To Build a Home

7 | Gloria

The morning of the funeral, Noah woke up fussy. I tried to get him dressed, but each time I successfully placed one limb into a pant or sleeve, he managed to squirm another limb out. At this rate, I wasn't going to have time to get dressed. Which was exactly when I realized I still didn't have a suit.

Theresa's mother and sister had stopped by the day before to deliver an outfit for Noah, a light gray jacket with a powder blue shirt and tie that was so small it looked like doll clothing. It had belonged to Jeanine's son, but it no longer fit. "They grow so fast," Jeanine had said. "If you blink, you'll miss it."

It's true, before that week I hadn't seen Noah since he was brought home from the hospital. Every time I checked Facebook on breaks at the gallery he looked like a completely different person––like an actual person––and I had to question if it had been years or months since my last visit.

Darren was fairly calm that morning, popping his head into Noah's room occasionally to check on our progress between cooking breakfast and dressing himself. The death of his mother a few years earlier had taught him two things, he said, not to buy too many flowers because people who couldn't make it would send huge arrangements to display at the service and not to stress about lateness because it can't start without the immediate family. I was grateful that he had taken over the planning, even if I still felt guilty for relinquishing responsibility so easily.

Each time he popped into Noah's room, I assured him we were fine, wrestling and laughing and sighing. Until I realized I was suitless. Darren agreed to take over toddler duties when I wondered out loud if I should wear one of Phil's suits. And of course, before I was even out of the room, all of Noah's limbs were securely tucked into pants and sleeves. Darren's effortless ability to save any situation was still intact.

Phil's bedroom was at the end of the hall. I knew this, because I had avoided it since arriving, the door tightly shut at all times as if there was a mysterious plague being quarantined in the house. I imagined an endless void beyond the door with scientists in white gear and patients strapped to beds, struggling to escape their restraints. Like a true horror film. I knew what waited beyond the door was much more frightening––an unmade bed, maybe, and an unfinished cup of coffee, evidence of a life interrupted. We would eventually have to pack up the house, which would require entering the room, but that moment had always seemed so far away and avoidable until then.

I opened the door and didn't look at anything––not the clothes that they had decided not to pack for their trip lying in neat piles on the bed or the alarm clock on the nightstand Darren had unplugged the first time it went off at 7 am after they were gone. I beelined to the door in the corner. It led to a large walk-in closet with a round ottoman in the center and another door to the master bath.

The closet was divided into clothing for Theresa and Phil on each side. At the end of the closet, after all of his denim and work clothes, was Phil's formalwear sticking out like a sore thumb. There were three suits––black, blue, and gray. I held the sleeve of the blue jacket and brought it to my face. It smelled like faded laundry detergent.

I don't know if it was because I wanted it to smell like Phil or expected it to, but the fact that it didn't sent me into a wild panic. I called for Darren and paced the length of the closet as I waited. Moments later, he appeared in the doorway with Noah on his hip, slobbering on a plastic car. We were both silent for a moment as he took it all in. Two lives waiting to be packed up into boxes.

"I can't, Darren," I said.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Does it not fit?"

"I don't know. I didn't try. I don't want to try it. I don't want to wear his suit. I don't know why. I don't. I don't." I just kept repeating myself, hoping to find an answer, the walls of the closet closing in on me. I sat on the ottoman and dropped my face into my hands.

"Do you want to wear one of mine? We can stop at my house on the way."

"We're already so late." I knew I was wasting time we didn't have. I stood up and reached for the blue suit, determined to wear it. I could get over what I was feeling, I just had to breathe. Breathe.

Darren put Noah on the floor. Noah immediately dropped the toy car and started bouncing up and down to reach for the shirt sleeves dangling above him like vines. Darren took the suit out of my hands. "I'll wear this one. You can wear mine."

Before I could argue, he put Phil's hanging suit on the ottoman and started to undress in the closet. He tossed off the jacket, loosened his maroon tie, then unbuttoned the white shirt. Noah continued to bounce and reach, completely unaware of us. I was consumed with embarrassment. Not because Darren was undressing in front of me, like I would have––had––a few days before, but because for some reason it didn't bother him. He was the closest person in the world to my brother, besides Theresa, and he was willing to wear Phil's suit when I wasn't.

Before he could finish unbuttoning the shirt, I collapsed into him, my forehead resting on his bare chest. His skin was warm and he became a wall, solid and protective and strong enough to withstand my storm of tears. He wrapped his arms around me and whispered to let it out, let it out.

"Thank you," I said, eventually, barely audible. I couldn't look at him.

He must have sensed my embarrassment because he said, "You should have seen me when I was cooking. I was frying more tears than pancakes on that pan."

I was wiping my tears, my face still buried in Darren's hairy chest, when bouncy Noah landed on his toy car and was sent flying backwards onto his butt. He began to cry and Darren turned to check on him. I guess we each needed a turn to cry it out before the service. I also turned away in the opposite direction, wiping my tears and stealing Phil's suit.

If Darren could be strong today, I could too. I was going to be Noah's wall.

I took the suit into the bathroom without a word and closed the door. I could hear Darren trying to soothe Noah behind it as I changed into my brother's blue suit. I sang Laura Branigan's "Gloria" softly, the vibration and repetition of the name "Gloria" distracting me from the feeling of the fabric on my skin. I didn't look at the suit in the mirror as I dressed, focusing instead on my eyes, brown swirls of comfort floating in the white bathroom. It was possible I was putting the pieces of the suit on wrong––shirt over jacket, tie for a belt––and would end up looking like a Picasso painting. But it didn't matter.

When I emerged from the bathroom, Noah and Darren were holding hands, fully dressed and waiting for me with dopey smiles. "Let's go say goodbye to mommy and daddy," I said.

And Noah shouted, "Glowia!"

Author's Note: Y'all still there? Thank you, if you've made it this far. 

What song do you sing to distract yourself?