Pa had put out the best flowers, orchids and daisies. Jess cleaned the sheets the night before and with the family quilt on top, Ma was wrapped to her neck in linen. The room was no bigger than a country parlor. It was the kind of house that even a farmer could afford if he had seen some good harvests, and saved up a reasonable amount of money for investing in a homestead. It was a thursday, even though most burials happen on the weekend. The lord’s day is preferable for this business, but we saved a good deal of money by choosing to lay her down on a less holy afternoon. Robert O’Sullivan would have scoffed at the idea of a funeral on a weekday. He would have said that any money we saved needed to go right into the collection plate next mass. But Mama always said that the people who will talk your ear off about Jesus have generally spent the least amount of time in the presence of the lord. St. Mary’s Cemetery sat on a slope. The doctors and entrepreneurs graves’ lay at the top, accountants and postmen were about 15 feet down, and farmers sat another 20 paces from the crest. Mama’s head would lay a mere five feet from the entranceway. Jess had done her best to keep Ma dignified, but in the morning, crusted spit formed on the corners of Ma's mouth. She wore the blue pendant John bought for her 75th, and he stood right at her bedside table making sure it was nice and visible on her chest. Before she married up, Jess had wanted to be a medicine woman. When mama got the flu, she was with her at ungodly hours of the night, laying hot towels on her forehead and changing the sheets of her bed. Jess had an impressive knack for reading Mama’s feelings, especially since Ma played her cards so close to the vest. The only thing that remained was the threadbare rug that covered the floor from the entryway to the hearth. The pictures of us when we were kids left yellow marks on the wall where they used to hang. Discolored rectangles sat inches apart, with a nail above each one. The crown molding was torn down and lay in a heap with cutlery and wine glasses. The chiffarobe got chopped up for parts. It was never anything to look at, but mom liked to lean into it while we did school work on the floor. She talked to each one of us at the end. She’d look you up and down, give you the slightest of smiles and nod for you to come over. Her voice was real rough at this point. It had the quality of rocks on sand paper. Her lips would almost touch your ear when she talked to you. Jess went first, she held Ma for an instant then went back to tidying up, fixing flowers and whatnot. John was next. His eyes looked real distant, but he hugged her when she finished. Ma didn’t hesitate, her eyes moved down the line to me. She smiled, nodded, and in turn, I walked over to her bedside. Pa wore a suit to the affair, it was seersucker and a light shade of blue. The sleeves were a bit too long and the pant legs dragged along the ground as he walked. It was a different man’s suit, tailored for a different body and a different occasion, but it would have to do.  The sky was a mix of grey and blue. The storm had faded over, but the dew was still fresh on the ground. Father Carson trotted down from the gate on the other side of the cemetery. He took short measured steps, his movements were brisk and his boots failed to crunch on fallen leaves as he walked. He wore a clerical shirt with a white collar and black pants. The King James bible bought by the congregation was tucked between his right arm and his rib cage. St. Mary’s Cemetery had always smelled quite nice for a burying ground. Rain hit your nostrils before mulch could, roses smelled stronger than decay, chestnuts more potent than dog s***. The parlor was the only room in the house with wallpaper. We’d take holiday photos in there every year as Ma preferred the chrysanthemum pattern to the off white lead paint in every other room. We put up the wallpaper when I was about four. Pa brought a metal trowel and a bucket of grey adhesive to lay it on the wall. Ma sat and watched. She pulled up the good chair from the dining room and sat there for 2 and a half hours waiting for Pa to finish, so she could have the parlor room she wanted. The wallpaper was bought for 4 dollars and fifty cents. “You wore the shirt I like.” Ma said.
“Yeah, I was just gonna wear some tunic or something but Pa made me change. He said I gotta get dressed up ta see you.”
I felt out of place standing at her bedside. I pulled up a chair and sat so we were at eye level with her propped up on a pile of pillows yay high.
“How do I look?” Ma smiled and showed her teeth, yellow as a daisy. Her eyes still glinted and her wrinkles faded away.
“You look Great Ma.” I chuckled a bit and looked up and down her linen cocoon.
“You’re full of s***.”
“How much have you paid for?”
I looked over by the door and saw Pa sitting in the hallway, but he didn’t make eye contact.
“Ma do you really...”
“How much?”
Her hand touched my elbow, she grabbed it and turned me so I had to face her.
“I don’t really know what we have left to...”
“What haven’t you bought yet?”
“The coffin.”
She was wrapped in a quilt. Her bare feet poked out at the edge. They’d face south when she was laid down. Pa, Jess, Rebecca, John, and I made up the congregation. Pa was a wreck. His lower lip wavered, his eyes barely opened, and his collar was crinkled from shaking, shivering, and sobbing. Father Carson wouldn’t let Jess or Rebecca lay the body down, them being women and all. John and I ... were not up to the task. The church brought in two pallbearers. They looked a bit confused at the start, but got to the job quick enough. One lifted her up by the head, keeping the quilt tucked over her face. The other wrapped his arms around her calves to try and keep her body stable. Her pale bloodless feet stuck out. The maroon quilt wrapped her body and the brown dirt provided a background, a framing for the funeral photograph. The silverware fetched 50 dollars. The chandelier was gone, sitting in the back room of the town pawn shop. The light fixtures were handpainted, so we went and sold those in town. Bare bulbs that hung from sockets in the ceiling gave a harsh light to the empty room. We stopped short of selling the floorboards, figured it would be nice to have something to sit on after the service, someplace to eat together. The rug would be a fine dining room table.
“You haven’t bought the coffin yet?”
“No.”
Ma looked directly at me. She did not have a piercing stare. It was not uncomfortable when she looked at you, but you could tell that she was looking.
“Well when are you gonna do tha..”
“Soon.”
“Are you sure?”
She clasped my hand in hers. Her grip was weak, her fingers feeble, but her grasp covered my hand in its entirety.
“I promise we’ll get you a coffin Ma. Don’t worry about it.”
The pallbearers held her over the six foot deep gap in the earth. They got down on their knees and lowered her as far into the hole as possible. Her body hit the ground with a light thud. They picked up a couple of shovels and covered Ma with dirt as the priest said a few hail Mary’s. The two pallbearer/gravediggers alternated throwing mounds of dirt on top of Ma’s body. Whereas they had been gentle in laying her to rest, the process of covering her up was altogether brutish. It started raining halfway through and by the time they finished, solid dirt had turned into aqueous sludge. Ma was gone.