, where did I go wrong with you?”

“This is why I never told you in the first place,” I muttered. She didn’t hear me.

“And if he was so terrible to you,” my mother continued, “why did he care so much to leave a goodbye note only to you?”

“What?” I breathe, and this time I don’t even intend my voice to come out as quietly as it does.

“It says on the envelope not to give you this until after the funeral,” she says, searching through her pocketbook. “But this funeral is over for you.” She shoves the wrinkled envelope into my hands. “Now, you are to sit outside here until the service is over. You got that?”

I can barely even nod my head. The envelope feels toxic in my hands. Mom goes to console Grammie and I collapse down onto the church steps.

I should just burn it, really. Not even give him the satisfaction of my reading it. But curiosity is a strange and powerful thing. I tear open the envelope and allow the letter to fall into my palm.

Hey, little sister. Well, I’m not going to say I’m sorry because I’m not one to waste words and I know that you’ll never forgive me and you should never forgive me. What I did to you was extremely fucked up and lately all I can think about is how fucked up it is. The sad thing is you were the only person I ever really loved… your innocence and purity were so beautiful I couldn’t keep myself away. But now I realize that the moment I touched you I ruined the innocence, sucked it out of you like Lennie squeezed the life out of the things he loved in Of Mice and Men. Now I only wish I could undo the things I’ve done to you… but you already know that I don’t believe in wishes. So I’m killing myself in the most fitting way possible. Guess I’m about to find out how deep that well really is.

For some reason after I read the letter all I can think about is how my mother told me that he couldn’t read. And all the anger I had welled up inside me comes up to the surface in the form of hot saltwater tears.