Maria’s parents died in the fall. One within several hours of the other, because Maria’s mother, being strong-willed, had no intention of living without the company of her husband. Maria’s mother was named Annie, after Annie Oakley. She would tell this to acquaintances. Her father was named Harold, after his father. He was called Red for short.

The day after Maria learned of the deaths, she got in her car and drove several hundred miles to Massachusetts, to see her family, and to view the bodies. After the wake, several people met in the house of Maria’s parents, her childhood home. Those who attended included her brother John, her father’s close friend, Edwin, and his wife, Annette, the three women from her mother’s bible study circle, an uncle from her father’s side of the family, and an aunt from her mother’s side.

There was some debate about the funeral arrangements; John insisted that the family put on a joint funeral. The plans for the funeral, organized by John, were already in motion, but the others had protested. John asserted that his mother and father “would have liked it that way,” while Red’s brother and Annie’s sister argued passionately against a “double funeral.” They said the words “double funeral” with disdain, as if John were comparing the funeral ceremony to a type of Oreo, or a cheeseburger. But, between the family members, this was quiet, almost reverent argument, out of some apparent respect for the dead. Maria would have no part in it; she sat and sipped on a glass of water in the far corner of the den, petting her dead father’s Siamese cat.

She was irritated that they were debating the circumstances of the funeral so seriously. John argued deliberately, quoting his mother often with raised eyebrows, appealing to logic and emotion with equal fervor. He was an intelligent man, Maria thought, and he knew how to please a crowd. But he was not pleasing this crowd. The others spoke in a near whisper about how Annie and Red needed to be considered separately: that they had lived separate lives.

But Maria could not pay attention to this talk, so instead, she regarded the room. The den was painted an ostentatious red color, so red that she could barely tell where the furniture cast shadows on the wall. She thought the color ridiculous. The furniture was the same plain brown furniture that she’d sat on as a child. The fireplace was brick, and stained black with creosote, but it hadn’t been used for a while. In his old age, her father hadn’t been well enough to carry firewood in from the yard, and his stacked logs were surely rotting into one another, by now a pile of earthy mulch and worms. Her mother had hung framed photographs in neat rows: many of her brother’s family, Maria’s nieces and nephews, and one photograph of Maria’s own children, whom Maria had left at home with her husband, a photo of Red standing in front of a bowling lane with a skyscraper of a trophy, in black and white. He looked young and virile, probably twenty. Maybe sixteen?

The family was still talking while she daydreamed, and Maria was suddenly struck by a particularly offensive comment.

“John, the timing of their deaths shouldn’t be looked on as a convenience,” her uncle was saying.

“I never, ever said that,” John said. Maria suddenly felt compelled to defuse the situation.

“Mom told me she wanted the ceremony for both of them,” she said. This was a lie; she had not spoken with her mother about the funeral arrangements at all. Everyone looked shocked and surprised that Maria had broken her silence.

“Together?” asked Edwin, while eyeing his dead friend’s stash of alcohol on the mantle of the fireplace.

“Yes.”

“When did she tell you this?”

“On the phone, from the hospital. She said he wanted it, too.”

“She did talk with Maria,” John said. “Why didn’t you speak up earlier?”

“I was thinking, I guess. Sorry.”

The family nodded, almost ashamed that they had disagreed. John gave Maria a look. She knew that John could tell when she was lying, but she also knew that he wouldn’t call her on it, mostly because he was glad to be done arguing.

Edwin stood up. “Well, I guess that’s what they wanted, then.” He went to the mantle and took a decanter and filled a glass with an inch of whiskey.

“Edwin!” Annette said. She was gray and thin; her eyes were full of weary disapproval, all for her husband.

“What? The old bastard wouldn’t care, even if he was here. Do you think they had ice cubes?” He marched to the kitchen.

“Maria and I will arrange the funeral for Saturday,” John said. He looked at Maria, and Maria smiled back in agreement.

“Excuse me,” she said. She set her water glass on an end table and walked to the bathroom, navigating the house that she knew well, even though it had been so long since she had been back here. Her father’s cat followed her to the bathroom, and she tapped it lightly on the nose with her shoe—a signal for the cat to wait outside. The cat didn’t understand that it was unwelcome, and Maria closed the door slowly, giving the cat time to slide its head out of the doorjamb and back into the hallway. She could hear it purring outside.

