A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents

by Liza Palmer

Genres: General Fiction; Family Life; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Grace Hawkes has not spoken to her previously tight-knit family since her mother's sudden death five years ago. Well, most of the family was tight-knit--her father walked out on them when she was 13 and she and her two brothers and sister bonded together even closer with their mother as a result. She's been doing her best to live her new life apart from them, but when their estranged father has a stroke and summons them, Grace suddenly realizes she's done the same thing he had done...abandoned those who need her most. And need her they do, for inside the hospital walls, a strange war is unfolding between the pseudo-kindly woman who is their father's second wife and the rest of the original Hawkes clan. Upon reconnecting with her brother and sisters, Grace will find a part of herself she thought was lost forever. As they unravel the manipulative deception of the second Mrs. Hawkes, Grace will finally be able to stand up for her family--and to remember what a family is, even after all these years.

Release date: December 23, 2009

Publisher: 5 Spot

Print pages: 320

Sample

I am the proud owner of a very special dog with very special needs. Recently I realized that—not unlike how dog owners start
physically resembling their dogs—I am very similar to Poet in many very special ways.


My epiphany came when I realized that it was the care and feeding I received as a child from a very special mother that made
me the moderately functioning person I am today. Another set of parents and… well, I’d be out in the back biting some wooden
fence in the rain. Looking back on my childhood, I think there should be a Nobel Prize for Parenting.


The people that follow are the village it took to turn me from the idiot who gleefully dwelled within its walls ignorant of
the stories I had to tell.


Thank you to my family: Mom, Don, Alex, Joe, Bonnie and Zoë. Christmas mornings with cowboy breakfasts and television yule
logs are memories I hold near and dear to my heart.


Thank you to Megan Crane, Jane Porter and Paz Stark: the three women who had the unfortunate task of reading the first drafts
of this book. Your dear friendships are something I treasure—until you say my writing sucks, then… we’ll just play it by ear.


Thank you to Kerri Wood-Einertson: my shiny penny of a friend—and to her family—Siena (the milk of human kindness) and Erik
(thank you for the inside dish on corporate America).


Thank you to Christy Fletcher: for talking me off ledges and giving me a reason to buy little pink baby shoes. Thank you also
to the amazing team at Fletcher and Company—a truly class act of an agency.


Thank you to Caryn Karmatz Rudy: the bestest editor a girl could have. I mean—I think she may have a bone to pick with a few
of my English teachers growing up, but… I’m sure it was them and not, you know, my… uh… lack of educational… ahem… okay, I was
a horrible student and now poor Caryn is paying the price. There. I said it.


Thank you to Araminta, Sara and Isobel: another dinner of unexplainable cocktails is definitely in order—followed, of course,
by a trip to Wagamama.


Thank you to Marissa Devins and Howie Sanders at UTA for everything they’ve done… it’s exhilarating just having agents in the
same part of the country.


Thank you to James Newton Howard for writing “The Healing” off the Lady in the Water soundtrack—final tally, I listened to your song 460 times during the writing of this novel. Genius.


Thank you to Lyn Nierva at Auntie Momo Web Designs for an awesome website.

Thank you to Kim Resendiz and posse, Lynn and Rich Silton, Bill Gallagher, Juanita Espino, Judy Kelly, Henry Glowa, Norm Freed,
Michelle Rowen, Levi Nuñez, Kristin Harmel, Carrie Cogbill, Larry, Ricca, Matthew and Adam Wolff, Peter Riherd, the Bad Girls’
Bookclub, Marilyn Marino, Phoebe and Dave Einertson, Pauline Callahan, Nita Millstein at the Peach Café (more her Belgian
waffles, but…), Susan and Tim and finally the staff at the Starbucks for putting up with me hour after hour after hour after
hour after hour…


And my mom wants me to thank her dogs—Lulu, Leo and Roxy—because “when they read the book their feelings will be hurt if they’re
not mentioned.”


Aaaand to the left,” Tim instructs, bending over his outstretched leg. His salt-and-pepper curls, now soaked from the torrent
of rain, dribble down over his forehead. I pull my hood tightly around my head and can’t help fearing I resemble a giant sperm.
Just the professional message I want to send. I look at all the members of Tim’s team following his every move. This Fun Run
was optional—the brownie points, however, were too good an opportunity to pass up. Tim Barnes is a name partner at Marovish,
Marino and Barnes and, in their eyes, not a man to disappoint. To me, he’s the man I’ve been dating for several months and
am confident have already disappointed on a far more personal level. Tim leads his entire group of sodden money managers down
into the deep stretch.


