LatinosUSA

Millard watched the undertakers close the drawer that held Beatrice’s casket, and waited until everyone left the cemetery. A dusty brown cloud followed a parade of black limousines crawling their way up the side of a mountain to the main road. The last thing he wanted was to be part of  the funeral procession.

 The funeral was bigger than Millard thought it ought to be.

Beatrice stopped living ten years ago when she decided Millard could do it for her. He did, every single thing she asked, every single thing, to the point of exhaustion and depression.

She had given him lecture after lecture about her frailty, her need for wheelchairs, walkers, and canes. The doctors found nothing wrong with her other than hypochondriac syndrome. Without even thinking, Millard began to hate her about seven years ago. He missed the woman he married, the one who loved and supported him when he needed it. She made him lonesome.

He left the wake last night and went to a blues bar. The music was sweet; the beer was cold, exactly what he needed. 

Millard pretended not to hear his phone ring when it did. He guessed it was one of the family telling him to get his ass back to the house. It could have been someone offering condolences, which he didn’t want. He finished his ordeal, and he felt no grief. He didn’t need or want support. Millard wanted to be sure everyone had left his house, so he waited for last call..

The ceremony was over, at last, everything was all over.  

He placated Beatrice for the last ten years of his life, of her life, of their fifty-year marriage, he cared for Beatrice. Millard was seventy, she was seventy-five when they disconnected her from the tubes and electrodes that measured her last breath. She’d been so sweet, so demanding, and so annoying.

“Millard, do you have anything you’d like to tell her before you disconnect the machines?” The nurses and doctors were so kind.

“I want to watch the monitor flat line. Donate her organs quickly. Use up everything you can.” He was clear about his wishes. 

Millard loosened his tie and a cud of hard and bitter bile filled his mouth. It rolled and swished around, unbearable. He vomited. He heaved until the mass of melancholy knocked him to his knees. He put his hands on the ground to hold himself steady until it all came out. Years of resentment and guilt purged from deep within his belly, his brain, and his eyes. 

The handkerchief his Dad taught him to carry came in handy again. In some parts of the world, Virginia and North Carolina, an old custom was to save the handkerchief that wiped and held the tears spilled over a loved one. Millard threw that bitch away. 

He got to his feet and faced the sun. It was hot on his face and he smiled. He threw his jacket in the back of the truck. The dust could have it. Maybe the wind would lift it and set it free from its earthly bonds as well. He climbed in the cab, revved the engine, and fish-tailed his pick-up out through the canyon. Millard laughed when he looked out the rearview mirror in time to watch the jacket fly like a carrion.

previously published by Spillwords