Mourning Crisis: A Cozy Mystery

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The repetitive clanking and rattling of my Mazda Tribute’s engine started somewhere around the ninth hour of the eleven plus hour drive—not including stops to potty and eat—from Brooklyn, New York, my former residence, to Asheville, North Carolina, my hometown and soon-to-be home once again. I couldn’t drown out the slow, agonizing death of my nearly antique clunker with the speaker of my ancient iPhone, so instead, I stuffed my one working earbud into my right ear and concentrated on the music.

Chris Stapleton’s voice almost matched the beat of my SUV’s dying engine. Almost.

My mind flashed back to the day I got old Mary, as I called my Tribute. I remembered the scowl on my face that fateful day when she was a young, fresh, already teenaged baby SUV sitting in my parent’s garage with a big yellow ribbon wrapped around her middle.

The right side of my upper lip twitched just as it had that day. You want me to drive that? I cried.

What’s wrong with her, Mayme? Daddy asked.

Her? You mean it? It’s old. I can’t show up at school in that. Everyone will laugh at me.

You don’t want her? Fine. We’ll take her back and get you that ugly thing. She waved her hand in Daddy’s face. What’s it called, Bobby?

The PT Cruiser?

Yes, that one. You want that ugly old thing?

I crinkled my eyebrows together and stared at the ground. No.

Well then, you might could show a little respect and gratefulness for what the good Lord puts in front of you now, you hear? Momma stomped off and slammed the door behind her. That’s what my mother always did when she was mad, stomped off and slammed doors.

I shook the memory off like I’d just been caught in an unexpected rain shower walking around in Brooklyn and sought cover underneath an old metal awning.

I wasn’t looking forward to returning home. Not only would I have to eat crow until the sun went down and rose again every single day for a week—at least when it came to Momma—but I’d have to listen to her telling me why moving to the city to be an actress was the worst idea ever and that I should have just stayed home and worked for Daddy at his plumbing business taking orders and filing papers until I got my associates degree at the community college and found me a nice man to marry like any good, respectful daughter would do. Blah, blah, blah. Momma never intended to be cruel, and most of the time she wasn’t, but her life lessons always came out that way.

If my car engine wasn’t on its last leg, the fear of her I told you so’s would have had me doing a one-eighty and heading straight back to New York City to give that actress thing another go. Maybe. Except that my engine wasn’t just on its last leg, it was actually crawling and dragging that last leg pathetically behind it, begging me to please, for the love of God, put it to rest, and I’d all but been banned from Off-Broadway because I was the biggest loser of the whole shebang in all of history, and for the rest of eternity, too.

Okay, maybe not the biggest loser and not of the whole shebang in all of history, but it sure felt that way when you were finally given a part big enough to have your name in big, bold print on a marquee and you blew the whole thing in the first scene on opening night by crashing through the stage floor, butt first—to which the newspapers reported—

Actress’s Plus-Sized Booty Bombs Off-Broadway

Hit and Career with a Bang!

Who even wrote headlines like that? Seriously? I’d thought of at least a hundred better versions on the drive back to Asheville.

Rising Star Drops Booty Bomb Through Off-Broadway Basement

And then there was another version…

Off-Broadway Play Twerked by Booty Incident

Perhaps they could have chosen something along a little less trendy like…

Booty Fall Bottoms Out Bad Play

Okay, so maybe they weren’t a whole lot better, but at least they didn’t focus on my dead career, just my big booty. These days, those were all the rage, so at least I had that going for me.

Being a down on my luck, or more like a never really got started, Off-Broadway actress was hard enough, but falling from not-even-close-to-grace and having it splashed across every newspaper in New York City and the international film industry was both a career killer and an ego crusher. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure which hurt more, but I knew crawling home with my tail between my legs and listening to my mother and her I-Told-You-So speech would send my already teetering ego right off the edge of security and into the pit of low self-esteemdom.

Plus-sized actress.

I topped out at five feet two inches and one hundred and twenty-seven pounds. That, depending on where I shopped, ranged from a size six to a size eight. It was 2018. Twiggy was out, and curvy was in, so whatever reporter came up with that career-killing headline needed psychiatric treatment or a pop on the forehead.

