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Katrina Barnett1,3871 LMU Drive, MSB 6689Los Angeles, CA 90045805-415-2159chandlercanfly@gmail.comFuneralLuke Puckett watches his sister’s aging hands scrape at a pan in the kitchen sink.Her hands are peeling, just like the linoleum on the kitchen floor. In fact everything in thekitchen seems to be peeling- from the labels on the months-old bacon bits to the tops of the opened cereal boxes to the paint along the door frames. Luke scratches the back of hishead and smoothes his hair over- a tick he developed growing up in this very house, andthinks of how sad it must have made Daddy to see his own house falling apart when hewas too sick to take care of it. “Doesn’t matter now I guess,” Luke mutters to himself,gazing down at the tie his sister bought him for the funeral. She was always taking care of him. He was in love with her.Elizabeth Puckett looks a great deal like a middle-aged Piper Laurie. Notstrikingly attractive, but reliably interesting-looking, thin, and resolute. The intensity withwhich she scrubbed a pan that didn’t require cleaning mirrored only the spirit of her adoptive father, Luke’s dad. Maybe that’s why Luke admired her so, why he never married, why he cried for only the third time in his life when Elizabeth married her husband and shed no tear when that husband left her and her daughter Lucille to fend for themselves. Now all he can do is shake his head at her persistence, a constant reminder of his own attraction to her, an unbrotherly pursuit if ever there was one. But could things bedifferent now, Luke tells himself. In this conversation he also makes not that he must

bring in his belt another notch; his slight paunch appears to have vanished. Nothing alittle good home cooking can’t fix… Yes, maybe things could be different now. Maybenow, with Daddy gone, Elizabeth would have no man in her life but Luke to depend on.Oh, and Luke would love to be depended on.“It’s about five minutes until the car gets here, Lizbeth,” Luke intones kindly, assoon as Elizabeth has left the pot to dry. The object of his affection looks down at her rings and adjusts them one by one and nods vigorously. “I wish we could just drive thereourselves...” she tells her smallest of sapphires as she gives it a quick polish. Luke stoopsa bit in order to peer at Elizabeth’s averted grey eyes. They always looked older thananything, but now they looked aged beyond recognition. He wished she would cry so hecould dab her tears away. “Nobody wants to go to a funeral, ok? Especially when it’syour daddy that’s dead.” Elizabeth gives a resigned sigh; she always seemed resigned.Luke paused in thought and looked at the plastic clock on the kitchen wall- the little duck was pointing towards about five twenty-five. Obnoxious clock, he thinks that he mustremind himself to get rid of it once they all move in together. Him and her and littleLucille- they’d have their own clocks. Good solid wooden ones, most likely. “Let’s gohave a sit outside before we’ve gotta go, OK?”They sat together on the swing, cushioned by pillows that Luke always thought of as dust sponges; no matter how much you washed them or how hard you beat them thedriest dust seem to seep from them. This was Daddy’s house, though, where the dust andthe stickery grass and the fruit stands and the smoke, the very smell and substance of ElPaso permeated everything. That was Daddy all over. Luke shudders at the thought of being the one to clean the place when all was said and done, remembering when everyone

in the house used to smoke like a chimney how the television would be coated with anextra inch of screen. But things weren’t like that now. As the two of them sway together in perfect motion, their feet gently leaving the ground in-time, Luke recognizes theflawlessness of the moment. Stands to reason… a better opportunity’s probably not gonnarear its head any time soon. Gathering his words as Elizabeth stares off pensively, Lukesmoothes his hair over once more.This was it. This was the moment: he was going to ask her. Could he adoptLucille? Could his own sister give him the rest of their lives? They already shared thefirst half. Could they strip the curtains out of the front window together and put blindsthere instead? They’d be easier to clean. He reaches out to Elizabeth and places his handover hers, but the reaction is instantly a sisterly lean-in, and that is all. Luke’s words arefrozen in the stifling Texas heat.“I was told last night that Daddy left the house to me, Luke.” The words from her mouth fall out like loose change from a bag. Luke’s whole face droops as his heart fallsinto his stomach. This isn’t right… “Wait, what?” Luke asks, as though the universewould answer. Elizabeth repeats, “Daddy left the house to me. And I’m going to sell it.”This is all wrong. Luke realizes he is tugging at his tie and it has become loose again. Heattempts to fix it while his sister gazes off, incapable of acknowledging Luke’s angst. “Ihave to get out of this place, Luke. I realized something the other night- I loved Daddy. Iloved Daddy more than any other man I think, and nobody can take that place. I can’t livein this house, not if someone else comes along. And I don’t think it’s good for you to behere yourself. I mean, you had a whole life in Chicago before you had to come back herefor us. I think we both need to go. I do, anyway. This place is too full of everything that