Family Fortunes

Family Fortunes

Trigger warning: portrays grieving.

“No point looking for her in there, old boy,” Roger advised his best friend. Berny was sniffing around Roger’s wife’s dressing room. An extension Roger had had constructed for Maureen for her 50th birthday. If he’d known it was going to be the last milestone of hers they’d celebrate together, he would’ve built her palaces instead, with all the trimmings for every stop on the world cruise he would’ve taken her on.

“Shouldda wouldda couldda,” Roger grumbled to himself as he swung his matchstick legs out of bed, with the hairs “white enough and plenty enough to knit a Christmas sweater from”, as Maureen had said back when Christmasses were still considerable. Berny came in to see what all the squeaking and creaking was about.

“No, I’m not one of your infernal slobbery toys, Bern,” said Roger. He patted the dog. “Ya loveable dumb mutt. Aren’t you boy? Aren’t you?”

Berny’s fangsome smile widened.

“Oh, for an ounce of your innocence,” said Roger, gazing into the mocha eyes that blinked so adoringly back up at him. “You’ve never known death, have ya? Only in terms of those poor squirrels you scare to death every time we go to the park. You’ll never lose your childhood sweetheart to heart failure, will ya?”

Berny whined.

“Okay, I can tell I’m boring you now and you want your breakfast. A man of simple needs, aintcha? Let’s get you sorted before the caterers arrive and you can start bothrin’ them instead, huh?”

As he began his careful descent of the stairs, Roger squinted at the sunlight pouring in through the window at the end of the hallway. “You should be in mourning too,” he told the sun. “Go do a frickin’ eclipse or something.” He shook his cane for emphasis.

Hours passed for Roger in a flurry of funeral and wake prep. Of dressing for her without the soundtrack of her telling him to go for the other tie, no, not those cufflinks, the diamond shaped ones. The reward of her soft peck on his nose when he finally cracked the clothing combination. Then of reaching for her mug when he went to make the teas and coffees and his younger daughter Adriana, who had offered to stay the previous night, taking over when his chest began heaving. Calls from his other daughter, Gina, to say after much resistance from their toddler about being wrestled into a black dress, she and her partner George were finally on their way.

Then the slow motion of the funeral service, friends and relatives coming up to squeeze Roger’s arthritic hands, “like they wanted to add more pain to the day!” he confided to Adriana later in the kitchen where they were back making more coffees, Irish this time. The last of the outer circle had finally taken their coats and scarves. Swaddling themselves, putting a layer between them and any intrusive thoughts of their own mortalities.

Together they ferried the tea trays to Gina and George, who were passing an animated Violet back and forth like a fleshy rugby ball someone had fitted with a foghorn. Roger watched Berny scuttle to the back door and whine to go out. Adriana obliged, which was just as well, as Roger thought if he let the dog out he might just join him. Camp under the stars rather than face lying next to the Maureen-shaped dent in the bed later.

“Let Mummy drink her coffee, Violet!” Violet gave up tugging on Mummy’s skirt and toddled off the way the dog had gone. In a quieter voice to George, Gina told him to go and check there were no sharps for her to ‘impale’ herself on. Roger and Adriana exchanged a glance. Gina had always been the more theatrical of the sisters. Always saying how busy she was, while the quiet ones like Adriana actually got on and did things.

“Addy,” began Gina. Adriana had long given up gently trying to get her to give up that nickname.

“Daddy,” added Gina, the twist of her neck indicating she’d only just remembering he was also in the room.

“While we’re all here together,” Gina continued, “I think we need to start thinking what we’re doing with Mummy’s…things.”

Adriana shot Roger another look over the rim of her cup. Neither of them were particularly surprised it had come to this already.

“And I just wanted to bring to your attention that Mummy just last week, on her deathbed, said she would like her emerald necklace to go to me. Specifically so it may one day be passed down to Violet. To wear on her wedding day. As is tradition.”

Roger felt the tang of bitterness delivered with that last word. Tradition. Something her long-term lover George was seemingly against. Apparently Gina was good enough to bear him a child but not yet deemed wifely material.

George reappeared with his daughter wriggling in his arms. “Caught her trying to post a breadknife into the toaster – I’m just kidding, Gina, stand down!”

Adriana cleared her throat, and made the rocking motion that meant she was about to say something possibly contentious.

“Actually, mother promised it to me. In a letter. On my 18th birthday. Saying I should have it even if I don’t get married. She must've forgotten about it.”

Adriana scoffed. “Really now? And are you still in the possession of this letter?”

“Well, it’s not on me. I made a point of keeping my hands free today, so I could lend a helping one.”

It was a pity Adriana’s jibes were so softly executed that they were rarely felt by their intended recipients, thought Roger. But George picked up on it.

“Sorry Adriana but we do live further away, and have this little ball of terror ruling out lives, don’t we?” said George, chucking his girl under the chin. She tried to catch his thumb, beginning a fresh round of crying when he wouldn’t let him take it. The sisters tried to continue their conversation over the top of it.

Roger gave up trying to follow it all. Berny had had the right idea. Roger picked up the cane someone (no guessing who) had helpfully left by his armchair and walked to the back door. Closing it behind him like he wished he could put so many things behind him. He breathed in the freesias Maureen had planted that first year, when they’d just bought the place.

His cane sinking slightly into the grass, Roger moved over to the loveseat, Berny at his ankles.

“What’s that? Oh you think I have a treat in my pocket, do ya?”

Berny lolled his tongue out like a welcome mat.

“Yup, you’re right. Here ya go. Down the hatch.” Roger watched Berny munch the biscuit. It was so grounding: taking pleasure in someone else’s pleasure.

“Just us guys now, Bern,” he murmured. “That doofus in there doesn’t count. Just you, me, and the Squabbling Sisters. You better help me keep them in check.”

Roger jumped as Berny suddenly growled. He followed the dog’s gaze to the window of the dressing room. The lid of the jewellery box was propped up against it, and Roger could just about detect the top of Gina’s head.

“Always so impatient, that one,” said Roger. With the calm conviction of one who knows the real value lies in people. Not possessions.

“It’s not there!” he heard Gina bellow. Roger sighed.

Berny pooped.

Roger chuckled softly. “Yeah, used to scare the shit out of me too sometimes. Oh I came out without any pooh bags.” He patted himself down, before settling on the bag the biscuits were in. He shook the remaining two out for Berny to chomp, figuring it was a day where everyone deserved a little extra.

Gloved up, he bent to collect Berny’s offering from its grass cushion, and noticed something sparkly in the brown muck. And started laughing. Berny cocked his head to one side inquisitively, which made Berny laugh harder. Everyone rushed out to see what was so funny.

“Still want the necklace, Gina? Be prepared to get your hands a little dirty.”

The look of horror on one daughter’s face and the smirk on the other’s put Roger in mind of Melpomene and Thalia. Meanwhile George was restraining Violet, who was clearly up for the challenge.

Roger patted Berny on the head. “Poor mutt. Saw him go in the dressing room earlier, missing her. He must have smelt her on it.”

“And I miss Violet when I have to run errands, but I don’t bite her head off when I get back to her!” Gina blurted.

“No, you save that for me,” said George, earning him a shove from Gina.

* * *

Gina quietened down about the emerald necklace after it had been passed down to, and through, the dog.

Roger decided he would hang on to it. Literally. He had a jeweller friend incorporate the stone into the top of his came. Whenever Roger looked down at it, it glinted merrily at him, as though its previous owner was laughing with him from afar.