Something about being ordered to bend left makes me want to bend to the right. I let out a sigh as I envision the chaos that
could result from such a rebellion. Tim shoots me a look of deep concern. Apparently, I’m not taking this “stretching circle”
as seriously as he’d hoped. It’s a 5K, honey, we’re not carrying the Olympic torch. I press out a smile and lean slightly to the left. Tim softens, smiling to himself as we all are finally able to bend to the right.


With my head to my right knee, I feel the vibration of my BlackBerry in my pocket. I’m surprised the damn thing still works,
considering how sopping wet my entire body is. I let it go to voice mail as our group is allowed to return to a standing position.
We all start walking toward the now deflated red-green-and-white balloon arch that stretches languidly across Santa Monica’s
Ocean Avenue, marking the beginning of the star-crossed Fun Run.


“Are you one hundred percent, Grace?” Tim asks as we approach the starting line. Even after several months of dating, far beyond the time we could credibly keep
the relationship a secret from our coworkers, his voice still drops when he says my name.


“I’m just not awake yet,” I say, grabbing my ankle behind me and stretching one leg and then the other, like this will somehow
show a higher level of commitment. My BlackBerry vibrates again. I let it go to voice mail, shaking it off… get your head in
the game, Grace. The rain and the wind are now whipping sideways. No hood in the world can stop them from stinging every inch
of my face. That and I feel suddenly compelled to run toward some giant ovum I know is waiting for me at the end of this race.
Resigned, I pull the hood off and let the rain fall.


As the crowd settles in behind the melancholy, sagging balloon arch, I pull my BlackBerry out of my pocket, trying to shield
it from the rain, and listen to the messages.


“Grace, it’s Abigail. Dad’s had a stroke. It’s time to grow up and join the family again. I’m serious. Call me back.”

No. This cannot be. My stomach drops. My legs feel numb, my fingers waggle around the keypad, fumbling with threes and ones,
unable to stop atom bomb number two from playing.


“Grace—Abigail again. I will keep calling. And I won’t stop like I did when Mom died. Like we all did before. Not going to happen. We need you. This family needs you. Call me back. Talk to you in another ten minutes wh—”
I finally control my digits enough to successfully stop the message from continuing. This is not possible. I simply can’t let it be.


I turn my face back to the group as the announcer cuts in, “Welcome to the Winter Fun Run!” Tim motions for me to fall in
with the rest of the crowd. I oblige, but can’t focus. The messages. I’m not surprised it’s Abigail who’s urgently summoning
me now—about Dad, of all things. It’s been—well, since Mom died, so, almost five years since I’ve spoken to her or either of my brothers.
When I pictured reconnecting, it wasn’t over a man who was no father to us when he was healthy and certainly doesn’t deserve
that distinction now.


The announcer continues, “Runners! Phase One! Phase One are the runners who will finish the 5K in eight minutes or less! Please
approach the starting gate! Phase One! Runners who will finish in eight minutes or less!” I get as far away from Phase One
as is humanly possible. Tim and two of his hangers-on leap forward.


“Is this your first?” asks an older woman holding an umbrella. Could her umbrella possibly be aerodynamic?

“Oh… yeah,” I answer, hopping up and down trying to keep warm. Concentrate. All I can picture is Tim and his cadre of ass-kissers
getting trampled by the legitimate Phase Oners when the starting gun sounds.


“Me and my husband are getting ready for the LA Marathon in March. He’s running the half-marathon today, but I’m not there
yet,” she adds, motioning to the steadily approaching herd of runners who are waiting their turn. Wait… twenty-six miles?


“The LA Marathon?” I ask as the announcer tells Phase Two to approach the starting gate. Phase Two are the people who will be finishing the
5K in twelve minutes or less. I take yet another step back.


“I walked it. Took eight hours, but I finished,” the woman exalts.

“That’s awesome,” I say, absently.

“The rain’s nice,” the woman adds. My normally straight blonde hair is hanging in spaghetti-like tendrils around my shoulders
and I’m sure my face has the pallor of a long-term shut-in’s. Is this woman retarded?


“Phase Three! Runners who will finish the 5K… well, runners who just plan on finishing! Phase Three!” I wave at the umbrella-ed
marathon machine with a forced “Good luck!” and approach the starting gate shaking my frozen legs out one at a time. Get my
head in the game. I can’t… I still can’t focus. The vibrating reminder on my BlackBerry indicating I have yet another message
is driving me slowly insane. It hasn’t even been ten minutes.