This bathroom had no shower, only a toilet and a sink. Maria gazed into the mirror. She was an old woman, she thought, but her husband would have told her that she was being self-deprecating, too harsh—she was middle-aged, if anything. Her skin was still taut, save a few wrinkles around her eyes and nose. Her hair was colored deep red, the same color as that of her father, who was fully British both in blood and surname: Newton. Maria’s long-dead grandfather spoke with a cockney accent. In his day, he drank gin heavily and told miserable stories.

Maria ran her finger along the porcelain sink. It was cold, and bright white, the same one from when she was young. She recalled some of her adolescence: a time when she’d locked the bathroom door, this bathroom; she was dripping from the nose, dribbling blood erratically onto the white porcelain, taking off her shirt to avoid bleeding on it any more than she already had. Now she was bare-chested, dripping blood onto her undeveloped breasts. Her face was unsure, her teeth chained with braces, her arms bruised. Someone was pounding on the door: her father, shouting apologies, and it had made her sick with fear.

“Maria? I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in there.” It was only John.

“I’ll be out in a second.” She flushed the toilet and ran the faucet, to sound busy, at least. When she came out of the bathroom, the cat was still waiting by the door. Everyone was gone but John, Edwin and Annette.

“Well, we’d better be going,” Annette was saying. She took the whiskey from Edwin’s hand, and he glared at her, and she glared back, but they said nothing to one another. Edwin got up and shook John’s hand, and then Maria’s, saying, “I’ll see you both Saturday.” They shut the front door behind them.

John looked at Maria. “You’re okay?”
“What?”

“You seem shaken up.”

Maria shook her head. “I’m fine.”

John sat on the couch and examined the room wistfully.

“They left you their house.”

“What?”

“The house. You weren’t there when they read the will yesterday; I know you didn’t want to be there. But they left you the house.”

Maria sat down next to John. “I would’ve thought they’d leave you the house. I hadn’t talked to Mom in three years. That was the first time I talked to her, when she was in the hospital.”

John stood and poured himself a glass of whiskey, slowly. He held it between him and the window, letting the sun shine through it, as if he were deciding whether to drink it. John was ten years older than Maria. He was fifty-two; he was born when his parents were only eighteen. “I was their mistake,” he would tell Maria, “but they loved me. And I was the reason they loved each other. At first, anyway. They had to, for my sake, and once they realized that they really did love one another, they had you. You’re their real baby, their little girl.” John would tell Maria this when she was young, back when John was just starting college. John was dark-haired even now, but his beard was going gray. He was tall and handsome, and he shared his mother’s features.

“They wanted me to give the eulogy,” John said. He swirled the whiskey in his glass and took a swig. “They said so in the will. But I can’t speak. Not publicly. I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“John, I can’t—”

“Please, Maria. I know you hadn’t talked to Mom for a while, even. But I’m not cut out for eulogies. I’ll just stand and cry, and I won’t get two words into that microphone before I start bawling.”

How selfish of him, Maria thought. But she didn’t say that.

“I had to tell you something. I have to tell someone this,” John said. His voice was quivering.

“What?”

“When Dad died, Mom was torn up. She said she didn’t want to live. So she lay down in a hospital bed and asked me to ask the doctor for something. The doctor gave it to her. Or—he gave it to me to give to her.”

Maria had talked to her mother over the phone while she was in the hospital. Her mother had said nothing about suicide. Only that she felt sick, and that she thought it was her time; she said she couldn’t live without Red. Maria caught herself thinking that her mother had been such a coward about being alone.

“It’s what she wanted, right? She wanted it that way, to be dead,” John was saying, clutching his whiskey glass. “So it’s okay, what I did, right? Say something, Maria.”

“Stop. Calm down. God. You look like you’re ready to cry.”

John tilted his head back up. He saw that Maria looked almost embarrassed of him, and this made him feel ashamed for showing his emotions.

“I’ll give the eulogy,” Maria said.

“Thanks.” He brushed at his eyes. “How are you so—calm? Even though you didn’t talk with Mom and Dad. And I still don’t understand what was between you.” Maria didn’t say anything, so John sipped at his whiskey. “What are you going to do with the house?” he asked.

She looked out the window. “I think I’ll sell it.”

