“She was always smiling.” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that today. As if smiling equaled happiness or kindness or was a reflection of the goodness in her heart that people tended to read into it. Her smile was none of that. It was a locked door. It was a stone castle with a moat and no drawbridge. It was a stop sign painted ‘Cherries in the Snow’ red.

Surely in the last 36 years I must have seen her frown or look confused or otherwise display a real, in-the-moment feeling. But in my mind’s eye, that’s not the way she appears. In all my memories of her I see that smile. She plastered it on her face each morning the same way she teased and sprayed her hair to curve over the scar she got when he pushed her to the kitchen floor and the iced tea glass she was holding shattered, tearing her cheek open all the way to her eyelashes. Even at the emergency room, when he lied about how it happened, she smiled as confirmation, and continued to smile as if apologizing to the doctor for being such a bother.

I couldn’t trust that smile.

Every remotely happy moment of my life, every school-girl heartbreak, was gifted with the same expression that she wore when the mailman brought a package to the door or when she watched ‘Wheel of Fortune’. She smiled and hummed wordlessly when she cooked his dinner every night and when she ironed his shirts, starching his collars just so.

I remember the times she shuffled off to bed early, smiling at me and saying good night, after an evening of him calling her a bitch or a whore, or telling her she was almost retarded - she was just that stupid. He never hit her except for that one time as far as I know. He didn’t need to. He used words to shove her around. Ugly, heavy words.

When I was around five, she opened the door to a frazzled looking blonde holding a squalling baby. Someone he worked with. The woman started ranting about “what’s fair is fair”, and other things I didn’t understand. I tried to hide behind the curtain, but she held her baby’s fat red face close to mine. “He’s your half brother, just so you know”. I looked past them at her and she was still smiling even as her body sagged against the door.

I didn’t even know what that meant at the time. It wasn’t true anyway. He wasn’t my father. My father died when I was three. I don’t remember him, not at all. I wished I didn’t remember this pathetic substitute but, even after fleeing Nashville for Phoenix more than ten years ago, and successfully avoiding any contact for the past two until this, I found he still took up too much space in my psyche.

He was out back now, holding court with his salesman cronies, relegated to the slushy parking lot because they were smoking cigars. I spied him earlier as he slipped a flask out of his bulky overcoat, taking a long swig before passing it around. I recognized one of the imbibers as ‘Uncle Joey’, as he always insisted I call him. He’d lost most of his frizzy red hair. What was left were just wisps of white combed over his ruddy scalp. But I remembered that face and his sour breath when he used to bend down to my eye level. “Smile!”, he’d say, as if it would mean anything when he was commanding me to do it. If I didn’t comply he’d tell me what a pretty girl I’d be if I just smiled. Or sometimes he tried to persuade me with the argument that it took more muscles to frown than to smile. Yeah, I wanted to say, but it takes no muscles at all to keep my expression blank, so if you don’t mind I’ll keep my face this way and my feelings to myself, thank you.

Despite the cold, I knew he wouldn’t be coming inside for a while. I didn’t expect to see much of him or I would have made an excuse not to come back. I could have found better things to do on my birthday, like getting wasted, which was still a strong possibility when this was over. Anyway, he never really looked at her before. He wasn’t going to start now.

I couldn’t look, either. I’d heard from the people filing past that she looked at peace, natural, and all those other words people use to try to comfort the family. So the undertaker had done a good job of arranging her face by following the permanent-marker lines etched there by her perpetual smile. Not too difficult a job, I imagine.

Undertaker. Are they still called that? Isn’t there some other name? I couldn’t think of it. What a literal, made-up, pieced-together word. Under. Taker. He would be taking her under. I shivered.

Why did they build these rooms without windows? Even though it was a bleak day, I’d tried to open the heavy brocade drapes to find nothing behind them but a blank wall, part of the deception they tried to convey that this was a typical family room. I was getting claustrophobic with so many people milling about. People I barely remembered – neighbors, people she worked with, people he worked with, cousins I hadn’t seen since the last time I was in this place a dozen years ago almost to the day. I escaped to the hall.