“On your mark! Get set! Go!!!!” My mind clears. My legs start moving. My breathing steadies.

The rain is nice.


Thirty-two minutes, twenty-seven seconds and six messages from Abigail later, the drenched volunteer cuts the time chip from
my shoelaces. I find the group after being presented with my little medal and a complimentary bottle of water.


“I pulled a groin muscle,” Tim announces to all who will listen. No medal. No complimentary water.

“You gave it your best,” a particularly buxom money manager oozes.

“Thanks, Laura,” Tim replies politely.

As I down my complimentary water, I can’t help but marvel at the hardest-working sports bra in the Los Angeles area. That
Fun Run couldn’t have been easy on it. Laura takes this opportunity to shoot me a particularly pointed look. I wipe my mouth
with my sleeve and sigh—taking Tim’s hand in the process. He pulls me close. Laura crosses, or at least attempts to cross, her arms across her chest. As one of the lowly mathematicians at the firm, I’m technically not even supposed to
be here. This Fun Run was for money managers, not for us quants who formulate the models and earnings reports for the money
they manage. It’s because of my relationship with Tim that I’m here. And everyone knows it. Laura looks away.


I’ve grown accustomed to Tim’s iconic heartthrob status with the women at the firm. Our relationship seems to have zero impact
on this phenomenon. Suits me fine. The few times I’ve sat among Tim’s harem in the break room, I’ve been tempted to stick
stale donuts in my ears just to make their cloying voices stop.


“You’re going to have to share that medal,” Tim jokes, as we walk to his car later.

“Absolutely,” I answer, reaching up to his sopping wet face and smoothing a rogue salt-and-pepper curl down with the rest.
He smiles and walks back to the trunk of his car. He pulls two large towels out, passes me one and folds into the driver’s
side. I take the towel and can’t help pulling my BlackBerry out of my pocket. Six missed calls. All Abigail. Delete. Delete.
Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. I shove the phone back in my pocket and look up, letting the rain sting my face. I pull my
hoodie tight, set the towel down on Tim’s leather interior and climb into the passenger side. We follow the caravan of luxury
sedans to the predetermined Noah’s Bagels right next to the freeway on-ramp in nearby Westwood.


As we drive, Abigail’s messages become this echoing symphony somewhere deep in my consciousness—like I’m standing on the street
outside an opera house listening to the faint music. By the time we find a parking space, my brain has already processed and
compartmentalized the information in an almost Chutes and Ladders type of way—sending her voice down, down, down—through a
trapdoor and into the depths, out of reach. After five years of tamping, repressing and numbing, I have it down to an exact
science. Not even Abigail can pry that trapdoor open. Not even Abigail can make me buy a ticket and hear that opera live.


Maybe this is an evolution. Maybe time does heal all wounds. Maybe now I can move on and somehow forget that I’ve lost my
mom. It’s been difficult, but I’ve managed to put it away for five years now, split in two like a magician’s assistant without
that whole other part of me: past, history, family.


Maybe I’ve come to terms with things? Or maybe I’ve finally snapped and completely shut down every emotional response I ever
possessed? Whatever the truth is, Abigail’s relentless calling means I’m about to find out.


Can I help you?” the man behind the counter says.


“I’ll have a plain bagel with lox and cream cheese, please. And a large coffee,” Tim says, handing the man a twenty-dollar
bill.


The man turns to me. “Can I help you?”

“This is for both of us,” Tim adds, motioning at the twenty-dollar bill.

“I’ll have a blueberry bagel with just really light… like super-light cream cheese—” I say, making a bizarre sweeping hand motion. Apparently, this is now the international gesture for
“schmear.” “And a… what black teas do you h… okay, the Earl Grey.”


My BlackBerry buzzes again.

“They’re just going to keep calling,” Tim points out. I didn’t even know he noticed. Tim takes his change. I pull my BlackBerry
out as the man behind the counter hands me a large cup and an Earl Grey tea bag.


“It might be important,” Tim urges, squeezing my shoulder. The BlackBerry buzzes again. The man behind the counter points
me in the direction of the hot water. In a haze, I check the caller ID. The phone buzzes again. I look back at Tim. He nods
at it emphatically.


“You really should get that.” Easy for you to say, I think. You’re not the one about to vomit in public. The phone buzzes
again. A chill runs up my spine as I check the caller ID. Abigail’s sent in the Closer.


“Hello?”

“Grace.” Huston. My big brother. Without Abigail in my life, I quickly realized I couldn’t fold a bedsheet by myself or do
much of anything practical. Fine, no one need see the pandemonium that lurks within my linen closet. But with no Huston, it
was worse. Without Huston, I couldn’t believe in heroes.


