Since the time that I was little, I had always known what people wanted to hear

Since the time that I was little, I had always known what people wanted to hear. They would ask me, “How are you doing today?”

“Fine.”

“Good.” They would smile and pat my head.

I always said that I was fine. That was what people wanted to hear. I wasn’t like my mother who would ramble on about her feelings. She once spilled her guts to a man at a party about her terrible sex life. As it would be, that man she told everything to turned out to be a psychiatrist.

Then whenever people would ask her how she was doing, she would always launch into a full blown rant about how she was depressed and how anti-depressants weren’t working and how God was her only savior.

I hated mother. Her talking drove me crazy. I made sure I was never like her. I always knew what people wanted to hear. I could tell it from the look in their eyes. Sometimes they wanted to here, “It’s going great” and other times it was “I’m hanging in there.” It was as if they expected me to actually have an emotion behind my answers.

People wanted something, and I delivered. I pleased them. I knew what to say.

Until mother died.

I woke up on my twenty-sixth birthday crying. I had been dreaming, and in my dream, I had died and been buried. I was in hell with as set of beautiful white feather wings.

And there were people who tried to knock my wings off, but I just flew away. I found myself in front of a man with a blindfold over his eyes. He said to me, “You may go and tell your family that you are dead. You may go and make things right. You may bring company back.”

So I flew out of Hell and through the ground, though my casket and to my old house. I wrote a note to tell my family that I was sorry; I wouldn’t be able to make it to Mom’s book club. I was so sorry about everything.

Then I heard movement in the living room area. I went in and on the piano was Mom. I knew I was allowed to take company back to Hell…

But when I got near her and wrapped my arms around her, all I could say was “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

And she took my hands and said “I know. Good boy.”

Even though it was just a dream, the tears felt so real on my face. And when I woke up at six in the morning, my eyes were wet. I sat in a state of shock for about an hour. At seven thirty, I got a call from Conner with the news.

The phone rang and I picked it up, “Hello?”

“Hey… Ian… This is Conner.”

“Yeah, hi. Conner… Conner, what’s wrong?”

“Mom’s dead.”

“Oh. Oh, okay. Can I call you back?”

“Sure, listen, are you gonna come to the funeral?”

“I’ll come today. I’ll take a vacation.”

“Okay, cool.”

I hung up and sat in shock. What was I going to tell people? What was I going to say? I didn’t have any idea about what was going to happen. All I knew that there were going to be people at the funeral who would as me how I was doing.

What was I going to say to them? What was someone who had just lost their mother supposed to say?

I called in to the attending, I told her about the situation. I was granted two weeks. Still in shock, I put some shirts and jeans in a duffel bag. Then bought an online plain ticket and headed to the airport.

The first thing the stewardess asked me when I got in the plane was, “How are you today?”

I just smiled and nodded, “Fine.” That was what she wanted to hear. She didn’t know why I was going to Denver, she didn’t care. She was just making conversation. Even though I bought my plain ticket online, I made sure it was first class. I was going to be drinking a lot in the two weeks I was going to see my family, I could tell.

By the time the plain touched down in Denver, I was already scheduled to have a massive hangover by the next morning. I was always a quiet drunk though, and I didn’t stagger as I got off the plane and greeted my family.

Dad, Conner, and Vincien were all waiting for me at baggage claim. I always felt bad for Vincien whenever I saw him. He was the youngest, and Mom had decided to get into the French culture right before she named him.

“Hey, Ian.” Dad wrapped his arm around my shoulder and Conner took my bag, “I’m glad you came so quickly.”

I just nodded, still in a daze and now loaded with alcohol.

“You smell like vodka,” Vincien commented.

I nodded again, “I had a drink on the airplane.”

“And who can blame him?” Conner asked in a light hearted tone that was meant to shut Vincien’s insightful commentary up. “I’m probably going to drink this memory away when I turn twenty-one.”

Dad laughed, “Don’t do that. You still have three years ‘till then.”

“Yeah, and you’ll have college to worry about then,” Vincien added, directly ignoring Conner’s hints.

“Have you decided where to go?” I asked, trying my best to be sociable and not to fall apart while walking out of the Denver International Airport.

“Denver University,” he replied, “You know. Avoid out of state tuition crap.”

I nodded, “That’s probably smart.”

Dad smiled broadly, “Guess who’s meeting us outside.”

“Who?” I prayed it wasn’t Mrs. Greenburg; Mom’s best friend who had the same obnoxious habit of spilling her guts whenever she was asked how she was doing, and then forcing Jesus down your throat.

