In the Cold of the Eve of a New Year

Ante Mortis

On the day of Dad's funeral, Marius Holmes, my uncle's life-long valet, retired. He stayed for the funeral service and to see the young man he watched grow up get interred. It was chilly, bleak, and gray. My father had held the family's title of baron, and was entitled to entombment in the masoleum, but he wanted “to be buried outside, in the earth with which I share I kinship, and so that my brother may be laid to rest beside me at the end of his days.”

The audience hall had been packed with friends, relatives, well-wishers, diplomatic acquaintances and business associates. I got a awe-inspiring sense of how many people my father touched from the large crowd that gathered to eulogize him.

When asked to speak during the funeral service, Uncle Morgan stood up and, after going nearly mute for the past week, started singing. His voice was dry and melancholy, and yet he managed to convey Dad's joie de vivre fairly well. My Dad was such a vivacious, outgoing, and florid man, that my uncle often seemed more like the lodestone around Dad's neck or, more benignly, Dad's shadow he kept in the closet. But listening to Morgan sing made me realize he probably understood Dad better than any of us.

At the end of the service, the casket was opened for immediate family. We left tokens of our life with him. I left a ring Dad gave me as a little girl in his jacket pocket. I whispered goodbye to him and kissed his waxy forehead. My pocket cloth was already soggy by that point. After everyone else had gone, no one wanted to disturb my uncle who sat head down, eyes vacant. My stepmother finally nudged him and told him he should say goodbye to his brother. When he stood, he had a dark square of fabric folded in his hands.

“Every time I brought this out, you felt like you were losing your brother. Every time I put it on, it broke your heart that I was I going away. You never said it to me, but I heard what your heart was saying, and it was true. There is so little of me left. I have lost my dearest friend and my dearest servant and my life's work. Your son will be in good hands. Margaret is far better at running the barony than you or I ever were. Nicole will run your company. I ... I do not know what I have left or if there is any place left in this world for me. So, I leave this to you, Michael, to keep you warm, wherever you may go, because I cannot follow.”

He tucked it under Dad's folded hands. Then, he kissed him. As Uncle Morgan knelt before Dad's casket, a slight, fine-boned woman walked up behind him, grabbed the cloth and hissed at him, “How dare you!”

The acoustics of the hall made her words reverberate much louder than she expected. My uncle seemed to develop a wheeze. “Mother, I dare because I love him and I am mourning his passing and honouring his memory. Now, how dare you?”

The woman's eyes widened a bit and he took the cloth from her and reverently placed it back. “Morgan, you...”

“Are no longer under your control? No. It was his final gift to me.”

He proceeded to say something in an odd language. The woman fled.

Graveside, my uncle stood in stony silence. He hugged Mr. Holmes and we left him standing next to the headstone marker. Mr. Holmes reminded us to check on him or he might stay frozen out there. We said we would and he sadly departed.

As the day wore on, my mother showed up. She apologized for being late, but had gotten lost on the way. Krystie and I hugged and welcomed her. She seemed in better health than the few times I'd seen her before. She mentioned that an icy rain had started falling. We looked out the window and small hailstones were smacking the building.

We spent a good couple days reacquainting ourselves with our mother. Finally, Mr. Shay came calling and said Dad's will was ready to be executed. He stated he just needed Uncle Morgan to approve a couple of things. We realized in horror that no one had seen him since the burial.