I voted for the second, given by yours truly, of course.

I wasn’t even thirty, just barely past twenty-five. An actress never gave her real age, at least that was what the late Marilyn Monroe always said, and my career was toast. Burnt, crisp, toast.

I turned left onto my parent’s street and eased to a crawl. Find your happy place, Mayme, I repeated under my breath. Daddy will be happier than a pig in mud to see you. You know that. He never cared what you did as long as you did it with all of your heart. Momma, most of the time she just didn’t know what happy was, and if someone tried to show her, she’d tell them they were wrong, and go on her way being her normal self.

Three long, relaxing breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, at least I thought that’s what I’d learned in that Pilates and yoga class I took in New York, and I was good to go. I pressed the gas pedal just enough to give my old girl a little push, and she clanked and rattled the rest of the way to home-sweet-home with a cloud of white smoke puffing out of the engine as she did.

Daddy sat on the front porch with a stick and a knife in hand, whittling away. When he saw the familiar blue of my Tribute pull up, he pushed up his Carolina Panthers baseball cap and smiled. I’d forgotten how much I missed that smile. Seven and a half years without a single trip home for a visit was a long time to be gone.

He waddled up, favoring his left leg as he always did, and opened my door for me. Looks like you got yourself an engine problem.

I stepped out and hugged him tightly. Oh Daddy, I’ve missed you so much.

He hugged me back. My sweet Meme, it’s good to have you home.

My mother walked out onto the front porch with two pies in hand. Their fresh from the oven scent wafted toward me. I knew right away she’d made both pumpkin and apple crumble, and I had to dig my feet into the driveway to stop myself from running to snatch them from her and gobble them down.

Well now, don’t just stand there Bobby Joe Buckley, get her bag and bring it on in. She held out the two pies, one in each hand. Mayme, I made your favorites. Pumpkin and apple crumble. Though from the looks of you, I don’t think you’ve been starving living up North with the Yankees.

Daddy smiled but gave his eyes the teeniest bit of a roll. Now don’t you listen to your momma. You know how she is. All bark and no bite.

I know, Daddy.

He hobbled around to the back of my car, his limp more prominent than when I’d left. Let’s get your bags and get you settled right quick and have ourselves some pie out by the firepit. It’ll be like old times, what do you say?

He stretched strong arms to open the hatch, but I sprinted to the back of my car before he could and pushed his hands away. Daddy, don’t do that. I nudged my head toward the back window. I brought everything I could fit into the car, and I don’t want it all toppling out and falling onto the ground, so I’ll just get it later.

My mother hollered from the front porch. When do you expect the movers to get here?

I yelled back. Movers?

With your furniture and what not?

Momma, what you see is all I’ve got.

What about your furniture? Your bed linens? You didn’t bring your china in your car, did you? If so, I sure hope you packed it good. Used that bubbly stuff. We get it at the thrift shop all the time. When people bring in their stuff, lots of times it’s wrapped up in that bubbly wrap, and when Leonard isn’t wasting time busting the bubbles to scare off the birds trapped in the storage room—‘cause he does that and thinks it’s funny, but it ain’t—we mark it for sale for a couple pennies, and it sells like hotcakes.

Momma didn’t get her southern on twenty-four-seven, only when she was tired, angry or nervous—which come to think of it, was probably most of the time. But, I suspected my return home likely garnered a little bit of all three for her. I knew she brought out the tired in me. It’s bubble wrap, Momma, and I don’t have a need for it. I really just brought my clothes and makeup and a few odds and ends.

Well, what’d you wrap your china in then, sugar, or is the movin’ company bringing that down?

Momma, I don’t have me a moving company, and I definitely don’t have any china. Why would I eat SpaghettiOs off china when regular dishware worked just fine? I didn’t have the guts to tell her I’d left that stuff with my roommate. I’d left all of my limited kitchenware and what little furniture I’d had with my roommate. We’d tried to tie my mattress to the top of my Tribute but it fell off somewhere along Morgan Avenue, and I’d just kept driving, too embarrassed and frustrated to pull over and do anything about it. As if I could have on my own anyway, but I wasn’t worried about littering. It was Brooklyn, after all. A check in my rearview at the stop sign a few feet away, and three guys had already grabbed it and were carrying it to a walk up. Mattresses weren’t cheap, and if one dropped in front of you, literally, it was pretty much a miracle from God.