“Pretty cousin Elizabeth.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t mind cousin Elizabeth. We used to be playmates, even though she’s four years younger than I am, and would have been a better playmate for Conner. Maybe she could have taught him respect for women.

I don’t think she was even, technically, my cousin. We were just distantly related by my great uncle. Maybe that made us second cousins.

Elizabeth stood in front of the minivan and waved at us. I had forgotten how beautiful she was. She had long brown hair and, to be perfectly fair, a very nice set of curves.

“Hey,” she smiled at me, “Nice to see you again, Ian. How’re you doing?”

“Fine.” I smiled back. I didn’t know what she wanted to hear, so I gave her my usual response.

“I’m sure they’ve already thanked you, but… it was nice of you to come on such short notice.”

“It was my mother’s death. What did you expect?” I realized that I had spoke without thinking, something Mom had always been guilty of. I had promised that I would never do it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

She crossed her arms under her bosom, “So, then you’re not really fine, are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you were fine. Don’t give me a crap answer, Ian. I asked you because I care. I…”

“Alright,” Conner cut in, “It’s nice to be back together. We’re taking up parking space, come on, let’s go! We still have to thank Aunt Jean for her, eh, lovely Jell-O sculpture she made us.”

Vincien nodded and rolled his eyes, “You would think there…”

Dad cut him off by slamming my bag down in the back, “Yes. It’s nice to be back together, isn’t it?” His voice was strangled by emotion. Who could blame him? He and Mother had been married since they were eighteen.

We rode in silence; the only noise was the radio, and I began to feel a little car sick. Or maybe it was just sick in general. When we got to the house, Aunt Jean greeted us with a forced smile.

“Ian,” Dad said to me, “Jean and Elizabeth already took the guest bedrooms, so you’ll be downstairs with Vincien. Take his bag, Vinny.”

Vincien nodded and led me down the stairs saying over his shoulder, “When’s dinner gonna be?”

“In about an hour.”

“Cool. Come on, Ian.”

The basement was big, and Vincien had done a great job of taking over half of it. The other half, blocked off by a long curtain, was where I was going to be staying.

“Thanks,” I muttered, feeling light headed.

“You can puke in the bathroom if you want.”

“What?” I looked at him in a sort of disbelief. I had hoped that my discomfort wasn’t noticed.

Vincien shrugged, “I just have a feeling. Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” I walked over to the bathroom and threw up for about fifteen minutes before making my way back out. Vincien was reading a book and listening to the TV at the same time.

“Hey, check this out. It’s wicked,” he pointed at the TV on which there was a show playing about American’s weird food in the South.

I smiled, “That’s just sick. Who would eat pig intestines?”

Vincien grinned back, “Someone out there must like it.”

“Are you… okay? I mean, you’re going to have to live with dad for a while. At least until you go to college…”

“Yeah,” Vincien shrugged, “I never really knew mom anyway. She was always out in her clubs. Conner was always more close with her. I don’t know… I won’t eat as well, but I didn’t really eat her cooking anyway. I sort of lived off of fast food.”

I grinned, “You and me.”

He looked at me, “What about you? I mean… you knew mom for longer than any of us, except of course Dad… I guess it’s gonna be hard on Dad.”

“Yeah, I suspect it will be harder on him than any of us...”

“Dude, that guy eats raccoons!” Vincien pointed at the TV and set his book down, truly captivated by the man frying a raccoon.

“Should we be watching this before dinner?”

We all ate dinner in a kind of stony silence. Aunt Jean presented her Jell-O sculpture with fake joy and we all clapped and ate some of it, then migrated into one of the living rooms to watch TV.

Jean and Dad went to bed first, then Conner and Vincien. Elizabeth and I were all alone in the living room watching a hospital soap opera. Elizabeth’s eyes were wetting up about the main character’s having an affair with two different doctors.

“We should go to… to bed,” I yawned, “Before this gets any worse.”

She nodded, “Do you want to spend the night in my room? I mean, so you don’t wake Vincien up…”

“Yeah… yeah.” I took her hand and pulled her off the couch, turning the TV off. “Come on…”

We walked up the stairs and into the guest bedroom. Elizabeth took her shirt off and laid down on the bed, giving me a sad glance. I took my shirt off, too, and faced away from her on the bed.

She wrapped her arms around me and smashed her face against my back, “I’m sad,” she muttered.

“Yeah. Me too.”

We didn’t speak after that, but I was awake for a good hour after. I have a feeling she was, too. When I woke up the next morning, she was gone. It was around nine thirty. I sat up and put my shirt back on, wandering downstairs.

