I saw a tear rolling down Mom’s cheek, and I said, “I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“You didn’t, silly. This is a happy tear.” She brushed it away with her finger, then said, “I’m happy for you and Patti. She’s going to make a great Mom to my grandkids.”
“Mom, I haven’t even asked her to marry me, yet. Don’t start grandbaby pressure already!” I said it with a smile and a chuckle, so she knew I wasn’t really angry with her.
~~~~~
January 8th
The Medical Examiner’s office finally released Dad’s body to the mortuary on the 7th, making excuses about the holidays to explain their delay. It would still take a while before the autopsy would be official, as toxicology tests could still take several more weeks to complete, but the preliminary cause of death was being listed as pulmonary embolisms causing Dad to stop breathing during the night, which in turn stopped his heart. He would just have gone quiet and wouldn’t have woken Mom at all. They had no further tests to perform on his body, so we could finally bury him, or as Dad desired, have him cremated.
Mom luckily already had the 8th off from work, so we made another visit to the mortuary, to schedule the memorial service. The very next weekend was already booked, so we settled on Saturday January 19th, which was good for me, since Patti, Duke and Kenny were all headed back to college the next day. Any time after that, and they wouldn’t be able to come.
After picking the date, we must have spent another two hours going over options for the service. Flowers, urns, music, programs, providing a picture of Dad so the mortuary could create a portrait of him for the service, and on and on. A claim against Dad’s life insurance benefit would pay for everything, with a 3rd party fronting the mortuary their money up front, so at least we didn’t have to worry about that, except it meant more paperwork for Mom to sign.
I could tell that it was all wearing Mom out, so I drove her home, while she reclined her seat, and just quietly watched out the window. I pulled her Volvo in the driveway, next to Dad’s Mustang, and walked around to open her door. “M’Lady? May I help you up?” I said, reaching my hand to her.
“Why, yes, kind sir,” she answered, getting into my roleplay. She placed her hand in mine, swung her legs out of the car, and I helped pull her upright a little too quickly. She wound up bouncing off of my chest and we had to hug each other, to keep either of us from falling over.
She looked up into my eyes, and kissed me. Soft at first, but lingering and then hungry and firm. I kissed her back, too, unable to think of anything besides the fact that I was holding a beautiful woman who wanted to kiss me and wanted to be kissed back. I wasn’t thinking of her as my Mom, wasn’t thinking of Patti, just reacting as man and woman, body to body.
Eventually, the kiss ended, and she put her head on my shoulder. She actually sounded like she was purring. It took a little while, before my mind finally caught up and I remembered just who I’d been kissing and finally whispered, “Mom? Where did that come from?”