I popped open my back hatch, slowly opened the door, steadying myself in case a random bag came tumbling out, which thankfully, none did, so I grabbed three bags, each labeled with masking tape and numbered one, two and three. I’d meticulously marked everything in my vehicle and organized it all so I could access it according to what I’d need when I arrived home. The three bags were all I’d need until the next afternoon. Actually, they were more than I’d need, but I would be able to unpack some, feel like I’d been at least partially productive, and appease my mother if that was even possible.

My mother wasn’t some old Catholic school nun threatening to beat me with a whip for not showing my work. Honestly, she wasn’t a horrible person at all, she just lacked that down-home, southern motherly gene practically every other mother in every town in every state across America had. I’d once called her the female version of Squidward, but the joke was completely lost on both her and my father.

I gave my father a bag because I knew he’d want to help and headed up the front porch steps and straight into a time capsule that landed me smack dab in the middle of 1994.

My maternal great-grandmother Annabelle Foster, affectionately known to everyone as Granny, had passed away in late 1993 when I was just a year and a half old. When she died, she left my mother a large sum of money, and instead of putting that money toward retirement or in an IRA account like my father strongly advised—I knew this because I’d heard the story over and over and over—Momma used the cash to redecorate the entire house, except my room, which, she said, had just been done when I was born. She loved the décor so much, she’d kept it for the past twenty-six years.

My room though, she’d allowed me to redecorate at twelve, from the lovely Holly Hobbie décor of the 70s she’d loved and thought her baby girl wouldn’t find at all alarming or scary in the dim light of a nightlight.

I had nightmares of dozens of those Holly Hobbie dolls holding their little bouquets of flowers, only it wasn’t actually bouquets of flowers but knives or other kitchen utensils worthy of killing me, chasing me around my locked bedroom. Just the memory sent chills up and down my spine.

Walking back into the foyer of my childhood home felt like I’d never left. The mingling pumpkin and apple smells, both lingering under a stronger scent of cinnamon and nutmeg danced under my nose and tickled my taste buds. My mouth watered and I really, really wanted a piece of pie, or more like two pieces of pie, because Momma made the best pies ever.

The old and worn wall to wall beige carpet suffered an ill-fated disease along with the rest of the décor Daddy liked to call Stubborn Momma Syndrome or SMS for short. The rug, however, got the brunt of the illness. Daddy said Momma had wanted a whole lot of flash for her cash, so she went for the cheapest carpet she could find, and twenty-six years later, it showed. Regular walking paths had worn down to the tread in the front entrance and created a line to the family room and kitchen, where the carpet did end but met the large, matching twelve by twelve beige kitchen tiles. Just a shade lighter than the rug when I moved, they were now at least three shades lighter. The carpet, stained and deeply ingrained with dirt and God only knew what, was in worse shape than my Tribute’s engine, and that said a lot.

I winked at Daddy but spoke to Momma. I see you haven’t changed a thing.

Daddy laughed. Don’t think we ever will unless we decide to sell the place and a realtor makes us, and then I’m not even sure your momma will.

Why fix something that ain’t broke? She waved her hand at my bags. Just carry those on up to your room.

I wished I’d gotten my mother’s cleaning gene, but I hadn’t. Her cream colored—which she believed match the beige carpet—curtain and identical valances with the muted floral print didn’t have a speckle of dust on them anywhere and not one hair from neither Duke nor Buster, Daddy’s hunting dogs, either. The dogs, who weren’t allowed in the house until they’d retired from hunting two years ago and became old beige rug potatoes, were plumper and rounder versions of their younger selves, and I had a strong feeling Momma spoiled them rotten with people food and lied about it. I turned my head and sniffed around wondering if I could smell either of the stinky hounds anywhere, but the place smelled too much like the pies for me to notice. I even bent down to pet the pooches and sniffed them, and all I got was a whiff of cinnamon and nutmeg, and a few sweet puppy smoochies, too.

Momma was a cleaning machine.

I tossed my purse onto the blue and beige floral print couch and smiled, knowing I’d get a