Ben had been one of the first to put in an appearance. He was alone, although his ring finger answered the question I hadn’t wanted to ask. He looked rattled when I asked him how many children he had. Did he think it was a trick question? I tried to appear casual, but maybe he read some sort of expectation on my face. He recovered gracefully and responded by producing a picture of a seven year old girl and ten year old boy. The girl had his black hair. I couldn’t take my eyes off her angelic face and that mop of curly black hair. He left minutes later, probably afraid I’d ask him to stand by me at the gravesite.

She had smiled when we announced our engagement. I was 23 and full of hope for our future. My family would be different; my children would be loved. But I never imagined what would come next or how fast things could change. I broke off the engagement in January and he quickly took up with Robin, one of his work friends. They married in late summer, the wedding he and I had planned right down to the wooded chapel, the three-tiered Italian cream cake, and the honeymoon in Colorado.

She smiled and counseled me that life would go on, and in the end everything that happened would be for the best. Oh yes, and the classic “God doesn’t give us more than we can bear”. Her philosophy rang as hollow as her smile.

What about happiness? What about love? What were we supposed to do while we waited for life to go on and God to stop shoveling shit on us? I’ve taken every kind of happy pill there is, legal and otherwise, and I can tell you that they don’t take root in me. My soul – my soil – is too rocky or too dry. I’m missing something essential and nothing will grow in me anymore.

I heard an eruption of laughter and saw a cluster of men, him in the center, coming back from their smoke break. They brushed past me reeking of Havanas and Royal Crown. I looked down at the dingy blue carpet and put my hand over my nose and mouth. Someone looking may have thought I was overcome with grief. I was just trying to breathe in such a way that I didn’t suck the stink of old men into my lungs.

Seeing my new $240 black suede boots peeking out from my skirt distracted me for a moment. They were knee-high with stacked wood heels, not really suitable for walking in the snow, but I’d worn them anyway. Probably the only useful lesson I learned from her – when you’re shopping for shoes or a dress, take the number of times you’ll wear them and divide the price by that to get a cost per use. That would help decide if the investment was worth it or not. I would get plenty of wear out of these. After all, black was my color.

I thought of how often she wore her smile. Every day of the last 59 years. How can you calculate the cost of something like that? I could see the lines it had carved on her face. Was it worth it? What other damage did it do that couldn’t be seen?

The doctor said it was an aneurysm, a weak blood vessel in the brain. It was probably congenital. She’d been carrying it around all her life and then suddenly one day it reached the breaking point. How are these things decided? There are babies born every day with heart defects and their tiny bodies struggle to live, sometimes for only a few brief hours, their systems shutting down from the moment they’re detached from the secure haven of their mothers’ wombs.

Someone was heading my way. Mrs. Hammer, an old widow who lived in their neighborhood. Not bothering to read my body language, she shoved herself at me in some sort of hug, then sandwiched her cold and wrinkled hands around mine.

“She was such a sweet person, always so happy. She helped me through a lot of hard times. When Henry died. And when Ronald got into trouble.”

She babbled on about her drug-addicted grandson, oblivious to my discomfort and disinterest. I smiled and nodded occasionally. The undertaker walked by with another basket of flowers. Yellow mums—so cheerful. I watched as he made space for them at the foot of her white casket.

Maybe I would plant some daffodils by her headstone to bloom in the spring. They would look good next to the tiny snowdrops I’d scattered around Bridget’s plot. But it would have to wait; it was too cold this time of year to plant anything.

How did they dig during such a deep freeze? I’m sure they had big dirt movers, some sort of heavy equipment that could break through the frozen ground and empty out a hole large enough. Hers would be a lot bigger than Bridget’s was, although I guess they both had to go six feet under.

The undertaker. He would be taking her under.

I couldn’t look at her again, her smile haunted me enough already. That smile, the one with her cherry red lips, freshly touched up, and her dry, dry eyes. The one I woke up to from my hospital bed, twelve years ago almost to the day. The smile she wore when she told me what happened to Bridget after they took her from my womb.

Mrs. Hammer squeezed my hand. “You’re shivering, dear. You should cover up.” How long had she been talking? She kissed me on the cheek. “You’re so much like her. She was such a sweet person. You ought to come back and visit more often. Your father misses you so much.” I didn’t bother to correct her, just nodded and smiled to be polite. After all, I am my mother’s daughter.