“I know, okay?” I sputter, finally stepping out of the line, clutching my large cup and eyeing that hot water like it was
the North Star.


“You know about what?” Huston presses.

“I know about Dad. The stroke,” I say as the activity of Noah’s Bagels buzzes around me. Tim looks over. A look of genuine
concern sweeps across his face.


“Abigail says you won’t take her calls,” Huston accuses.

Huston’s voice cuts through a chink in my armor. I can feel the tip of the sword sinking in deeper and deeper. Noah’s Bagels
melts away. It seems like only twenty minutes ago, not twenty years, it was just the four of us sitting around a game of Sorry!,
absorbed in what we were certain were the important issues of the day. Abigail’s voice cuts through the din.


“Grace isn’t going to do her own laundry! She’ll just wear my stuff! And then I won’t be able to wear it anymore because she
stains everything!” Abigail yells at Huston.


Mom is at the flower shop. She’s their main floral designer and it’s the holidays. So we’re on our own.

“Gracie…” Huston begins, looking up from the Sorry! game we’ve stopped playing. Leo takes a drink of his milk, annoyed with
our chronic bickering intermissions. It’s a testament to not being allowed to watch television that we’re still playing these
afternoon Sorry! games at ages ranging from Huston’s sixteen years old to Leo’s arguably more age-appropriate eleven. I’m
always yellow. Huston is always blue. Abigail is red. Leaving Leo with green. He says it’s his favorite color, but once I caught him playing Sorry! with a group of neighborhood kids. He snatched up the red pieces
like they were gold… well, red doubloons.


“I don’t have to do laundry if I don’t want to! Leo doesn’t have to do his laundry!” I retort.

“Leo only wears underpants and capes!” Abigail protests.

“So!?!”

“I swear to God, if you touch my stuff,” Abigail warns.

Unable to control my compulsion to do the opposite of anything Abigail tells me to, I bolt over to her neatly folded basket
of clean laundry and sit directly on top of it, praying to any god that will listen to please… please let me fart. I dig my
narrow thirteen-year-old ass deeper and deeper into the recesses of the laundry, past tiny rainbow T-shirts, Day-Glo sweatshirts
and Jordache jeans.


“I’m going to killllll you!!!” Abigail screams, charging at me.

“Huuuuusttooonnnnnnnnn!” I scream, raising my hands defensively as Abigail and I both topple over the basket, her clean laundry
spilling everywhere. Huston gets up from the dining room table and starts toward us. Leo lets out a weary sigh and focuses
back on his ever-present puzzle book. He always has a Plan B.


“Don’t you help her, Huston! You are so dead!!!” Abigail squeals, tugging at my hair and clawing my face.

“I may be dead, but you still have to do your laundry all over again!!!!” I hawk a giant loogie over as many of her clothes
as I can. Those Skittles I picked up after school do wonders for my Technicolor saliva production. My pinkish-red spit goes
everywhere—clinging to way more garments than I ever could have hoped for. Abigail lets out a primitive howl, grabs my still-spitting
mouth and pins me to the living room floor. Leo meanders over from the dining room table.


“Stop it!!! Come on! It’s your turn, Abigail,” Leo demands, pointing to the unfinished game on the dining room table. He has
an old towel tied around his shoulders, and is clad in underpants and a pair of red Wellingtons. At eleven, Leo’s a bit old
to be running around in costumes. Mom hates to discipline him, really any of us, since she asked Dad to leave a few months
ago after she caught him with another woman… again. We’re hoping things will go back to normal soon. And not just Leo and his costumes.


“Enough! Enough!” Huston says, peeling Abigail off with the strength of the varsity quarterback he is. He holds Abigail by
the upturned collar of her pink Lacoste shirt as she swats at me. At him. At everyone.


“I’m so telling Mom,” Abigail fumes.

“It’s still your turn, Abigail,” Leo pleads, knowing the game is close to lost.

“You’re still going to have to do your laundry again,” I sing, wiping the last strands of pinkish-red spit from my chin.

Abigail defiantly walks back over to the dining room table, picks up the die and surveys the board. I am six spaces away from
winning. Abigail blows on the die for good luck.


“You’re going to do both your laundry and Abigail’s, Gracie. It’s only fair,” Huston says, as both of us walk back over to
the dining room table. Abigail rolls a five.