Vincien was sitting at the kitchen table eating toast. “Hey,” he said, “Where were you last night? I was up for a while but you never came down. Where were you?”

“With Elizabeth. She invited me up to her room so I wouldn’t disturb you.”

“You were sleeping with your cousin?”

“It’s not like we had sex…”

“Oh, okay. ‘Cause she’s pretty hot… I wouldn’t mind screwing her. Have you seen her boobs? I mean, seriously, it’s wicked.”

I nodded, “She is a beautiful woman… By the way, do you wear anything besides black?”

“It’s my mourning clothes. But I guess it’s also just a phase. Because I haven’t worn anything but black since sixth grade.”

“Oh… It’s just, in that shirt; it makes you look like an indie musician.”

He grinned wryly, “Thanks. Hey, are you going to go with Dad to make funeral arrangements?”

“Not if I can help it,” I muttered, looking for breakfast food and finally deciding on cereal. “Do you want to do something today? Like, I don’t know, go to the bookstore or something?”

“Sure. I mean, we’ve never really ‘bonded’ have we?”

“No…” I looked at him and didn’t see someone who was related to me; only a thirteen year old boy with an unfortunate name and scruffy hair. I wondered how he saw me.

So we spent the day at Barnes and Nobel book store and the Cherry Creek Mall. Neither of us took our cell phones. I felt guilty about leaving Conner with Dad, and even worse about leaving Elizabeth with Conner.

“Is there something fundamentally weird about two guys going shopping?” Vincien asked me as he bought himself another black shirt. I had no idea why he suggested clothes shopping because all of his new clothes simply looked like variations of his old ones.

“No,” I shrugged, “Not if it’s brothers.”

He looked at me oddly as we left the store and sat by the fountain in the middle of the mall, “We don’t feel like brothers.”

“What do you mean?”

Without looking at me, he replied, “I don’t know what you are to me. I don’t know what Mom was to me. Or Dad or Conner. It’s like… I don’t know… Like I’m a black sheep or something.”

I grinned, “You do wear all black…”

He snickered, “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah…” I looked down at him, “I haven’t felt like a part of any family since I got into college. What is it with us?” I shook my head, “We’re all too weird.”

“The weirdo family,” Vincien giggled and took his bag, shaking his head, “Come on, and let’s go get lunch.”

At that time, I felt he was more my family than anyone else.

We didn’t go home for dinner. We ended up eating at a Red Lobster and generally trying to avoid the normal people. He thanked me for everything and I smiled. I guess I had never noticed that under his indie rocker appearance, Vincien was just a seventh grader. He had to think about grades and girls and friends and which teacher was the hottest. It was pure luck that Mom had died during summer vacation, or he might not have been eating dinner with me then.

Dad greeted us with a stern glare when we got home. “Where were you boys?” he asked coolly, crossing his arms.

“Brotherly bonding time,” Vincien explained, completely ignoring the glare. I bowed my head. I had never listened to Mom, but Dad was the authoritarian. He was the boss.

I nodded, “We went around town. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Dad uncrossed his arms, “I just wish you two had been there for the funeral arrangements. Especially you, Ian. As the oldest son you have a responsibility.”

“Yes, Dad. I’m sorry.”

“Hey! They return alive!” Conner’s voice killed the silence between Dad and I. “I thought that you had died in a car accident. Such a tragedy to loose so much family in two days…” He wiped fake tears away, “My lovely brother, hug me!”

“Get real,” I snapped, but I felt better inside.

“Lizzy, Ian doesn’t love me,” Conner whined in an overly dramatic tone.

Lizzy laughed, “I’m sorry, Conner sweetie.” She appeared in all of her loveliness. “Hey, Ian. How are you?” She looked into my eyes with a longing for honesty.

I didn’t know how to answer honestly, “I’m… fine.”

She shook her head, “So you always say. When will you tell people the truth?”

“I’m fine.” And with that, I couldn’t look at her any more, and I followed Vincien down into the basement.

I woke up around one in the morning the next day and sat up. Vincien was sleeping soundly in his bed, his arms under him and his legs curled against his stomach and chest.

There was faint sound coming from upstairs. I stood up and listened for a moment before going upstairs. In the living room, Elizabeth was sitting in her short nightgown and watching the next episode of the hospital drama from last night.

I sat down next to her and when the episode ended, I leaned my head on her shoulder.

“How are you?” she asked. In her voice I could tell that she wanted honesty. How could I give her honesty? After so many years of deceiving the world, I didn’t know what honesty was.

