My Awesome Place - The Autobiography of Cheryl B by Cheryl Burke

Author:Cheryl Burke [Burke, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Topside Signature
Published: 2012-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Black & White

Apparently, I was supposed to move in with my mother. This seemed to be the consensus of the post-funeral reception goers. I was the oldest, the girl, this was my duty.

If I did not live at home, I should at least visit every weekend. My mother was going to be alone now. Someone needed to take care of her. It was as if this woman, who had just spent the last several months diligently caring for her dying husband while working a full-time job, had suddenly morphed into a 55-year-old baby. She did look fragile and had held onto my brother’s arm throughout the burial. I’m sure she was exhausted, but there was no way I was going to move home. I agreed to stay with her for a week-and-a-half after the funeral, the most time I could get off from my job.

Early on in my 10-day sentence, Greg cut the sleeves off his Brooks Brothers suit and took my father’s car to be outfitted with a brand-new sound system complete with speakers taking up half the trunk. He then packed the car with his clothes and expensive sneaker collection amid the dead man’s rarely-used power tools and off-brand home stereo equipment. Greg then drove to Boulder, Colorado to use his inheritance money to open a hip-hop clothing store with some friends.

I sat around the dining room table that night, a mess of Thank You cards in front of me. I was in charge of placing a stamp on each envelope before it was stuffed. I enjoyed repetitive work like that, the kind that creates a rhythm, almost becoming meditative. I did this until I ran out of envelopes.

My mother walked in from the kitchen where she had been talking on the phone with one of her friends for almost an hour. She slapped an open card in front of me. “You’re a writer, write something.”

I was never one to follow proper etiquette. I had an aversion to cards, always feeling pressured to write something perfect. What does one write on a post-burial Thank You card? “Thanks so much for coming to my dad’s funeral. I had a blast! Can’t wait to see you at the next one!” The card was addressed to my parents’ friends, an older couple who had spent an inordinate amount of time with them during my father’s last months—more time than I did, I had been reminded more than once. I couldn’t argue with this, I had definitely avoided the situation.

My mother saw me staring at the card, tapping my pen on the table. “Forget it. I’ll do it myself,” she said grabbing the card away from me. She quickly wrote something in her puffy, loopy handwriting. The phone rang again.

My mother had always been a champion talker, quick to fill every silence. I was more stoic, modeling myself after my father and not speaking more than needed to get my point across. As a teenager, despite my big Jersey hair and eye makeup, I was considered unfeminine, cold, like my father.

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