Maria was consumed with anger now, and neck-deep in nauseating thought. How could her mother run away from life? She still had time here, time to live and make amends, and she discarded it, like a portion of rotting food. All because Red was not here. She had lied to Maria, telling her that she had no choice, that it was her time to go, when she knew she was leaving behind all her unsorted mistakes. Maybe that’s why they had left Maria the house. As a compensation of sorts.

Maria kept to herself while she was in Massachusetts, visiting the beaches and the shops by herself, calling home occasionally to talk. Two days after the wake, on the morning of the funeral, Maria woke early and donned a black dress and black shoes, a black necklace of obsidian, and earrings made from onyx. She brushed her hair straight and clipped her watch on so that she could track time during the ceremony. As she left her parents’ house, she decided then that she would walk to the church, since it was within a couple blocks; it was a cool autumn day, and she wanted to look at the leaves. The trees didn’t change in the South, where she lived now, and she missed the seasons.

Her shoes clicked on the sidewalk, muffled occasionally by a fallen leaf resting on the ground, which she found rather poetic. The September wind blew in her face and pushed her hair all around, over her eyes and ears so that she couldn’t see, but only for brief moments. A man in a black coat passed, walking his Dalmatian, and she nodded at him, smiling, and he nodded at her, and she thought afterwards that it had been a friendly encounter.

The church was older, and small, painted green and white with plain glass windows. She opened the white doors as quietly as she could, but she couldn’t avoid squeaking the old door’s hinges, and several members of the congregation turned to face her. She accepted some sympathies in the form of handshakes and words. “I’m very sorry,” and “They were wonderful people, and wonderful parents, I’m sure.” Maria nodded and looked pensive, but did not reply with much besides a “Thank you.”

John came and sat next to her, and he looked distressed, so she held his hand. He looked at her, and opened his lips like he wanted to say something, but shut them again.

The church gradually filled with people and the funeral soon began, with a Catholic priest speaking words of faithful tradition through the ceremony. The caskets were open in the front of the church, with Red’s feet close to Annie’s. Soon it was time for Maria to go to the front of the room, to the pulpit, and speak about her parents. She shuffled her feet together and began to stand, and John looked at her.

“You don’t have to, Maria. I will.” But he still looked unsure, and by now, Maria had her mind set to the task of delivering a eulogy—why would she change her mind now? So she shook her head and stood up.

From behind the pulpit, the crowd looked much smaller. She realized that she should have prepared for the eulogy better, and that the crowd was waiting for her to say something deeply moving, but that she had nothing to say. She tried to think of something about her mother. She remembered talking with her mother on the phone, and what she’d said to her. Her mother told Maria that she was dying, that Red had died, that she was very sick, that she loved Maria very much, and that she was proud of the life Maria had made for herself. Maria asked her if that was all she had to say. When her mother told Maria that she had nothing else to say, Maria had no more patience, so she hung up the phone. Her mother had always refused to acknowledge that Red had ever beat Maria. She was incapable of believing it. But Maria never asked her directly about it.

The people of the congregation looked a bit anxious. They shifted their weight in their pews and traded glances.

Could she talk about her father? She hadn’t spoken with her father since she left the house for school. She thought of him, and she could only think of what a petty man he was, so weak that he needed to beat his only daughter to feel strong, to feel like a man, and because he didn’t have the will to beat Annie when she crossed him. Annie had slept with another man, and he was better looking, and younger, and Red couldn’t handle it. Now, behind the podium, Maria could not think of anything else. She looked out on the crowd, and knew that her thoughts did not represent the Annie and Red that the congregation knew; they knew churchgoing people, loving people, with a successful family, who sailed around the cape on the weekend, who raked up their leaves and set them in bags at the end of their driveway, just like their neighbors, and whom they met at the supermarket by happenstance and traded hellos. Just then, she felt a desire to rip that image to shreds, to spill it all over the floor of the church, to show everyone the horrible truth. To testify that her father was an abuser, of children, and of alcohol, and that her mother was unfaithful, unholy.

But instead she said this, as the crowd looked on:
“My mother—my mother was very kind. She loved John and me very much. She told us so every day, and she told me so the day she died. My father loved Mom, and she loved him. I don’t think she could live without him, and that’s why they’re both here today, with us. So I want us all to remember them like this: together.” And she sat down, taking John’s hand. The eulogy was short, she knew, but she felt had nothing else to say. Murmurs rippled through the congregation.

