Ruby sits alone with her thoughts. The ivory casket gleams. Ruby’s pearl-colored dress contrasts with her bronze skin and green eyes. Gardenias are lovingly draped along the ends of the aisles and the smell wafts under her nose. Mourners will be here soon, the family, the friends, the knowing, the curious, the congregation, all together, to sing Zion songs and eulogize a woman they never knew.
Not really.
She rises and walks over to the casket. The mortician put a smile on her Mom’s face, a soft one, a believable one, Ruby thinks. It was the same smile she gave when someone complimented her pound cake for a church bake sale or said they liked the quilt she made for the annual church raffle.
“Momma, can you hear me?” Ruby whispers, “Are you in Heaven? Is there a Heaven?”
Alice’s face remains placid and smiling, the answers to the questions Ruby asks trapped behind embalming liquid and thick makeup. Ruby reaches down to touch her mother’s hands, a Bible firmly clutched in them, and they are mannequin rigid but slightly warmer than Ruby expects.
Layla walks up behind Ruby and hugs her. “Sister Johnson brought that tuna noodle casserole no one’s gonna eat.”
Ruby sighs. “It’s like eating fish-flavored plastic.”
Layla laughs out loud and smiles. It vanishes when she looks at Alice’s casket. “Your mom wanted you to be happy. She loved you.”
“I know.”
“You got this, Rue. You do. I’m here.”
Jackson walks down the aisle. “People are beginning to arrive. Ruby, where’s your father?”
She shrugs and looks back at the casket again.
Lebanon enters my hall from the east clad in an alabaster suit, an indigo tie, and a gardenia pinned to his left breast pocket.
“I’m here. Looking damn good if I say so myself.”
“You smell like beer and flowers,” says Ruby.
“Had a little drink in honor of your mom. So what? I don’t have to explain myself to you, girl, ever. Remember that.”
Ruby scowls and Lebanon glares at her.
Layla stands between them and clenches her fists. “Shouldn’t you be making your way to the people who want to give their condolences?”
“Get your girl, Jackson,” Lebanon growls, “before she says something she regrets or I do something I’ll regret.”
“Let’s all make our way to the front,” Jackson orders in a tight voice.
And they leave. Ruby and Layla arm in arm, Jackson following, and Lebanon bringing up the rear.
A small breeze from no open window slightly bends the gardenias.
Alice, is that you?