“Oh, yeah?” I answer, sitting. Abigail moves—one, two…

“Yeah,” Huston says, leaning toward me. Abigail knocks my little yellow man off the board and onto the floor.

“Well, you’re not Mom, so you can’t decide…” I bluster, watching the little yellow game piece skitter across the floor.

“No, I’m your older brother, so I actually don’t have to be nice to you,” Huston says, scooting even closer, downright looming
if you ask me. I am unimpressed… stupid, but unimpressed.


“Sorrrryyyyyyy,” Abigail proclaims, sitting back in her chair.

“See? She apologized, now you have to redo the laundry,” Huston says, picking me up and holding me upside down over the board.
My tangled ponytail sweeps the game’s surface and the pieces scatter.


“Yeah! Now get to it!” Abigail orders, grinning widely. Huston scoops me up and stands me upright.

“Fine,” I say, steadying myself, giggling and picking my yellow man up off the floor along with a few others.

“Your turn, Huston,” Leo urges, scrambling to put each piece back where it had been. Thanks to his freakish photographic memory
he gets every position correct.


“Okay… okay,” Huston says, laughing.

I put my yellow man back at Start and settle in.

“Grace?” Huston’s voice crackles through the phone. I reorient myself. The din of Noah’s Bagels zooms back. I steady myself
on the counter, still clutching my empty large cup; the tea bag is now a crumpled mess.


“I’m not taking her calls because I’m not interested in what she has to say,” I explain, turning away from Tim. He walks over
to where the group is seated.


“It’s your choice not to be a part of this,” Huston says. The weight of what I did smothers me as it does every time I let
myself think of my family.


I bolted.

I ran from the only people who loved me. I should have run to them when Mom died. But I just couldn’t get away fast enough. Their love felt like a building on fire. I had to stop the
burning.


Huston continues, “It’s great to hear your voice again.”

A flash flood of emotions begins to penetrate my carefully constructed barriers. Panicked, I focus on Tim settling in next
to Laura. He looks over at me. The divide between my two identities is comical.


“Me, too,” I whisper.

Huston laughs. “You’re glad to hear your own voice?”

“No, I mean… it’s good to hear your voice, too.” I laugh in spite of myself. I watch as Tim picks up our baskets of bagels.
He settles back in, taking a huge bite of his—cream cheese everywhere.


I remember that back before Tim and I started dating I believed him to be a monkeyhander: a word Mom coined to describe (or poke fun at) Abigail’s exceptionally long fingers and her habit of pawing at people like
some kind of mutant-alien. As we grew up, monkeyhander evolved into an adjective we all used to describe a lover who was good on paper, but devoid of that… spark. So whenever I fantasized about Tim, we were always cuddling and lounging around doing crosswords on an overstuffed couch.
Not struggling to get each other’s clothes off in the heat of the moment. I had that once. Wasn’t ready for it again. So with
Tim I prudently fantasized about golden retrievers, morning cups of coffee and a retirement plan.


“Leo’s coming,” Huston breaks in.

“Be sure to bring some air freshener and bail money,” I joke. Huston laughs.

I continue, “Well, then…”

“So, I’ll see you later,” Huston says, getting down to business.

“I… uh—”

“I understand this is tough, but you must know that we’re looking forward to seeing you,” Huston interrupts.

I am quiet.

“Then it’s settled,” Huston says.

“If by settled you mean that you’ve bullied me into going, then—”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Huston says. Even twenty years later my brother is just as imposing as he was over a game of
Sorry!


“Huston—” I start.

“Grace—”

I cut in, “Let me finish, please,” still stupid enough to challenge him.


Huston is quiet.

“I’m standing in a goddamn Noah’s Bagels… and… I just need to get my head together,” I finally say.

“You’ve had five years to get your head together, Grace. You’re thirty-five years old. The onus is on you to be a member of
this family now whether you feel you’re ready or not.” Huston’s voice slithers over the word feel as if it’s the most ridiculous word in the English language.


I am quiet. Suddenly ashamed and embarrassed.

“So, it’s settled,” Huston repeats.

“Yes,” I say, almost in a whisper.

“See you when I see you,” Huston says, finally hanging up.

“See you when I see you,” I say to the dial tone. I beep my BlackBerry off. What just happened? I walk outside. Run outside.
Faster. Faster. Outside. Away. The rain. Close my eyes. Can I really return to this family? I don’t have the heart… I mean,
I literally don’t.


It broke into a million pieces the day Mom died.

I thought your dad was dead?” Tim whispers, as I pull a chair up to the group after finally filling my cup with hot water. Little
Earl Grey flakes fl. . .