Aunt Somebody

It always bothered me that the fruit was fake. There were a lot of other fake things in the room: faux furs, prints of famous paintings, the plastic wood in the fireplace. It was the fruit that bothered me, though. I always wanted to take a bite of it, ever since I was a kid. Apples and bananas and a shiny pomegranate that just begged to be eaten. Except if I took a bite I might break my teeth on it, taste the rubbery surface. False sweetness.

My aunt was like a centerpiece to it all. She was orderly but rarely dusted, and much of her décor had only been hip back in the seventies. She fought age with hair dye and silicone breasts. Her eyelashes jutted out way too far to be natural. They left little rabbit trails of black mascara beneath her eyebrows.

When she hugged me, I felt my bones crunch and grind. It was like she was trying to pull me into herself. Like she was some old witch, feasting on the blood of young virgins so that the wrinkles in her skin might smooth out. “There’s auntie’s honey!” She’d say. “There’s auntie’s baby!” She’d plant a wet smack of a kiss on my head that was somehow always cold.

She was the black sheep. Maybe at first she was ashamed about it, but she wasn’t anymore. She went to family gatherings with head held high. She’d been married four times. Three of her exes had been married men when she stole them away. They whispered ‘homewrecker’ behind her back at first, but she stole that from them and put it on like a badge. She threw open the doors with the word burning on lips stretched in a fierce and defiant smile. They couldn’t use it against her anymore.

I think she died long before they put her in the coffin. Mother always said that grandpa never liked her like the other kids. Maybe that was why she turned out how she did. Or maybe it was that boy in high school who took her innocence and broke her heart. I think that was the only time she cried, when my aunt told me that story. The tear carved a furrow in her makeup.

I would never say it out loud, but I bet she’s happier dead. Everyone’s clicking their rosary beads together for her. Rising, falling, hailing Mary full of grace pray for us now in the hour. They’re trying to pray her into heaven, trying to guide her to the gates.

I don’t think they need to. I think she’s just going to push her way through them.