Since I can remember, my grandmother has insisted that my brother and I call her by her first name. I didn’t know this was so unusual until I realized that none of my friends ever called their grandmothers anything but "Grandma." Luckily, Frannie sounds enough like Grannie that my brother and I don't stand out in a crowd.
"I think we should let your mother talk to you about it," she said.
"Talk to me about what? What’s going on? Why is Jude looking like somebody died?"
I’ve always had this uncanny ability to say exactly the WRONG thing at the absolute worst possible moment.
Finally, Jude spoke, "Maybe it’s because somebody did just die, you moron."
The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. No one had said anything about my dad. Frannie didn’t say, "Your mother and father are going to be talking to you.” My mom didn’t say, “Come home, your dad and I need to talk to you.”
Just where was he, anyway?
That’s when I screamed, at the top of my lungs, like some wild woman of the jungle, "Would somebody please tell me where my dad is?"
As soon as I exploded, my mom came running out of the kitchen. She was wearing the same somebody-just-died-look that my brother was wearing, "Maybe you’d better sit down, Pumpkin," she said.
My mom hadn’t called me Pumpkin since I was in the sixth grade and started going through puberty.
"I don’t want to sit down," I said. "I want one of you to tell me what’s going on."
"Please sit down. Take the On Golden Pond rocker. It’s your favorite chair."
"I really don’t feel like sitting right now. Would you please just say whatever it is you have to say?"
I already knew what she was going to say. I just needed someone to say it out loud.
My mother took a deep breath and said, "Your father is—he’s—gone."
"What do you mean he’s gone?" I asked.
"He’s dead," Jude said.
There it was. Out in the open. Now that the words were spoken, no one could take them back. But how could he be dead? My dad was only forty-eight; it didn’t make any sense.
"What happened?" I asked.
It was another one of those brief eternal moments until someone spoke.
Finally, Frannie said, "The police said there was in a terrible accident. Apparently the brakes gave out on a city sanitation truck and it sped out of control, crashing into the Buckstar's Coffee Shop, where your dad was having a non-fat decaf mocha latte."
"I always told him Buckstar's was evil," I said.
"You and Jude are going to have to be strong for your mother," said Frannie. "This is going to be a very difficult time for her."
That was the last thing I remember my grandmother saying before I passed out. I knew I should have listened to my mother and sat down on her On Golden Pond rocker.
A few hours later, I woke up in my old bedroom. It had been about eight years since I moved out but my mom hadn’t changed a thing. I felt like I was stuck in a time-warp. All of my old movie posters still covered the walls: Never Been Kissed, The Virgin Suicides, Can’t Hardly Wait. (There seemed to be a theme there that I didn’t want to think about.) To this day, I still don’t know how I got back to my room. When I opened my eyes, Jude was standing over me, holding a newspaper.
"Nice of you to join your family in our time of need," he said.
"What happened?" I asked.
"You passed out."
Then I remembered that my dad was dead and it wasn’t just a bad dream.
"Here’s the evening edition of the Tampa Times," Jude said, throwing the newspaper at me.
The headline on the front page read: Local Man Dies in Freak Accident As City Sanitation Truck Smashes into Area Buckstar's
This is what the article said:
A Tampa resident was killed at the scene of a horrible accident when a city sanitation truck, driven by Mark Tempest, age 30, lost control of its brakes. The truck sped out of control and crashed into the Buckstar's Coffee Shop located on Dale Mabry Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard. Henry Robinson, age 48, was the only patron in the coffee shop at the time. He was reportedly drinking one of the company's famous non-fat decaf mocha lattes when he was struck. Sources at the scene say Robinson may also have been eating a cheese Danish but the pastry has yet to be recovered.
I tossed the newspaper back at Jude.
"So, what happens now?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" he said.
"I mean, what do we do? I’ve never had a parent die before. I don’t know the protocol."
"Since Dad died at the scene of the accident, there’s going to be a police investigation. We have to wait to find out when they can release his body so we can make funeral arrangements. My law firm has a number of associates that deal with wrongful death claims, so we're covered there. I also have a few buddies, who deal with wills and probate. Mom has to make a few calls to find out what kind of insurance coverage he had, stuff like that."
"What about us? What do we do?"
"I don’t understand where you’re coming from. We don’t do anything."
It just didn’t seem right. My dad dies and I don’t do anything.
"I don’t feel so hot," I said. "I’ve got to get some rest."
I threw the blanket back over my head and slept for three days.
Part 2: The Council with the Munchkins
On the fourth day of my sleepfest, my mom decided to call a psychologist, Dr. Lyman Frankenbaum. She told me he was a well-known authority on death and dying and grief and other morbid stuff like that. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about seeing him but my mother insisted that we all go, as a family, to help each other through “such a difficult time.” I didn’t think sleeping my life away was really all that difficult.
Mom told Jude and I to meet her downtown at Dr. Frankenbaum's office that afternoon. I was the first one there. When I entered Dr. Frankenbaum's waiting room, I noticed a weird smell, like someone was sautéing garlic and onions. It was a few weeks into our sessions before I realized that Dr. Frankenbaum must have had some kind of a shared air handling system with the other businesses that occupied the small strip mall. There was a take-out Mediterranean restaurant two doors down. Whenever I think about my therapy sessions with Dr. Frankenbaum, I still crave falafel and hummus.
The weirdest thing about Dr. Frankenbaum’s office, though, was that he didn’t have a receptionist. The only things he had in his waiting room were a fake plant, three yellow plastic waiting-room chairs and a sign that said: Please have a seat. I will be with you shortly.
When I finally met Dr. Frankenbaum, I realized that "shortly" was actually a statement about his height and not the length of time you could expect to wait for your appointment.
It seemed like I sat in that waiting room for a week before my mom and brother showed up. The chairs were just that uncomfortable, and Dr. Frankenbaum was so cheap, he didn’t even have the customary year-old doctor's office copies of Time and People for his patients to read. I knew my life had deteriorated to an all-time low when I wasn’t even in the mood to daydream about hunky Luke from acting class. I just sat there staring at the fake plant.
That's when my mother came rushing in. "I’m so glad you’re here, Dorothy," she said. "I was worried sick about you."
"Why, Mom? I was just sleeping."
"Nobody sleeps for three days straight; it’s