Two for the Price of One
My mother’s sisters never married. They spent their lives in a condo on the Sound and shared everything. Forty cats, two ulcers, three thousand Sabbaths, and the all-consuming joy of cutting coupons. The sound of their bickering still rings through the taupe halls. Norah voice echoes in the basement- how many times do I tell you? You can’t leave dirty laundry down here! You want Brie to eat a button and die? And Ruth, her nose still deep in the freezer yells- Ah! That I should be so lucky! Only you would buy an animal dumb enough to eat plastic. I call that natural selection.
When they grew old, Norah and Ruth moved to Florida for their health. But still, as sometimes happens, even to the best of us, at the age of seventy-two Norah passed away. It is not our custom to burn the dead, but caskets are pricey. No, no Norah didn’t want to be a burden on the family. What did she care? She was dead. Instead, we rested her ashes in her favorite handbag. The pea-green vinyl sagged with the weight of a thousand one-day sales, tarnished and stained from the salt of countless Connecticut winter storms, the strap stretched to the crooked shape of her heavy shoulder. Her remains hung ominous on the mantel of their turquoise home.
Without Norah, Ruth wasn’t sure what to do. Quiet suppers from frozen Tupperware, gossiping with waspy widows, not even outlet stores seemed to spark her interest. One morning at the age of twenty-three Agnes, always Norah’s favorite Siamese, ran through the house and dropped dead. The next morning Ruth woke from a dream, sat up in bed, and died.
Ruth left her life savings to the Foundation for Feline Leukemia. But that was not all she put in her will. This might have been the plan all along, but we will never be sure. Buying a casket was a big decision and she wanted to be sure she got the best value for her investment. So, when the day came for her funeral, she was buried holding her sister’s favorite vinyl handbag.
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