My father couldn’t pick out clothes for my mother, he couldn’t even look at her things, couldn’t open her closet, so I had to pick her burial outfit. I picked out my favorites, the things I remembered her wearing the most around the house, I guess, a pair of jeans and a black watch flannel shirt. It’s what she changed into whenever she got home; it was her go-to clothes and I figured it’s what she would have wanted to wear. My father didn’t care; he didn’t even want to know. At the last minute he decided he couldn’t bear looking at her at all and had a closed casket. I could still see her lying there in her go-to clothes. It’s what she’s always wearing whenever I think about her. It was easier with my father. He only had one suit. I took it down to the funeral home and handed it off with a white shirt and a tie and that was that. It didn’t dawn on me until later that I had worn that suit to my senior prom. I lost my virginity wearing that suit, or not wearing it, rather. I’m not sure it was worn after that until my father needed it one last time. Now it has pockets full of cash, and a young man who could still teach me a few things. No one would put any cash in Frank’s borrowed pockets, but he still had things to teach too. I needed them all, my parents and Frank, but they were gone and I had to learn to do without. You learn it and learn it until you’re left with nothing but the learning.

I tried not to think about it. I looked for Froehmer, but he didn’t come to the visitation. I wanted to thank him for everything; I wanted Casey to meet him. He had never met Frank, never laid eyes on him as far as I knew, but he had taken care of everything, just like he said he would. More likely, it was someone who worked for him, but he had done it all, and then never showed, the same way he never showed at my father’s funeral.

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