“I’m doing alright.”

She stood up, “Okay. I’ll wait until I get a real answer out of you. Then I’ll tell you something real.” And with that she left. I sat on the couch for a while, and then went back downstairs.

The next morning she was sitting at the breakfast table with a sad expression. I sat next to her, rubbing my eyes, “How are you this morning?”

“Fine.”

I smiled wryly, “You’re a cruel woman to use my trick against me.”

“Why do you say you’re fine when you’re not?” she asked me, still looking at her tea.

“I don’t want to be like Mom.”

“What?”

“Mom… she would always talk so long. She would tell everyone how she felt with such honesty it frightened me. It frightened other people,” I laughed, “I’m a doctor in training. The people I meet are already freaked out that I’m going to kill them, and I don’t need to be so honest on top of that.”

“But you always…”

“Nobody wants the truth,” I snapped, “It doesn’t matter if you cheat on a test as long as you get a perfect score. That was my logic all throughout middle school. The ends justify the means. Lying is easier than the truth.”

“Wow…” she looked up, “I bet that’s lonely.”

I smiled and ran my fingers through my hair, “No. Usually I’m fine.”

The whole family went to the Museum of Natural History and Science that day. Vincien and I spent most of it in the hall of nature. I was surprised at how much Vincien actually knew about animals.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked as he informed me about pigs and how much their heart looks like a human’s.

He looked down at the ground, “I want to be a novelist.”

“Really? You know a lot about animals and stuff…”

“Yeah, I read some books.”

“Do you write now?”

“Duh,” he rolled his eyes, “It wouldn’t be good to get into college and have never written an original piece before.”

I smiled, “Well, I went into college and had never cut open a body before.”

He laughed loudly, “I couldn’t do what you do. Come on; let me show you the birds. Did you know…?”

The day went on. I learned random trivia facts, Elizabeth bought a pair of amethyst ear rings, Conner hit on the girl behind the counter of the gift store, and Dad and Aunt Jean just sort of mulled around. I think that both of them were too sad to even think about the museum exhibits.

Again that night, Elizabeth asked me how I was. How much did I want to tell her that I was going to cry at any moment? That everything I did was a huge ruse. A façade to mask my anger; my bitter resentment at not being Mom’s favorite. I wanted to tell about how I had planned so many things that just… flew away.

Again, I told her I was fine. She just laughed and went to bed.

On the day of Mom’s funeral, it was hot. Too hot, in fact. The black mourning clothes made me sweat and smell. I was constantly only three degrees away from heat exhaustion. Thankfully, Dad has stopped the casket from being open. It might have been gross otherwise.

Vincien was first to speak about Mom. Up at the podium, he looked like the little boy he was. He was only thirteen. He was only a seventh grader. How cruel was the world? I could deal with this loss. Conner could deal with this loss. But how does a seventh grader deal with the loss of their mom? Fate is unkind.

“So…” Vincien began, looking cool and comfortable in his black clothes. I envied him, “Mom was a good woman. I mean, she would scare you senseless as a form of punishment, but… I guess she loved me. I’m sorry…” he looked away and stepped off the podium.

“You did fine,” I whispered as Conner began speaking.

Vincien smiled weakly, “I didn’t know what to say.”

I listened to the end of Conner’s speak and then it was my turn. I stood up and tugged at my shirt collar as I began to speak. “She was really something, wasn’t she? I mean, who else remembers the time she spilled her guts about her sex life to a psychiatrist? That was different wasn’t it?” There were a few laughs in the audience and I continued. “But you know what the most remarkable thing about her was? Her honesty. And I know I told Elizabeth over there that her honesty frightened people, but that was because it did. It was frightening in the way those religeous epiphanies are. You see it and you go ‘wow. Did that just happen’? With Mom it was ‘wow, is there really a woman so confident that she’s okay with telling the truth’? Mom was a remarkable woman. Thank you.”

I sat down and tuned everyone else out. I had been wrong. All of my life I had been wrong. So honesty may hurt, but it was something I needed to come to terms with if I was ever going to get anywhere.

That night, Elizabeth asked me again, “How are you?” It was about one in the morning, and we were still watching TV. I figured it was killing my emotions.

I looked her in the eye, “I’m bitter. I’m jealous. I’m angry. And I’m sad.”

She smiled at me, "And human."

"Yeah. I guess I am."

We fell asleep on the couch, and the next morning at breakfast, when people asked me how I was, I could answer "fine" and mean it.