Page 111 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

When my mother arrived a short time later, my grandparents were sitting alone by the phone in the library; Donald and Elizabeth had gone to the movies.
While Mom sat with my grandparents, nobody said much. A couple of hours later, Donald and Elizabeth returned. When they were told there was no news, Donald left, and Elizabeth, nearing forty, made a cup of tea and went upstairs to her room. As my mother was getting ready to leave, the phone rang. It was the hospital. Dad had been pronounced dead at 9:20 p.m. He was forty-two.
Nobody thought to come get me from school, but arrangements were made for me to take a bus the next morning. Dunn drove me to the Greyhound station in Hartford, where I boarded a bus bound for the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. After picking me up in the city, my mother, brother, and I drove to the House, where the rest of the family was already gathered in the breakfast room to discuss the funeral arrangements. Maryanne and her son, my cousin David, were there; my uncle Robert and Blaine; and Donald, Ivana, almost eight months pregnant with Ivanka, and their three-year-old son, Donny. Nobody said much to my mother, brother, or me. There were some attempts at forced heartiness, mostly by Rob, but they didn’t land well and soon stopped. My grandfather and Maryanne spoke in hushed tones. My grandmother fretted about what she was going to wear to the wake; my grandfather had picked out a black pantsuit for her, and she wasn’t pleased.
In the afternoon, we drove over to R. Stutzmann & Son Funeral Home, a small place in Queens Village about ten minutes from the House, for a private viewing. Before going into the main room, where the coffin was already perched on its stand, I asked my uncle Robert if I could discuss something with him. I pulled him into a small alcove down the hall from the visitation room. “I want to see Dad’s body.” I saw no reason not to be direct. I didn’t have a lot of time.
“You can’t, Mary. It’s impossible.”
“Rob, it’s important.” It wasn’t for religious reasons or because I thought that was how things were done; I had never been to a funeral before and knew nothing about protocol. Although I knew I needed to see my father, I couldn’t articulate why. How could I say, “I don’t believe he’s dead. There’s no reason for me to believe that. I didn’t even know he was sick”? I could only say, “I need to see him.”