The Kiss by Brian Turner

Author:Brian Turner [Turner, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

MAUDE

Kimiko Hahn

What would her lips feel like—? A tulip petal? A porcelain bowl?

The last time I saw her, she was waving goodbye as Ted and I drove off with the baby, already snoozing in the backseat. I saw her turn away to climb the three dozen steps back to the shambly house. Not her fault, the shambles. Not the fault of mice or the snow that settled into a crust on the flat roof.

Days later, Father took her to the Kabuki. On the drive home, a car of teenagers broadsided them. Father cursed. Mother lay slumped on the passenger side. He didn’t realize she was dead.

A metal bowl? Doily? Birch bark? Page torn from an old book?

Ted and I decided to see her at the funeral home. To “view her” in the pine coffin. Before she was delivered to the crematorium. The undertaker commented on how “Orientals don’t show their age.” Sixty-eight, only a few years older than I am today. I looked. But I didn’t clip a wisp of hair as keepsake. I didn’t touch her clothes or her hand. It was enough to see what I would come to describe as the body that was Mother’s.

Ice? I was told not to put lips or tongue on ice because my skin would stick fast.

Was I afraid to kiss her on the lips or did that sense just occur to me? Afraid to kiss the lips that were my mother’s? Pumice? Bar of soap? Like both connects and keeps at arm’s length.

(Had she wanted to go?)

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