She walked home after the ceremony, through backyards, because she didn’t want to be seen on the street. She didn’t attend the burial or the luncheon; she felt she’d done her part. She took a nap on the couch of her parents’ living room, still wearing her black dress and black shoes, and when she woke, it was dark outside, and the streetlights were casting ghostly light into the living room. She turned on a lamp and decided then that the red on the walls was driving her crazy, absolutely mad, and that she would need a drink, or maybe to call her husband, or a cigarette—even though she hadn’t smoked a cigarette in decades. She remembered how her first boyfriend would give her cigarettes on the back porch of this house, and he would tell her “If you get addicted, I’ll kill you.” Then he’d lean forward with his cigarette and touch it to hers, and then take his cigarette from his mouth so that he could kiss her cheek. “I’ll kill you.” That was how he flirted: with childish, empty threats. Sarcasm.

Maria walked about the house, touching the little things she remembered: the tea kettle that her mother served her tea from when she’d asked for coffee, the clock in the kitchen, next to the calendar, still ticking, even though her parents had no dates to attend any longer, the spot where she’d bang her knee on the table as she rounded the corner. She hated that. She went to her parents’ bedroom, and she saw their armoire, and their bed that had looked so tall when she was young and now looked as normal and unimpressive as any bed. On the nightstand was a music box that her father had brought back from Europe, and it was full of her mother’s jewelry. It was next to a picture of Maria, which was next to a picture of Jesus Christ, which was, in turn, next to her father’s watch and keys, still there from his last night of sleep before his heart stopped.

Maria went to the basement. The basement was empty except for some hardware; two-by-fours, tools, drywall, dry cement, bricks, and cans of white paint. She took the white paint—the cans were much heavier than they looked—and she gathered a paint roller, heaved everything upstairs to the living room, and set it all down on the carpet. She inspected the offensive red on the walls; it was glaring in the white light of the incandescent lamp in the corner, and it had to go. She pried the cans open, dipped the roller directly into the paint, and slathered it all over the wall above the fireplace. The roller’s movements felt smooth and wonderful. She let the paint drip freely onto the carpet and the ancient couch, the one she’d lounged on only minutes before. Dipping the roller again, she pushed the paint across more of the red walls, knocking off the photographs that her mother had hung so carefully. She smiled as she hid the red color behind fresh white paint. The paint trickled onto her dress, speckling the black cloth. She didn’t mind, and continued painting feverishly until she had covered every sliver of red wall in the room.

Maria sat on the couch, admiring her work. The doorbell rang.

John was at the door. He was in a jacket, and his breath clouded the air in front of his face. “I thought you’d gone home, but I saw your car was here.” He looked Maria up and down. “You’ve been painting?”

“Yeah.” Maria stepped out of the doorway, motioning John to come in.

“Everyone was wondering where you went after the ceremony.”

“Oh,” Maria said. John looked into the living room.

“Holy shit.” He looked at the floor. “You got some paint on the carpet.”

“Yeah.”

“This was Dad’s favorite room.”

“I know.”

He sat down on a clear spot on the couch. “I wanted to talk to you, and tell you that I was sorry. I shouldn’t have made you give the eulogy.”

“It was no big deal,” Maria said.

“There’s something else.” He took a breath, and looked Maria in the eye intently. “Dad left me something in the will. A journal, with instructions for me to read it. So I did read it, this afternoon, and I think I understand now.”

Maria looked away from John, hiding her face from him. For the first time since she had come back to Massachusetts, she felt a tear forming in her eye. She’d never told anyone: not her brother, not her husband. John paused before he spoke again, giving Maria a moment to compose herself.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I never suspected. I was away at school. You know I would have done something.”

“I didn’t want to say anything to anyone.”

“You don’t want to talk about it now?”

“I’m done with it, John.”

The Siamese cat came slinking in from the kitchen, purring. It rubbed against Maria’s leg, but she did not stoop to pet it.

“The cat likes me,” Maria said. “It’s strange, I didn’t even live here when they got it.”

“I think some kid from down the street’s been taking care of it,” John said.

“I was thinking about taking it home,” Maria said.

“You should.”

Maria picked at the drying paint on her fingertips. “I guess I will keep it.” She lifted the cat and stroked its ears, wondering what the cat’s name was, and whether she could ever teach it a new one.