What It Used to Be Like by Maryann Burk Carver

Author:Maryann Burk Carver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2006-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

NEAR MIDNIGHT THE telephone rang.

It was a dark, cold Iowa night, January 21, 1964. Christi and Vance had long been asleep, but Ray and I were up. All the lights were on to give us some illusion of warmth.

Ray answered the phone. His face was intent as he listened, but he didn’t say anything more except good-bye. He turned to me, somber and grave. “Maryann, your dad died.” He waited to see how I was reacting. I wasn’t. “Honey, it’s your dad.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe it. It was impossible. Impossible. My dad? He was the strongest person I knew. How could he die? “Who called?” I was shivering uncontrollably.

“Western Union,” Ray said. “They read me a telegram from Aunt Elsie.” I must have looked bewildered. “God, honey, I don’t know any more than what I’ve told you.” He opened his arms, and I went into them.

The next day, as early as I dared, I tried to reach Aunt May. I called her person-to-person at Aunt Elsie’s house. I hated to phone there, but where else could she be? There was no other relative close by. Aunt Elsie had disassociated herself from my dad since he and my mother divorced. That had been nearly two decades ago.

When the phone was picked up, I heard the long-distance operator ask for Mary Burk. Aunt Elsie replied as if still composing telegrams in her head: “She’s not here. She went to see dead brother at funeral home.”

“Dead brother.” Those two words in Aunt Elsie’s cold, heartless tone made Dad’s death a reality, all those long, long miles away.

I had to make plans to travel back, to go and see him. I was both saddened and angered by our financial constraints that locked me into helplessness. Only Aunt May could possibly come up with the money I needed.

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