Chapter 4

I'm keeping in close phone contact with Billy. I called him this morning, to tell him it was too cold for me to drive over there today. I just called him again, at three o'clock, to let him know that tomorrow looked like it might be warmer. With wind and rain being forecast, I told him I doubted whether I'd get out to see him tomorrow either.

Both times I spoke with him he ended up asking me if I'd contacted Margaret Tracy yet. I've been putting him off. I'm hoping that Billy hasn't said anything to any of his children about Margaret being at the funeral. Ellen has been out running errands since noon. When she gets back, I'm going to ask her to go see young Billy to find out what arrangements he's planning on making as far as Billy's future personal finances go. I don't want Billy to get his ass in the wringer, in the event he proceeds with this ridiculous infatuation he seems to have for Margaret.

I waited for Ellen until five thirty, but when she hadn't gotten back by then I opened a couple cans of chicken noodle soup and started heating them up. I had just gotten settled at the table with my soup and some peanut butter and saltine crackers when I heard her car pulling up in front of the house.

I heard her laughing and talking with somebody, so I knew she'd brought company home with her. I was trying my best to polish off the last of my soup before Ellen and her guest made it inside the house. I hate cold soup. I was finishing up the last of it when I saw Margaret Tracy walking in ahead of Ellen. She had her head turned back towards Ellen who was continuing to talk about whatever was making the two of them laugh.

I noticed that Ellen quit talking though, as soon as she saw me sitting at the kitchen table. She came over and set two of those net shopping bags on her side of the table before coming over to give my cheek a little peck.

"Jackie, I brought Margaret home so she could tell you herself what she and her friend Diane were doing at Theresa's funeral the other day." I could tell that Ellen had been amused by Margaret's reason, whatever it was. From her reaction, I was guessing that meant that Margaret hadn't come to the funeral to check Billy out like he'd been hoping.

"Hi Margaret. Long time no see." I had gotten to my feet, trying to pull the dish towel I'd been using as a bib out from the neck of my shirt.

"Hi yourself Jackie. Your wife isn't anything like who I would have pictured you getting married to. She's been filling in all the blanks and bringing me up to date about you and Billy and the rest of your family. I knew a lot of it, but I hadn't heard about your sister, Joan, until today. I'm sorry."

"That was a long time ago. Her daughter, Diane, she's forty two years old now. When she was younger, she was the spitting image of her mother. She's living up by San Francisco. She teaches kids piano over in the East Bay area. Some inner city program she and her husband founded and run together. They get these music appreciation grants from the State and Federal governments. I don't know why she picked Oakland to do this in, but she's turned out some pretty talented young artists, Greg, her husband, has managed to get scholarships for some of them into various nationally known music conservatory's. They have a young girl student of theirs studying at Juilliard right now."

"I was surprised when Ellen told me that Billy recognized Di and me at the funeral. No one usually does. We always try to go to any funerals when it is for someone that either of us knew. We went to the ones for both your parents Jackie. The one for your father was the best funeral either of us have ever been to. So many people we knew were there, and that thing that you, Ray, and Billy did near the end, where you each got up and told some stories about your father, that was so moving, and it was really funny too. You don't expect to laugh very much when you're at a person's funeral, but almost all of the people there were laughing too. When Ray talked about your father, it was the funniest thing. Did the three of you rehearse any of that beforehand?"

"We didn't rehearse it. We all agreed that we'd get up and say something, but that was it. If you thought the stuff at the funeral was funny, you should've come over to my house right after the funeral. We all got really tanked, and then that made us say some things we couldn't have said in the church. You said you went to my mother's funeral, back in 1992?"

"Hers, and Billy's mom's too. We missed Mr. Blackwell's, but neither of us had moved back here by then. There are so many people dying now. You didn't go to Frank Tierney's funeral. That was a sad one. He got run over and dragged by that Arco tanker truck over in Boston. I think it was in '03 or '04. He lasted about three weeks in the hospital, and then he died. Di and I were both there, but there was only the minister and these two old men who worked at the cemetery. They were only there to lower the casket after the grave side service was over. We both thought there would be a lot more people there."

"Frank and I were never friends,. I think I read somewhere that he had died, but I didn't look to see about any funeral. Did you go to Herbert Martin's in 2002? Billy and I were both at that one. I knew he had that son of his, but I'd only heard stories about him from Billy. I'd never seen him before or anything."

"I was there, but Di wouldn't go. It was very unusual that she didn't want to go to a funeral, but she and Herbert had a little bit of a history together. Some bad feelings, I think. Herbert looked good in his casket. He looked a lot smarter than he ever did when he was alive. Was that his son that was touching himself and crying over by the vestibule? I didn't know he even had a kid. Is that why he was doing that? Is he retarded too?"

"Billy says he's only a little slow, but he used to say that about Herbert too. The son has some kind of a sex problem, that's all I know. He has been arrested for indecent exposure and for lewd conduct more than just a few times. I think he liked showing people his wiener whenever he got either excited or emotional. After his grandfather died, old Mr. Martin, they put him in one of those sanitarium places. The old man bought one of those perpetual care annuities for him. I guess they let him out to attend his father's funeral.

"Does Billy really think I came to the funeral because I wanted to get things started with him again?"

"I don't know if he thinks that or not. I believe that might be part of the reason why he wanted Ellen and me to ask you about you being at Teri's funeral. Seeing you both there surprised him. He's been having a hard time of it ever since Theresa got really sick, near the end. Right now, I'm not sure he's thinking straight, so I have no idea what he's thinking."

"We didn't mean any disrespect by going. Like I said, we go to any funeral if it was someone we might have known. I guess you could call it a hobby we both have. We don't usually say anything to anyone. Nobody even recognizes us most times. We just go and listen to the service, then we look around to see who's there. Theresa had a nice service. Her family looks very nice. I did talk to Annie, back when your mom died; she seemed so sad. So did you and Ray. I should have asked Annie about Joan then, but I didn't really know Joan as well as I knew Annie."

"I don't think we'll tell Billy right away that this was just your hobby. We've been worried about him since Teri died. He's kind of been a little fixated on you and Diane since the funeral. Maybe that's his best way of trying to cope. I don't suppose you'd have any interest in coming over for dinner sometime when we've invited Billy too?"